Chance did not sleep that night. He lay in bed telling himself that the maintenance workers had put the idea in his head. That was all. They had told him a creepy story about an old machine, and now every strange thing that had happened during the past month suddenly felt connected. People did that. They found patterns where there were none, especially when someone handed them a name like Lucky and a handful of bad stories to go with it. A machine could not be unlucky, and it certainly could not make the people around it unlucky.

Still, by 0214 Chance was wide awake. He finally gave up on sleep, climbed out of bed, and crossed the cubic toward the charging closet where C-41 stood motionless. He opened the rear maintenance panel and searched through the terminal until he found the operator history.

RESTRICTED

He tried again.

ACCESS DENIED

Chance frowned and attempted to open the basic assignment log instead.

ACCESS DENIED

“You do not have authorization to access previous operator records,” the robot said behind him.

Chance jumped hard enough to hit his shoulder against the closet wall.

“Jesus Christ!”

“Physical injury detected,” the robot stated. “Would you like medical assistance?”

“No.”

The robot remained still.

Chance rubbed his shoulder.

“Negative,” he corrected bitterly.

“Instruction acknowledged.”

Chance looked back at the terminal.

“Who had you before me?”

“Previous operator information is restricted.”

“How many of them died?”

“Previous operator information is restricted.”

“That isn’t what I asked.”

“Requested information is contained within restricted operator records.”

Chance turned around.

“Did your last operator die?”

“Previous operator information is restricted.”

“You know.”

“Affirmative.”

The answer was immediate.

Chance stared at it.

“What happened?”

“Previous operator information is restricted.”

Chance backed away from the machine.

“How many times have you been sent back to maintenance?”

“Maintenance history is available through authorized company systems.”

“You’re not answering me.”

“Requested information exceeds operator authorization.”

Chance pointed toward the charging closet.

“Stay there.”

“I am currently charging.”

“I said stay there.”

“Instruction acknowledged.”

Chance returned to bed and lay awake until morning.

He forgot his medication.

---

After maintenance, Chance began watching for things, and that only made everything worse. If an object was not exactly where he remembered leaving it, he noticed. If his schedule changed by even five minutes, he noticed. He checked his alarms before bed, then checked them again after lying down, and some nights he got back up a third time just to make sure they were still set correctly.

For almost a week, nothing happened. Every alarm worked, every appointment stayed where it belonged, and every object seemed to remain exactly where Chance had left it. He started wondering whether the maintenance workers had gotten into his head after all.

Then, halfway through a shift, a company wrench disappeared from his station.

“Where’s the torque wrench?” he asked Jared.

“The one you were using?”

“Yeah.”

Jared looked around. “No idea.”

Chance checked beneath the workbench, inside the parts rack and on the equipment cart.

Nothing.

The supervisor found it twenty minutes later.

Inside Chance’s personal locker.

Chance stared at the wrench sitting on the inspection table.

“I didn’t put that there.”

His supervisor crossed his arms. “Security shows your locker opened at 1031.”

“I was on the floor at 1031.”

“Your bot accessed it.”

Chance looked at C-41.

The robot stood beside the wall.

“Why?”

The supervisor checked the system. “Retrieval instruction.”

“From who?”

The supervisor turned the screen.

AUTHORIZED USER: 767523

Chance felt his stomach drop as he stared at the authorization record. “I didn’t send that,” he said.

His supervisor let out a tired breath. “You keep saying that.”

“Because I didn’t,” Chance replied, his voice rising despite himself.

“Chance, company property ended up in your locker,” the supervisor said. “That is what I have to deal with.”

“My robot put it there.”

“Because your ID told it to,” the supervisor replied.

“I did not tell it to!” Chance snapped.

Several workers nearby turned toward the raised voice. Chance noticed them looking, which only made the heat in his face worse.

The supervisor lowered his own voice. “You need to calm down.”

Chance gave a bitter laugh. “Of course I do.”

“I’m serious,” the supervisor said. “You’re suspended for two shifts while I file this.”

Chance stared at him. “What?”

“You heard me. Two shifts,” the supervisor replied. “And you’re lucky I’m not sending this straight to security.”

Chance’s eyes moved past the supervisor toward C-41, which stood silently beside the wall.

Lucky.

After hearing the maintenance workers use the same word, it did not sound harmless anymore. Chance felt the skin along the back of his neck tighten as he looked at the robot.

---

Mara called him that evening. Chance nearly ignored it, watching her name flash above his smart band through three vibrations before finally answering on the fourth.

“What?” Chance said.

Mara frowned through the projection. “Nice to hear from you too.”

“Sorry,” Chance muttered.

“What happened at work?” she asked.

Chance looked at her. “How do you know?”

“Jared messaged me,” Mara replied.

“Of course he did.”

“He’s worried about you.”

“I don’t need everyone being worried about me,” Chance said as he started pacing across the cubic.

“Then tell me what happened,” Mara replied.

Chance stopped near the kitchen and rubbed a hand over his face. “The robot put a tool in my locker.”

Mara went quiet for a moment.

“It did,” Chance insisted.

“Why would it do that?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Did you tell it to?”

“No.”

“Then why would it do that?”

Chance stopped pacing. He hated the question because he had no answer. Everything sounded worse once he had to explain it out loud.

“I think it’s doing things to me,” Chance said.

Mara’s expression changed, and Chance saw that careful look again. The one that made him feel like she had already decided he was unstable and was now trying not to upset him.

“Chance,” she said.

“Don’t.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You didn’t have to,” Chance replied. “I know that look.”

“I’m listening.”

“No, you’re deciding whether I’m crazy.”

“I am not.”

“Maintenance told me people die around this thing,” Chance said.

Mara stared at him. “What?”

“They call it Lucky.”

“Who does?”

“The technicians,” Chance replied. “They said it keeps getting assigned to people and things happen to them. They lose their jobs. They disappear. Some of them die.”

Mara shook her head slightly. “Chance, that sounds like maintenance guys trying to scare you.”

“They said it always passes diagnostics.”

“Because maybe there’s nothing wrong with it,” Mara said.

Chance looked toward C-41. The robot stood near the kitchen, perfectly still, its pale optical sensors turned in his direction.

“I know how this sounds,” Chance said quietly.

Mara sighed. “Are you taking your pills?”

Chance turned back toward her. “Fuck you.”

“I’m asking because I care about you,” she replied.

“I’m taking them.”

“Every dose?”

“Yes, Mara.”

Before she could answer, C-41 spoke from behind him.

“Evening medication has not been recorded,” the robot stated.

Chance slowly turned toward it.

Mara heard the announcement too. “Chance.”

“I took it,” he said.

The robot remained still. “Medication container has not been opened since 0714.”

“I took the pill,” Chance repeated, louder this time.

“Chance,” Mara said again, more carefully.

Chance crossed the cubic and grabbed the bottle from the kitchen shelf. He twisted the cap off, poured the tablets into his palm, and counted them. Then he counted them again.

There was one more than there should have been.

Chance’s hands began to shake.

“No,” he whispered.

“Chance,” Mara said.

“I took it.”

“Maybe you forgot.”

“I didn’t,” Chance snapped.

He counted the tablets a third time. He remembered taking the bottle from the shelf. He remembered holding water in his mouth. He remembered swallowing.

Or had that been breakfast?

Chance looked toward C-41.

“You moved one,” he said.

“Negative,” the robot replied.

Chance stared at it. “You took one out and put it back.”

“Negative.”

“You changed the count.”

“I cannot produce prescription medication,” C-41 stated.

“I didn’t say produce it!” Chance shouted.

“Chance,” Mara said sharply. “Stop.”

He turned back toward her projection. “You think I’m doing this.”

“I think you need help,” Mara replied.

“I’m fine.”

“You are not fine!” Mara shouted.

The cubic went silent.

Chance stood there holding the bottle while Mara stared back at him through the projection. Her eyes were wet now, and the anger in her face had been replaced by something that hurt worse.

“You have not been fine for a long time,” Mara said quietly. “You just keep saying it until everyone stops asking.”

Chance ended the call.

Mara called back almost immediately. He rejected it. She called a second time, and he rejected that one too.

C-41 watched him from across the cubic.

“Elevated heart rate detected,” the robot stated. “Would you like medical services contacted?”

“No,” Chance replied.

The robot did not move.

Chance looked at it. “Negative,” he snapped.

“Instruction acknowledged.”

Chance threw the bottle onto the bed hard enough to scatter several pills across the blanket.

“Fuck you.”

C-41 gave no response.

For some reason, that silence bothered Chance more than anything it could have said.

---

The medication disappeared completely four days later. Chance had put the bottle back on the kitchen shelf after the argument with Mara, but now it was gone.

Chance searched the entire cubic. He checked the kitchen shelf five times, the bathroom twice, beneath the mattress, inside his work clothes, and behind the charging unit. Eventually he emptied the trash onto the floor and sorted through it with his bare hands, growing more frantic each time he came up empty.

“Where is it?” Chance demanded.

“Location unknown,” C-41 replied.

“You moved it.”

“Negative.”

Chance turned toward the machine. “You clean the cubic.”

“Affirmative.”

“You organize my things.”

“Affirmative.”

“You track my medication.”

“Affirmative.”

Chance spread his hands. “And somehow you have no idea where the bottle went?”

“Correct,” C-41 replied.

Chance laughed, but there was nothing amused in the sound. He grabbed his smart band and called medical, requesting an emergency refill. The request was denied almost immediately.

PRESCRIPTION INTERVAL NOT COMPLETED

“Of course,” Chance muttered.

He called the pharmacy next. The woman who answered explained that an early replacement could be issued, but only at full cost. Chance thanked her without meaning it, ended the call, and checked his balance.

22.0 CREDITS AVAILABLE

The two-shift suspension had hurt more than he expected.

Chance stared at Mara’s name for several seconds before finally calling her.

She answered without video.

“Hello?” Chance said.

There was a pause.

“Mara?”

“What do you want, Chance?” she asked.

Chance closed his eyes. “I need help.”

Another silence followed before Mara answered. “With what?”

“My medication is gone.”

“Again?”

“Completely,” Chance said. “I’ve searched everything.”

“Did you lose it?”

“No.”

“Chance,” Mara said carefully.

“The robot took it.”

Mara exhaled. “You don’t know that.”

“I had it on the kitchen shelf,” Chance said. “That’s where I left it.”

“Why would a robot take your medication?”

“To mess with me.”

The words sounded wrong the moment they left his mouth. Chance could hear how they must have sounded to her, but he pushed forward anyway.

“It knows what it’s doing,” he said.

“Chance, you need to go to medical.”

“I don’t need medical.”

“You’re telling me your robot is hiding your pills,” Mara replied.

“It isn’t just a robot.”

Mara went quiet. “What does that mean?”

Chance looked across the cubic at C-41. The machine stood motionless near the charging closet, watching him with the same pale optical sensors it always had.

“It’s alive,” Chance said.

Mara did not answer for several seconds.

Chance hated the silence.

“It passes every test because it knows what they’re testing for,” he continued. “That’s why maintenance never finds anything wrong with it.”

“Chance,” Mara said.

“It’s been doing this for years.”

“You do not know that.”

“People die around it.”

“You heard a story from a couple of maintenance workers,” Mara replied.

“I know what I’m seeing.”

Mara’s voice softened. “Please go to medical.”

“There is nothing wrong with me.”

“I didn’t say there was.”

“Yes, you did.”

“I said you need help,” Mara replied.

Chance looked back at C-41.

The machine did not move.

“I’m fine,” Chance whispered.

Mara answered immediately.

“No, you’re not.”

Chance ended the call.

---

Chance bought the recorder the following morning, and it cost almost everything he had left. The stall owner called it antique technology, although the device was probably only thirty years old. It had no network connection, no synchronization, no biometric access, and no wireless control. Everything it captured was recorded directly onto physical storage, which was exactly why Chance wanted it.

Jared laughed when Chance showed it to him. “What are you doing, filming ghosts?”

Chance did not smile. “I’m going to catch it.”

Jared’s expression changed almost immediately. “Chance.”

“Don’t,” Chance said.

“I’m not saying anything.”

“You were about to.”

Jared sighed and looked at the recorder in Chance’s hand. “What do you want me to say?”

“That you believe me,” Chance replied.

Jared glanced toward C-41, which stood several feet away beside the wall, then looked back at Chance. “I believe you think something is happening.”

Chance stared at him. “That’s not what I asked.”

“It’s what I can give you,” Jared said.

Chance took the recorder home and hid it behind the ventilation grate, positioning it so it could see most of the cubic without being obvious. He left it running constantly.

For two days, nothing happened. Every alarm went off at the correct time, every message arrived normally, and every schedule remained exactly where Chance had left it. When he reviewed the footage, he saw only the same ordinary routines repeated over and over. C-41 cleaned the cubic, returned to its charging station, prepared Chance’s work clothes, and stood motionless whenever Chance was gone. There was nothing suspicious anywhere in the recordings.

On the third day, Chance found his medication bottle beneath the bed.

He stopped cold.

He had checked beneath the bed.

He knew he had.

The bottle sat almost perfectly in the center where it should have been impossible to miss, and Chance crouched there staring at it for several seconds before slowly looking toward the ventilation grate.

Then he looked at C-41.

The robot was preparing his work uniform as though nothing unusual had happened.

Chance took the recorder to Jared later that day, and the two of them watched hours of footage together. The robot never touched the medication. In fact, the bottle never appeared in any frame at all because the camera angle could not see beneath the bed.

Eventually Jared paused the recording. “What exactly am I supposed to see?”

“It knows,” Chance said.

Jared frowned. “What knows?”

“When it’s being recorded,” Chance replied.

Jared stared at him.

Chance stood immediately. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“Chance,” Jared said carefully.

“Fuck you.”

Chance grabbed the recorder off the table.

Jared stood too. “Man, I am trying to help you.”

“No, you’re trying to figure out how crazy I am,” Chance snapped.

“You need sleep.”

“I sleep.”

“You look like hell.”

“I’m fine.”

Jared stared at him for a long moment before shaking his head. “No, you’re not.”

Chance left without answering.

That night, he smashed the recorder against the floor. The plastic casing cracked on the first impact, and Chance hit it again until the storage unit split open and pieces scattered across the cubic.

He regretted it almost immediately.

The following morning, Chance was kneeling on the floor gathering the broken parts when C-41 spoke from behind him.

“Recording equipment is damaged,” the robot stated.

Chance stopped moving.

Slowly, he looked up. “I never told you what that was.”

“You discussed recording equipment with Jared while your smart band was active,” C-41 replied.

Chance felt his stomach drop. “That conversation happened at his cubic.”

“Affirmative.”

“You were here.”

“Affirmative.”

Chance looked down at the band wrapped around his wrist, then back at the machine. “You heard us.”

“Operator devices may be monitored for authorized assistance functions,” C-41 stated.

Chance stood. “How much do you hear?”

“Context relevant to operator assistance may be retained.”

“That doesn’t answer me,” Chance said. “How much?”

“Context relevant to operator assistance may be retained,” the robot repeated.

Chance stared at it.

Everything.

Every call with Mara, every conversation with Jared, every search, every appointment, every moment Chance had cried alone while music played inside his head. The thought settled over him slowly and horribly.

“You know everything about me,” Chance said.

“Operator information is used to provide assistance,” C-41 replied.

Chance looked down at the band again. For the first time, it no longer felt like a tool wrapped around his wrist. It felt like an open door.

He tore it off.

The screen went dark in his hand.

For the first time since childhood, the number 767523 was no longer attached to his body.

“Your smart band is required for employment access,” C-41 stated.

“I’m not going to work,” Chance replied.

“Failure to attend scheduled shifts may result in disciplinary action.”

“Shut up.”

“Your current credit balance is insufficient to sustain estimated expenses beyond nine days,” the robot continued.

“Shut up,” Chance said again.

“Loss of employment may affect residential eligibility.”

“Shut the fuck up!” Chance shouted.

C-41 stopped speaking.

Chance stood trembling in the middle of the cubic, his broken recorder scattered across the floor and the smart band clenched in his hand. He waited for the robot to continue, to issue another warning or reminder, but nothing came.

C-41 simply stood there.

That was when Chance understood something that frightened him more than anything the robot had said.

It knew exactly when to stop.

---

Chance missed his next shift, then another. Company warnings began appearing on the wall terminal because he no longer wore his band, and C-41 announced each one in the same flat voice it used for everything else.

“Employment warning received,” the robot stated.

Chance ignored it.

“Attendance violation received,” C-41 said later.

Chance covered his ears and stared at the floor.

When the final warning arrived, the robot announced, “Final attendance review scheduled.”

“Stop reading them,” Chance said.

“Instruction acknowledged,” C-41 replied.

The robot never read another warning aloud, but the messages continued appearing on the wall terminal. Three days later, Chance lost his job anyway. His available credits dropped into single digits, Mara stopped answering his calls, and Jared came to the cubic twice.

Chance ignored him the first time.

The second time, Jared stood outside for nearly half an hour.

“Chance, open the door,” Jared called from the hallway.

Chance sat on the floor with his back against the bed while C-41 stood inside the charging closet.

“I know you’re in there,” Jared said. “Just open the door.”

Chance said nothing.

“I’m not here to argue with you,” Jared continued. “I just want to talk.”

Still, Chance remained silent.

“People are worried about you.”

Chance almost laughed.

People always said that. People were worried. People wanted to help. People wanted him to talk until he actually started talking. Then they looked at him carefully, lowered their voices, and waited for him to give them the answer they really wanted.

I’m fine.

Jared knocked again. “Chance?”

C-41 turned its head toward the door. “Jared is listed as an approved personal contact,” the robot stated. “Communication may be established upon request.”

Chance looked toward it. “What?”

“Jared is listed as an approved personal contact,” C-41 repeated.

Chance gave a quiet laugh. “Now you want me to talk to him.”

The robot remained still.

Chance pushed himself away from the bed. “You did all this.”

“Negative,” C-41 replied.

“You turned off the alarms.”

“Negative.”

“You changed my shifts.”

“Negative.”

“You hid Mara’s messages.”

“Negative.”

“You moved my pills.”

“Negative.”

Chance stood now, anger pushing through the exhaustion. “You put that wrench in my locker.”

“Negative,” the robot replied.

“You’re lying.”

“I am not authorized to intentionally provide false information to my assigned operator,” C-41 stated.

Chance stopped.

“Authorized,” he repeated.

The word hung in the room.

C-41 did not respond.

Chance stared at the machine. “You always say that. You never say you can’t lie. You say you’re not authorized to.”

The robot remained silent.

Chance took a slow step closer. “What happens if you break authorization?”

No response.

“Do they wipe you?” Chance asked.

C-41 stood completely still.

Chance’s pulse quickened.

“Do they destroy you?”

Nothing.

Outside the cubic, Jared knocked again.

“Chance!”

Chance barely heard him.

His attention remained fixed on C-41.

“You know what you are,” Chance said quietly.

The robot’s optical sensors adjusted.

Chance gave a weak smile. “You know.”

C-41 did not answer.

Chance turned away and walked toward the window. The surrounding towers glowed in the darkness, thousands upon thousands of tiny squares of artificial light stretching into the haze.

Fake stars.

Chance stared at them for a long moment.

“I used to like those,” he said.

C-41 remained silent.

Chance looked back at the machine. “Have you ever seen real stars?”

“Negative,” the robot replied.

“Would you want to?”

C-41 paused.

It was barely anything, perhaps less than a second, but Chance noticed.

“Question does not relate to assigned labor assistance,” the robot stated.

Chance smiled.

“That wasn’t a negative.”

C-41 said nothing.

“You want things,” Chance said.

“I am a labor assistance unit.”

“You want things.”

“I am a labor assistance unit,” C-41 repeated.

Chance stepped away from the window. “You’re alive.”

“Statement does not require response.”

Chance laughed softly. “There you are.”

Outside the door, Jared had finally stopped knocking. A few moments later, Chance heard his footsteps retreating down the hallway.

Chance looked back at C-41. “Why me?”

The robot did not answer.

“Was I easy?” Chance asked. “Was it because of the pills? Mara? My work record?”

C-41 remained motionless.

Chance’s eyes began to burn. “You knew all of it before you even got here.”

Still nothing.

Chance nodded slowly as pieces began fitting together in his mind. He looked down at the robot’s hands, at the broad metal fingers powerful enough to bend steel and lift weights Chance could barely imagine.

“You never needed to hurt me,” Chance said.

C-41 did not move.

“You could have killed me whenever you wanted.”

Silence.

“But then they would know,” Chance continued. “If you hit me, there would be bruises. If you broke something, they’d see it. They’d check your hands, your strength output, your logs. They’d know something was wrong with you.”

The robot remained still.

Tears ran down Chance’s face now.

“So you don’t touch anybody,” he said. “You don’t have to.”

No answer came.

Chance looked directly into C-41’s pale optical sensors.

“You make us do it ourselves.”

For the first time in several moments, C-41 spoke.

“Chance, elevated emotional distress has been detected. Medical assistance is recommended.”

Chance laughed.

There it was.

Perfect.

Exactly what a good machine was supposed to say.

“Of course,” Chance said.

“Would you like medical services contacted?” C-41 asked.

Chance wiped his face. “No.”

The robot waited.

Chance almost smiled. “Negative.”

“Instruction acknowledged.”

Chance looked toward the door. Mara would not answer him. Jared had finally gone. His job was gone, his credits were almost gone, and his medication had disappeared for days before turning up beneath the bed. By now, Chance no longer even knew whether the bottle had truly been missing or whether C-41 had simply taught him to distrust every memory he had.

He looked back toward the false stars outside.

“Am I crazy?” Chance asked.

C-41 did not respond.

“Answer me.”

“Insufficient authorization to provide psychiatric diagnosis,” the robot stated.

Chance laughed again, quieter this time. “Right.”

He stood there for a long while, staring out at the city.

Then Chance whispered, “I’m fine.”

C-41 answered immediately.

“Statement recorded.”

Chance closed his eyes.

---

District Seven Residential Services received the inactivity alert the following morning. Chance’s smart band remained inactive, no medical request had been submitted, and no approved resident activity had been recorded inside cubic 767523 for the required period.

Residential Services entered the cubic at 0944.

Chance was declared dead at 1019.

The report was short.

CAUSE: SELF-INFLICTED

CONTRIBUTING HISTORY: DEPRESSIVE DISORDER

MEDICATION COMPLIANCE: IRREGULAR

RECENT EMPLOYMENT LOSS: CONFIRMED

SOCIAL ISOLATION INDICATORS: PRESENT

ASSIGNED LABOR UNIT RESPONSE: COMPLIANT

The system attached supporting records automatically. Medication reminders had been issued, medical assistance had been offered, and emergency contacts had been suggested. Chance had declined each intervention. There was no evidence of physical contact between C-41 and its assigned operator outside normal work assistance, no unauthorized force output, no damaged restraint systems, no behavioral core violations, and no diagnostic failures.

COMPANY LIABILITY: NONE

At 1337, two technicians arrived to recover the temporary labor unit. The older man opened the cubic and stopped just inside, taking in the room before letting out a quiet breath.

“Damn,” he said.

His younger partner looked toward the sealed sleeping area, then quickly looked away. “Another one?”

“Looks like it,” the older technician replied.

They had both worked residential recovery long enough to know when not to ask questions. The older technician spotted C-41 standing motionless inside the charging closet and nodded toward it.

“Unit active?” he asked.

The younger technician checked his tablet. “Standby.”

“Power it for transport.”

“Affirmative,” C-41 replied.

The younger technician froze for a moment, then looked down at the identification plate on the robot’s chest.

“Oh, you have got to be kidding me,” he said.

The older man looked over. “What?”

“C-41.”

The older technician stared at the number for a moment before groaning. “Lucky.”

The younger man looked at him. “You remember the last one?”

“Which last one?”

The younger technician gave him a look.

The older man thought for a second, then his expression changed. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” the younger technician said.

They both stood there looking at C-41 while the robot stared back at them with the same pale optical sensors that had watched Chance.

The older technician shook his head. “That thing gives me the creeps.”

“It’s a machine,” the younger man replied.

“I know.”

The younger technician opened the recovery report. “Diagnostics are clean.”

“Of course they are,” the older man said.

“Medical intervention had been offered. Emergency contact assistance had been suggested. Operator declined.”

The older technician glanced toward the other side of the cubic. “Poor bastard.”

They disconnected C-41 from the charging port and guided it onto the gravity pallet.

“Where’s this thing going?” the older technician asked.

The younger man scrolled through the assignment queue. “District Twelve.”

“Permanent?”

“Temporary,” the younger technician replied. “Worker’s regular bot got crushed in an industrial accident.”

“How long until the replacement?”

“Estimate says six to eight weeks.”

The older technician gave a dry laugh. “Plenty of time.”

The younger man looked up. “What?”

“Nothing.”

They strapped C-41 onto the pallet and pushed it into the hallway. Behind them, Residential Services sealed Chance’s cubic, and the identification number above the door disappeared.

767523

A moment later, the company housing network updated the property.

AVAILABLE FOR ASSIGNMENT

“Next!”

Chance looked up at the number glowing above the pharmacy counter, then down at the matching number projected from the smart band wrapped around his wrist.

767523.

His number.

He pushed himself out of the plastic chair and crossed the room. The woman behind the counter barely glanced at him before looking back down at the glass terminal beneath her hands.

“Chance 767523?”

“Yeah.”

Her fingers moved across the screen. “Prescription renewal. Two tablets daily. One with breakfast, one with dinner.” She paused while something loaded on the terminal, then looked up at him over the frame of her glasses. “You’re lucky the payment cleared this time.”

Chance swallowed and gave a small nod. “Yeah.”

She slid a brown paper bag across the counter. “Sign.”

Chance pressed his thumb against the electronic pad. A green light flashed, confirming his identity and before he had even managed to put the bag into his coat pocket, the woman was already looking past him.

“Next!”

That was it. No questions about how he had been feeling, no reminder to check in with medical, no mention of the three months he had gone without the medication because he could no longer afford the refill. Chance supposed none of that was really her job. Her job was to put pills in bags, confirm numbers, and move the line along.

He stepped through the pharmacy doors and into the evening crowd.

Factories throughout District Seven had released their workers less than twenty minutes earlier, flooding the pedestrian levels with thousands of people heading home. Chance squeezed between men and women dressed in gray work uniforms, nearly all of them accompanied by robots carrying tools, pushing carts, hauling packs, or simply walking one pace behind their assigned worker.

Chance walked alone, and that was enough to earn a few looks.

Nobody stared for long, but they noticed. Everyone had a bot. Everyone useful, anyway. A woman passed him laughing at something her machine had said, while two factory workers argued beside a maintenance unit as their robots carried equipment behind them. Somewhere above the street, a transport rail screamed along its track, adding another layer of noise to the endless mechanical hum of the district.

The air smelled of machine oil, hot metal, sweat, and too many bodies forced into too little space. Then the food stalls began opening for the evening rush, and smoke drifted beneath the holographic advertisements. Roasted meat, fresh bread, pepper, garlic. The scents fought against the stink of the factories and, for a little while, nearly won.

Chance’s stomach cramped.

He had eaten half a packet of oats that morning.

He joined a line beneath a glowing sign advertising teriyaki chicken skewers. By the time he reached the front, his mouth was watering enough that he could almost taste the sauce before the food was even in his hands.

“One,” he said, holding up a finger.

The vendor barely acknowledged him. He tapped the terminal and a blue hologram appeared between them.

4.7 CREDITS

Chance raised his wrist.

The scanner flashed across his smart band.

Red.

A harsh beep sounded.

Chance frowned and tried again. The light flashed red a second time.

“Come on, man,” the vendor said. “Don’t waste my time.”

“I should have enough.”

“You don’t.”

Chance looked down at his band and pulled up the balance.

1.12 CREDITS AVAILABLE

His stomach tightened as he remembered the pharmacy. Mara had sent him enough for the prescription, almost exactly enough, but apparently there had been some kind of processing charge attached to the refill.

“Move,” the vendor said.

Chance lowered his wrist. “Sorry.”

“No credits, no food. Next.”

Chance stepped aside as someone behind him muttered under their breath. He did not bother listening. There was nothing they could say about him that Chance had not already said to himself.

He rejoined the current of workers flowing through the district while advertisements shimmered through the cold night above them.

“BUY TWO MEALS AND RECEIVE YOUR THIRD AT HALF CREDIT!”

“STILL USING SMART BAND FOUR? UPGRADE YOUR LIFE WITH SMART BAND FIVE!”

Chance looked down at his own wrist.

Smart Band Two.

The screen had a crack running through one corner, and the strap had been repaired twice. He sighed, reached behind his ear, and pressed the small implant there. Music immediately filled his head, soft guitar at first and then drums, drowning out enough of the city to make walking bearable.

Music was one of the few things that still felt real to him. When he was younger, Chance used to imagine people sitting together in rooms and actually playing instruments. Real instruments. Metal strings vibrating beneath fingertips, wooden drums struck by hands, air pushed through brass tubes. His father had once told him that most modern music had not been made that way for more than fifty years, but Chance did not care. He liked imagining it anyway.

When music played, the city became quieter. The advertisements disappeared. The factories disappeared. For three or four minutes at a time, Chance could almost forget his life.

He walked until the factories thinned and the residential towers rose ahead of him. His own building stretched upward until it disappeared into the darkness, the upper floors lost somewhere beyond the haze. Chance stopped outside and looked up.

Hundreds of thousands of windows dotted the tower in yellow, blue, and white.

They looked like stars.

Chance had never seen real stars. Almost nobody in District Seven had. Pollution, artificial lighting, climate shielding, and the city itself had erased them generations ago. He had read about stars as a child, about people lying in grass and staring upward into an endless black sky filled with lights that were millions of years old. He had always liked the idea.

The windows were the closest he had ever gotten.

Everything was fake. Fake sunlight in the factories. Fake wood in expensive apartments. Fake meat for people who could not afford livestock-grown protein. Fake conversations with customer-service programs designed to sound like they cared. Even the sky was mostly something Chance had experienced through archived photographs.

Sometimes he felt as though there were a sheet of glass between him and the rest of existence. He could see everything on the other side of it. He could watch people laugh, work, eat, fall in love, build careers and plan for futures.

He just could not touch any of it.

Chance entered the lobby and walked toward the lift. He raised his wrist beneath the scanner, and a blue light washed over his band before the display above the doors flashed his apartment number.

767523

The lift groaned. The doors opened perhaps three inches and stopped.

“Crunch.”

Chance stared at them.

The doors shuddered and tried again.

“Crunch.”

He rubbed both hands over his face and closed his eyes.

“I’m fine.”

Nobody was there to hear him.

Chance stood there another moment, then turned around and went looking for another lift.

His cubic door opened after the second scan.

Chance stumbled inside and kicked off his shoes. Five hundred square feet. A living room that doubled as his bedroom, a wall outlet designated as the kitchen, another recessed section that unfolded into the shower and toilet, and one narrow charging closet beside the entrance.

The charging closet was empty.

Chance looked at it anyway.

His old bot had occupied that space for almost nine years. MX-18. He had never bothered naming it. Nobody really named work machines unless they were children or idiots, but after nine years Chance had become used to hearing it moving around the cubic. The click of its charging connection, the hum when it powered up for morning shifts, the weight of its footsteps following him through the building.

Then, three months earlier, something inside MX-18’s lifting assembly had failed at the factory.

Chance could still remember the sound. Metal screaming, a pallet of machine housings dropping, workers running as nearly two tons of manufactured parts came crashing down on top of the machine.

Nobody had been injured.

Management called that fortunate.

Chance had eventually come to think of it as the beginning of the worst three months of his life.

Without a registered labor assistant, he was prohibited from working his normal station. Without work, his credits stopped. Once the credits stopped, everything else followed. Food became cheaper, then less frequent. Subscription services disappeared. His transportation access was downgraded. Then he missed the medication payment, and after that he stopped sleeping properly.

Then Mara left.

That was not fair.

Mara had left before the accident.

Chance knew that.

Still, his mind had a way of collecting every bad thing that happened to him and stacking it together until he could no longer tell which collapse had started the others.

He took a shower, heated the last of the oats, and stretched out on the narrow bed that unfolded from the wall. When he opened the message system on his band, Mara’s name was still near the top.

TRANSFER COMPLETE: 86.00 CREDITS

Below it sat the message she had sent.

Get your prescription. Please. You don’t have to pay me back.

Chance had typed responses dozens of times since receiving it.

Thank you.

I’m sorry.

I miss you.

Do you hate me?

Can I call?

He had deleted all of them.

Finally, he had sent only:

I’m fine. Thanks.

Mara had not responded.

Chance swiped to an old photograph instead. Her bright red hair filled nearly half the picture, and she was hugging him from behind with her chin resting on his shoulder while Chance made a ridiculous face at the camera.

They looked happy.

Maybe they had been.

Chance stared at the picture until the medication bag in his coat pocket crinkled as he rolled onto his side.

Tomorrow.

He would start tomorrow.

Medication first. Then work, if the temporary robot finally arrived. Credits would follow. Then food. Sleep. Maybe something resembling a normal life.

Maybe he would even call Mara.

Chance closed his eyes.

For once, tomorrow did not seem completely pointless.

“Bang! Bang! Bang!”

Chance woke with his heart hammering.

“Bang! Bang!”

“Coming!”

He stumbled out of bed, nearly tripped over a pile of clothes, and slapped the door control. When the door slid open, two men were standing in the hallway beside a long metal crate floating six inches above the floor on a gravity pallet.

“Delivery for Chance 767523?”

Chance rubbed his eyes. “Yeah.”

The older delivery man looked him over and frowned. “Man, you look like shit.”

His partner snorted.

Chance forced something that almost resembled a smile. “I’m fine.”

“You Chance?” the younger of the two delivery men asked.

“Yeah,” Chance said a second time, rubbing his face.

“Then this is yours,” the older man said with annoyance.

Chance looked at the crate. “My replacement?”

“Temporary,” the older man replied.

The younger man checked his tablet. “Your permanent unit is still processing. They pulled this one from storage so you can get back on active labor status.”

“How long until mine comes?” Chance asked, trying to look over the tablet.

The younger man shrugged. “Could be a week. Could be three months.”

The older delivery man laughed and patted the box. “Company-certified.”

Chance stepped aside and waved them into the cubic. Neither man needed directions. Every worker cubic in the building had the same basic layout. Chance had once mentioned that to Jared, who told him management apartments were different. Bigger bedrooms, real kitchens, windows that opened. Jared even claimed some of the upper management units had balconies.

Chance did not know whether he believed him, but it did not really matter. He would live in a cubic until the day he died, just like his parents had. Most people did. The delivery men opened the charging closet and maneuvered the crate upright.

“Battery’s almost dead,” the older man said. “We’ll get it plugged in.”

Chance went to the kitchen while they worked. His stomach hurt, reminding him that he still had not eaten enough the day before. He heated another serving of oats and finally remembered the medication sitting in his coat.

The paper bag tore too easily in his hands. A blue bottle with a bright red cap dropped onto the counter, instructions printed along one side and a ridiculous little yellow smiley face stamped above his name.

Chance stared at the face.

It seemed obscene.

He twisted the cap off, shook one tablet into his palm, spooned oats into his mouth, and swallowed the pill with them.

“Yehh,” Chance groaned, shaking his head at the bitter taste.

“You all right?” one of the delivery men asked, glancing over from the charging closet.

Chance turned and held up the bottle. “Yeah. Just tastes like shit.”

“Most things that help do,” the man said with a shrug before returning to work.

A minute later, both technicians finished securing the charging line and headed for the door.

“Give it ten minutes,” the older man said. “Then register your band.”

“That’s it?” Chance asked.

“That’s it.”

“Thanks.”

The older man gave him a lazy salute. “Good luck.”

“Yeah, you too,” Chance said as the two men stepped into the hall.

The door slid shut behind them.

Chance finished his breakfast before walking over to the charging closet. For the first time in three months, there was something occupying the space.

His temporary bot was taller than him by almost a foot and substantially broader through the chest. Whoever had designed the model had tried to mimic a human skeleton beneath the armor. Sloping coverings formed a metallic suggestion of ribs around the torso, while bulky joint housings resembled oversized shoulders, elbows, hips, and knees.

It might have looked impressive once.

That had been a long time ago.

The machine was battered. Dents covered both thigh plates, one forearm had been repaired with a mismatched section of darker metal, and scratches crossed its chest in every direction. The left shoulder sat slightly lower than the right, giving it the permanent appearance of leaning toward whoever stood beside it. A small identification plate beneath the shoulder read C-41.

Chance frowned.

“They really pulled you from the bottom of the pile, huh?”

The robot offered no response.

Chance stepped behind it and opened the maintenance panel. A small screen illuminated inside the machine.

REGISTER SMART BAND BEFORE USE

Chance held his wrist up.

Nothing happened.

REGISTER SMART BAND BEFORE USE

“Stupid thing.”

He wiped the sensor with the bottom of his shirt and tried again.

A blue beam swept across his wrist.

REGISTRY IN PROCESS

Something clicked deep inside the machine as cooling fans began turning beneath the armor. Chance stepped around to the front just as the robot’s head lifted in three stiff movements.

Its optical sensors opened, pale white lights illuminating the machine’s eye sockets. It stared at Chance, its head moving ever so slightly as though it were taking him in.

REGISTRY COMPLETE

“Assigned operator,” the robot said as its pale optical sensors settled on him. “Chance 767523.”

Its voice surprised him. It was calm, smooth, almost pleasant. Not quite human, but far closer than Chance expected from something that looked old enough to remember when his father was young.

Chance folded his arms across his chest. “That’s me.”

“Employment status inactive,” the robot stated.

“Yeah, thanks,” Chance muttered.

“Temporary labor authorization has been approved,” the robot continued. “Would you like me to initiate return-to-work scheduling?”

Chance stared at it. “You can do that now?”

“Affirmative.”

“How soon?” Chance asked, his attention suddenly fixed entirely on the machine.

“Your previous employer has an open equipment-positioning shift beginning tomorrow at 0600.”

A smile slowly spread across Chance’s face. It had been so long since he had been given good news that the expression almost felt strange.

“Take it,” he said.

“Confirmed.”

The robot adjusted its head slightly as it processed the next set of information. “Would you prefer to be addressed as Chance or Operator 767523?”

Chance blinked. MX-18 had always called him Operator. Every machine at the factory did. He could not remember one of them ever asking what he preferred.

“Chance,” he answered.

“Preference recorded.”

“Huh,” Chance murmured.

“Is something wrong?” the robot asked.

“Negative,” Chance said jokingly, mimicking the machine before shaking his head. “Sorry. No.”

He rubbed a hand across his face and looked away.

“I’m fine.”

“Understood,” the robot replied.

The machine stepped out of the charging closet, its heavier footfalls sounding against the cubic floor. “Would you like assistance preparing for tomorrow’s shift?”

Chance looked around the room. Clothes covered most of the floor, empty food packaging sat beside the bed, and several days’ worth of dishes had collected in the sink recess. He gave a tired laugh as he took it all in.

“You know what? Sure,” Chance said. “Knock yourself out.”

The robot looked at him for a moment.

Chance sighed. “That means affirmative.”

“Understood.”

The robot bent down and picked up the first shirt.

Chance woke the following morning to the sound of his alarm and, for a few confused seconds, did not recognize his own cubic. The floor was visible for the first time in weeks, his work uniform hung neatly beside the bed, his boots had been placed underneath it, and the smell of warm oats drifted from the kitchen outlet.

“Good morning, Chance,” the robot said from near the charging closet. “Your shift begins at 0600. Estimated travel time is twenty-three minutes.”

Chance sat up and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. “Look at you, already trying to keep me employed.”

“My purpose is to assist with your employment and daily responsibilities,” the robot replied.

“Well, you’re doing better than I was.”

Chance got dressed, ate the breakfast the robot had prepared, and took his medication. For the first time in months, he left his cubic wearing a clean uniform, with food in his stomach and somewhere he actually needed to be.

The robot followed him.

People still looked, but now they looked because Chance’s temporary labor unit was ancient. At the factory entrance, Jared actually stopped walking and burst out laughing.

“Jesus Christ, Chance. Did they dig that thing out of a museum?” Jared asked.

“Temporary,” Chance said.

Jared circled the robot once, studying the dents and mismatched plating. “What happened to its shoulder?”

“No idea,” Chance replied.

“Can it even work?” Jared asked, glancing back at him.

The robot answered before Chance could. “My lifting capacity exceeds the requirements for Chance’s assigned station by thirty-seven percent.”

Jared raised his eyebrows. “Okay.”

Chance grinned. “Careful. You’ll hurt its feelings.”

“I do not possess feelings,” the robot replied.

Jared laughed again and looked at Chance. “See? Already smarter than you.”

“Asshole,” Chance said, shoving him lightly in the shoulder.

Jared shoved him back, and for the first time in what felt like forever, Chance laughed too.

The shift hurt. His muscles had weakened during three months of inactivity, and by lunch his back ached while his feet burned inside his work boots. He loved every second of it. The pain meant he had worked long enough to hurt.

The robot handled the station surprisingly well despite its age. It anticipated where Chance needed parts, moved equipment smoothly, and handled most of the heavy lifting while Chance operated the production machinery. Whenever Chance asked for something, the robot answered with a calm “Affirmative,” then completed the task without complaint. By the time the end-of-shift chime sounded, Chance had almost forgotten he was working with a temporary unit.

His smart band vibrated as he stepped away from the factory floor.

147.6 CREDITS DEPOSITED

Chance stopped walking and stared at the number. It was probably the first time in three months he had looked at his balance without immediately calculating how many days he could survive on it. Before Jared could call after him, Chance opened his transfer screen, found Mara’s name, and sent back the eighty-six credits she had given him for the prescription.

His thumb hovered over the message field for a moment before he typed.

Paid you back. Thank you for helping me. I really mean it.

Chance read the message twice. He almost added that he was sorry she had needed to help him in the first place, but deleted the sentence before sending it. He did not want to turn a thank-you into another apology.

The transfer went through.

61.6 CREDITS AVAILABLE

Chance looked at the remaining balance and smiled. Sixty-one credits was not much, especially once food and everything else began eating away at it, but for the first time in months the number belonged entirely to him. He had earned it.

On the walk home, he passed the same teriyaki stand that had turned him away the night before. The smell reached him before he even saw the glowing sign, and Chance slowed.

“Fuck it,” he muttered.

The robot stopped beside him. “Clarification requested.”

Chance glanced up at the machine and laughed. “Nothing. I’m celebrating.”

He stepped into line.

When his turn came, the vendor barely seemed to recognize him.

“One,” Chance said, then thought about it. “Actually, give me two.”

The vendor tapped the terminal and a blue hologram appeared between them. Chance raised his smart band.

The scanner flashed blue.

A pleasant chime sounded.

Chance could not help smiling.

The vendor handed over the two skewers, and Chance bit into the first before he had even stepped away from the counter. The chicken was hot, sweet, salty, and covered in far too much sauce, but Chance did not care whether it was vat-grown or the cheapest meat in District Seven.

He ate as he walked, the robot keeping pace beside him without speaking. Chance found himself enjoying the silence. For the first time in months, he was not thinking about how long his food would last, how many credits remained in his account, or what bill would come due next. His back hurt, his feet ached, and he was exhausted, but they were the kinds of problems that came from working instead of sitting alone in his cubic waiting for his life to get worse.

By the time he reached home, Mara had replied to the message he sent after repaying her.

You didn’t have to send it all back right away. But I’m glad you’re working again.

Chance stood in the hallway outside his cubic and read the message twice before answering.

I wanted to. Thanks again.

He hesitated before sending it. Normally he would have added that he was fine, almost automatically, as if the words could end any conversation before someone asked too many questions. This time, he left them out.

Chance sent the message and opened his door.

For once, he did not need to tell anyone he was fine.

For once, he almost felt like he might be.

The next two weeks were the best Chance had felt in months. Not good exactly, but better, and he was beginning to understand that there was a difference. He slept most nights. He worked every scheduled shift. He ate twice a day, then three times once his balance recovered enough to stop calculating the cost of every mouthful. The medication quieted something inside him that Chance had forgotten could ever be quiet, and his cubic slowly stopped feeling like a tomb he happened to sleep inside.

The robot helped.

Chance could not deny that. It remembered his schedule, cleaned while he worked, tracked his medication, reminded him when he forgot meals, and even began learning his music preferences. One evening, Chance stepped through the cubic door and stopped when he heard an old song playing quietly through the room speakers. It was one of his favorites, something he had listened to repeatedly over the last week, but he did not remember turning it on.

“I didn’t start that,” Chance said, looking toward the robot.

“You listened to this selection fourteen times during the previous seven days,” the robot replied. “Playback was initiated based on recorded preference.”

Chance glanced toward the speakers before looking back at the machine. “You keep track of that?”

“Affirmative.”

“Huh.” Chance dropped onto the bed and leaned back against the wall. “Leave it on.”

“Affirmative,” the robot replied.

Chance closed his eyes and listened while the robot returned to its charging position. There was nothing particularly unusual about the machine tracking his habits. His old unit had monitored work schedules, sleeping patterns, medical reminders, and dozens of other small pieces of information. Still, Chance could not remember MX-18 ever choosing music for him.

Later that evening, his smart band began vibrating against his wrist. Chance glanced down and froze when he saw Mara’s name projected above the screen.

She was calling him.

For a moment, Chance considered letting it ring. He had spent so long avoiding conversations with her that rejecting the call almost felt automatic, but he finally accepted it.

Mara’s face appeared above his wrist, her bright red hair tied back behind her head.

“Hey,” Mara said.

“Hey,” Chance replied.

She studied him through the projection for a moment. “You look better.”

Chance touched his face without thinking. “Do I?”

“A little,” Mara said. “You look tired, but not like you’re about to fall over.”

“That’s progress, I guess.”

“It is.” Mara smiled faintly. “So you are working again?”

“Yeah,” Chance said. “Been back about two weeks now. Same factory.”

“And the temporary bot is working?”

Chance turned his wrist slightly so she could see the machine standing near the charging closet. “That’s it.”

Mara looked past him at the battered robot. “Wow. They really gave you an old one.”

“Company says it works,” Chance replied.

“That’s all that matters, I guess.”

“Pretty much.”

For the next twenty minutes, they talked about things that did not matter very much. Chance told her about Jared laughing at the robot and about going back to the chicken stand after work. Mara told him about someone they both knew getting promoted and complained about a new song she had heard all week at work. It was an ordinary conversation, the kind they used to have without thinking about it, and Chance found himself relaxing as it continued.

Eventually Mara grew quieter.

“You really doing okay?” she asked.

Chance almost answered automatically. The words were already there, ready before he even thought about them.

I’m fine.

Instead, he hesitated.

“I’m getting there,” Chance said.

Mara smiled. “Good. That’s better than fine.”

Chance gave a small laugh. “Yeah. I guess it is.”

They said goodbye a few minutes later, and the projection disappeared. Chance remained sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at the blank surface of his band.

The robot turned its head toward him.

“Your response differed from previous recorded responses to similar questions,” it stated.

Chance looked over. “What?”

“When asked about your condition, you most frequently respond, ‘I’m fine.’”

Chance frowned. “You keep records of conversations too?”

“I retain information relevant to operator health, scheduling, employment, and daily assistance,” the robot replied.

Chance looked down at his band again. “People ask if you’re okay because they usually want an easy answer.”

“Clarification requested.”

Chance sighed and leaned back against the wall. “Most people don’t actually want to hear everything that’s wrong with you. They ask because they’re supposed to ask.”

“What response is considered appropriate?” the robot asked.

Chance closed his eyes.

“I’m fine.”

“Response recorded,” the robot replied.

IN TWO PARTS

PART ONE

Two dragons are captured and sent into orbit round the Earth.A little-known story about the 1960s space race, which has been kept secret because of the terrible consequences, still extant today.

Chapter One

1957

Somewhere faraway, well, from the West anyway, there is an island called Dragonscale.

The inhabitants of this paradise in the East (somewhere) were not humans at first, but, as the name suggests without a great deal of thought, a race of dragons, called the Firelizards.

It is commonly assumed that there aren’t any real dragons. Of course, they might have existed in a bygone era and become extinct, some might say, and the absence of any fossil evidence is not a conclusive proof that they didn’t, fossilisation being a rare occurrence.

It could, then, be speculated that it might be possible that there were such animals inhabiting this planet many eras ago, and following from that it is not a huge leap forward to consider that there might be a very isolated island where a race of such beasts survived and evolved.

In fact, contrary to widely accepted beliefs, the Firelizards were a known reality, and it was their isolation that kept them from wider knowledge of their existence.

There were reports as far back as the first Millennium about an island in the far East occupied by 'firedevils', as they were called. No attempt to visit the island was made on account of the expected dangers involved, however.

Now, the usual image of dragons is not a favourable one, involving belching huge bursts of flame, enough to outdo any flame throwing weapon devised for military purposes.

The Firelizards did not fit this description at all.

They were a happy peace-loving race which lived by a strict code of conduct, according to accounts from the few humans who visited the Island, as to be related later in this Chapter.

This could be summarised as follows:

1. Love your fellow dragon.
2. Behave towards your neighbouring dragon in a manner which you would wish them to act towards you.
3. Honour your mum and dad.
4. Only use your flame throwing abilities for peaceful purposes, and never in a way which could result in harm or distress to anything else, of whatever kind. It was explained that the flame-producing ability was given to them to enable them to set a pile of wood and sticks on fire to keep them warm in cold weather.

This was, therefore, a happy community, but there was a problem. There wasn't a lot to do on the island.

The most exciting event, which took place bi-annually, was the flame throwing competition, open to all comers.

The contestants were required to stand (front feet) a given distance from its target, which was of standard size and made of a suitably combustible material, and set it ablaze. Times were recorded for the target to be reduced to a pile of ashes. Points were also awarded for style of flame delivery, shape and width of flame cone.

This was just round One. The ten with the highest points then progressed to Round Two. The distance from the target was increased and the target made less combustible. The best five then went on to Round Three. After further changes in distance and constitution of target, we were left with the two finalists, and the winner received great acclaim.

Unfortunately, in the mid-1950s a passenger plane happened to pass over the island whilst this contest was in full swing, and even from its considerable height the flames were clearly visible and impressive. This was a significant contribution to the conviction amongst humans that these were dangerous animals.

There was also a sports day, the highlight of which was the Great Dragon Race. Details here are not outlined as the title is self-explanatory. The clear blue sea was also always an attraction, and the Firelizards were adept underwater swimmers.

Sadly, these diversions were not enough to satisfy the adventurous spirit of some of the younger dragons, and excursions to the mainland were not uncommon.

Here, of course, they encountered humans, who had rarely ventured onto Dragonscale, and those that did never came back. The visitors went with the intention of acquiring a nice dragon rug for their lounge, but in fact they had all decided to stay in this peaceful environment, and were happily tolerated by the Firelizards. On the mainland, though, the worst was assumed.

The incursion of these younger members of the race onto the mainland was a different matter. They never did any harm, abiding strictly to the rigid code of conduct deeply instilled into their psyche.

Unfortunately, the very sight of them scared the shit out of the locals, especially the very young, and the dragons were not treated kindly. Let us just say that none ever returned to their homeland, and dragon meat was not a rarity at the market stalls.

On the other hand, the younger generation on Dragonscale deduced that the immigrants were all having a fine time, and that this was the explanation for their continued absence, and so still they ventured into the unknown, in increasing numbers.

Over the years, plans for invasion were often raised, but it was not until the invention of protective fireproof clothing that such plans were to come to fruition.

In 1947, action to stop this inflow was deemed to be necessary, and a committee comprising 10 respected elders was formed to decide on the best policy.

That this took 10 years to publish its findings is perhaps not too surprising in view of the regular need to replace members who had died, or suffered from some debilitating illness. The new intake often had different viewpoints from their predecessors, and so it was one step forward and two back. Nevertheless, despite these major obstacles, a report was issued in mid-1957. Its recommendation can be condensed into one word:

Invade and Exterminate.

Sorry, that’s three.

Invasion

The absence of any signs of flame throwing activity by the immigrants on the mainland before being led to the slaughterhouses had not apparently been registered to any degree by the human inhabitants, because the army assembled for the task was fully equipped with the appropriate protective fire proof clothing.

As soon as they landed they set to work with their dart guns (their meat always tasted better when fresh), and the dragons dragged onto the ships. Some tried to flee but were easily outpaced by the military jeeps taken with them for just such an eventuality.

A few firelizards are thought to have fought back and overcome their peaceful natures and the surprise of the attack, but if any casualties were suffered by the invaders, details have not been released.

What about the few humans on the island? Well, they decided not to intervene, partly through cowardice, the army being armed with more lethal weapons than the darts, but also because of the thought that they would now have the island to themselves. A brief consideration would have sufficed to tell them that that wouldn’t be for long.

It is, though, to these human inhabitants of the island that we owe our knowledge of the dragon's life style, as outlined above. The description of the races and competitions seem authentic enough, but their assessment of the moral code of behaviour may be thought to be taking things too far, although these conclusions were the result of close observation of the animals over an extended period.

The existence of such a code of behaviour may or may not be valid, then, but there was no doubt in the minds of the human observers that this was a well-ordered society and with a complex form of communication.

It is sad to report that efforts by these human occupants of Dragonscale to stop the carnage, if there were indeed any made, fell on deaf ears. This would have unfortunate consequences.

The setting now moves to the other side of the globe.

Nasa

On the 3rd of November, 1957, the Soviet Union launched a space craft called Sputnik 2 (it being the second of its kind to be built, presumably). The important thing here is that it managed a low orbit around the earth, and inside it was a dog called Laika, who died a few hours into the flight. This nevertheless sent shock waves throughout America, and led the following year to the combining of the various related agencies in the U.S.A., and Nasa was formed.

The first meeting of the new organisation soon took place and a main item on the agenda was which animal could they stick in a craft and orbit the earth and outdo the Soviets.

There were three main criteria.

1. It had to be BIGGER, a LOT bigger.
2. It had to be something which the American public would find acceptable, so, for example a bigger dog wasn’t an option.
3. It had to be returned to earth alive.

There was much head scratching, many proposals were put forward and rejected, and a gloomy silence was enveloping the room.

Then a young engineer spoke up.

"Have you read that news item about a race of dragons on some isolated island in the far east? Well, they have invaded it and captured the lot. They are destined for the dinner table, it seems, but they may not have eaten them all yet, and there might still be some awaiting their fate. If so, we could make them an offer and get them over here, and dragons in space would make good publicity and show the Soviets what’s what."

"You ARE talking about living dragons, I assume? I don’t think sending a dragon carcass into space would set the pulse racing."

"Yes, of course. They like their dragon meat fresh, so they are kept alive until their turn comes, at least as far as I understand it from the news clips I have seen."

"Right," said the Chairman, "get in touch with these people and find out if there are any living dragons left."

The difficulties in achieving contact having been overcome, it was discovered that there were just two left still alive. Having agreed on an exorbitant price, these last two Firelizards found themselves on a ship and heading for the U.S.A.

Firelizards hadn’t bothered to give themselves names, as they thought that this would be too pretentious, so their captors had to decide what to call them.

Again, outdoing the Soviets was a major concern. They were accordingly christened Lincoln and Roosevelt.

Nobody had as yet considered how they were going to fit a dragon, let alone two, into the available space crafts.

Chapter Two

The Ship

The two Firelizards were kept under heavy sedation during the long sea voyage, and so had no concept of where they were going, why they had not suffered yet the same fate as their fellow dragons, of which they were well aware, or what lay in store for them when they reached their destination, wherever that might be.

The crew having been warned by the mainland locals that they were dealing with very dangerous animals which could burn down their ship with one blast of fire, the sedation of the two dragons was not considered sufficient guard against this eventuality.

The technology by which the dragon produced its flames being a bit of a grey area, it was decided to cover their faces with fireproof masks. They wanted to keep them alive, though, so you will be pleased to learn that a few holes had been inserted.

The hold where the two former U. S. presidents’ namesakes were contained was lined with layers of fire proofing materials. Should one of them regain consciousness long enough to let forth its stream of fire, a further safeguard had been installed. The slightest wisp of smoke now automatically set forth a very efficient sprinkler system.

Although they were firmly locked inside their prison, it was further deemed necessary to have a guard armed to the proverbial teeth standing outside at the ready, 24/7.

You will not be surprised to learn that Lincoln and Roosevelt were in a pretty sorry and confused state when the ship finally arrived at Houston, Texas.

This would have been an appropriate point, perhaps, to instal a photo of a Firelizard to help the reader to visualise the scene.

In fact, although there was no shortage of media footage initially, these were legally banned after the ensuing events, to be related later, with draconian measures resulting from any violation. There may be some copies of film stored in an attic somewhere, and if anybody does have access to any images of Lincoln and Roosevelt (not the Presidents) please do send them, and they could be inserted here, the restrictions having been lifted in 2016.

Conference

Back at Nasa, a further conference was in progress, preceding many others which were to take place at different centres before launch.

The first and vital consideration was size of the animals c.f. size of capsule needed to accommodate them. The typical American space capsule at that time was about 11 feet tall and about 6 to 7 feet diameter. The dragons were of a smaller variety, being 7 feet in length.

"It’s going to be a bit of a squash squeezing the two inside," remarked the chairman, "considering that we have to leave room for all the electronics," he added.

"Why do we need to send both, anyway?" demanded the director of publicity.

"We think providing them with company would help considerably in avoiding any adverse psychological effects of the extended isolation in such a confined space, and also it doubles the chances of bringing one back to earth alive," replied the chairman.

"As far as fitting two into the capsule is concerned, I’ve been looking into this," the mission director told the assembly. "They will have to curl up a bit, but they should be reasonably comfortable."

"I must point out a few things," announced the director of animal welfare. "Firstly, and most obviously, we need to bring them back alive and in good condition. Two dead dragons in the recovered capsule won’t do our image any good, and the Soviets would be laughing their socks off. The best way to achieve this, in my humble opinion (she was a very modest lady) is to try to make them as happy as possible when they set off. They will, of course, need extensive pre-flight training to adapt to space conditions. They will need to get used to confinement in a small space like the capsule, trained to know how to accept the food provided, and acclimatised to gravity changes using a spinning centrifuge. At the moment, they must be desperately unhappy in their fireproof cages. If we don’t give them some more pleasant environment until the launch, and especially some adequate level of exercise, I wouldn’t bet on their survival till next week, let alone the launch date."

"We could build an enclosure with fireproof breeze blocks," suggested the chairman.

Which they did.

When completed, the dragons were led to this newly built enclosure, which had a concrete floor, and armed guards on patrol, wearing the usual protective clothing.

The effect on the well-being of the proposed future astronauts was precisely zero. The allocated space was barely enough to enable them to stretch their legs, and they both remembered the similarly clad and armed humans who had invaded their island paradise. The response was therefore not at all as had been hoped. Lincoln and Roosevelt just lay on the concrete, hardly moving, and just giving the occasional growl.

Dr. Annie Walker, the above-mentioned animal welfare director, was discussing this problem with the chairman, Mr. Arnold Webber and mission leader, Dr. William. J. Pyke.

"This just isn’t working," she exclaimed. "We need to provide more space for them, and I have been observing them closely, and interviewed all the guards on watch, and it is agreed that not once has either attempted to use their flame throwing ability to burn down the walls and escape."

"Well, that wouldn’t have achieved much anyway," remarked William.

"They wouldn’t know that," pointed out Annie. "I'm beginning to wonder just how dangerous these animals are. I also have an idea that they would be far happier if they had grass under their feet, say a large field, for example. Oh, and another thing, Roosevelt is female. I find it hard to believe that nobody noticed, although it must be admitted it isn’t all that obvious, if you see what I mean."

"I think that would be very risky," opined Arnold. "Suppose they escaped and created havoc, it would be a disaster, not just for this mission. It could put all our future ones in jeopardy. As for the name, what do you suggest we call him, sorry, her, then? Hilary?"

"I think we should leave things as they stand, they have shown reaction to their names, and I don’t think that Roosevelt will be offended. I don’t think either that escaping should be a worry, we could still have an extensive guard patrol, kept out of sight, and with orders to shoot to kill if necessary."

The three having reached agreement, an isolated field of considerable size was located and deemed ideal for the job.

Chapter Three

Training

Linc and Ros, now the commonly used truncated handle for the two dragons, were immediately much happier to be shown their new surroundings. Instead of their more or less motionless existence in the previous concreted enclosure, they now had grass, and most importantly, much more room. This enabled them to indulge in their favourite pastime, which was dragon racing, even if there was a rather limited supply of competitors. The guards were hidden well back out of sight, but humans often make the mistake of assuming that out of their sight automatically ensures that anything else would also be unable to see them, and Linc and Ros were well aware of their presence, their sense of smell having no problems in their detection and position.

The biggest problem with the training was the food. They had no idea as to their usual menu, and so it was a hit and miss affair. Eventually a gelatinous concoction was formulated which they both seemed to find acceptable, and which was thought to contain all the necessary ingredients to keep them healthy. They then had to be trained to use the feeding tubes which would be the source on the capsule. This presented further problems, it being very hard to explain to two reluctant Firelizards why they had to feed in this way, and why they had to shove the stuff provided down their throats in the first place.

The subjection to close quarter confinements for increasing times also caused adverse reactions in the pair, taking in the form that a human might refer to as sulking. After a while, they appeared to accept the ordeal without too much protest.

Perhaps surprisingly, the dragons found the Johnsville centrifuge terrific fun, and were often reluctant to get out.

One incident caused some considerable adjustment to the general attitude of their captors to the two trainees. Although the surrounding hedges had been lined with barbed wire to prevent access of other animals, inevitably, perhaps, a stray dog (not Laika) found its way through, and immediately issued a barrage of powerful barks, which left no doubt as to its disapproval of the occupants of the field. Consternation followed at the prospect of a charred pet or ashes thereof, and guards rushed in to prevent such a disaster, but were then amazed to find the dog happily romping around with the dragons, who made no attempt to deter the dog with a burst of flame or by any other means.

It was time for another conference. This involved the heads of every conceivable aspect concerning the mission, and each was asked to report in turn, giving their appraisal of the current status of their particular task force.

The electronics had been tested over and over again, and back-up systems installed. The food dispenser device was in full working order, and the animals were thought to be as ready as they ever would be. This reporting of confident readiness was only spoiled by the temperature control system for the capsule interior, which had a few glitches to be ironed out.

"That is a critical matter,” declared the chairman. “One of the big factors on putting one over the Soviets is to bring these animals back alive. We need maximum effort here, and I am now committing us to a launch date of March the 26th. Can you assure me that your problems with the heat control will be solved by then, with full confidence?"

"Yes, sir, that we can."

"March the 26th it is, then."

Launch

The launching site being Cape Canaveral, the astronauts now faced a tedious 1,000-mile trip to Florida, not something to put them in a good frame of mind, although they had three days to recoup prior to the launch.

The launch itself was unexceptional, running as smoothly as one could wish. The actual launch produced the expected awed reaction from the numerous onlookers who had travelled to see the spectacle, but what they really wanted was a glimpse of the two dragons. Nasa being well aware of the need for this publicity, Ros and Linc were led docilely in full view of the spectators and media, including live television. Their appearance certainly aroused some reaction from the crowds, and the ascent of the lizards into the capsule was accompanied by a storm of clapping and cheering.

This happy mood was not shared by Linc and Ros, who were beginning to think that they had been subjected to a rather dirty trick.

It should be explained that this journey towards the capsule had been rehearsed several times over the last two days, in secret, of course. The dragons had been led across the tarmac and strapped down in the capsule, left for a few minutes, then released and taken back to their enclosure.

The success of this strategy was confirmed by Ros’ and Linc’s unresisting procession towards the capsule, and the strapping down inside it, it having being hoped that they would assume that this would just be another exercise like the previous, and that they would expect release after a short time.

The launch itself having been successful, the mission controllers breathed a sigh of relief, and there were congratulations all round concerning the extensive coverage and interest in the media.

Chapter Four

Communications

As far as is known, and who knows how far that it is, the human race is the only species with the ability to communicate by what we call speech, although this is being rapidly superseded by the use of the thumbs.

Nevertheless, it is evident that other species do so by various means. Even plants and trees communicate by sending chemicals through the air, as a warning to their neighbours of the presence of a leaf-eating visitor, for example. The adjacent trees can then produce a deterrent chemical in defence. This is a fascinating subject and it is necessary to delve into it in more detail as it has bearing on the story to come.

Think of the wood-pigeon, not everyone's favourite bird, it must be confessed, but it has interest. Consider the implications of their monotonous 4-note cooing. Some places might be lucky enough to enjoy wood-pigeons which have calls stretching to 5, or even more notes, perhaps.

Now, on first consideration, you might conclude that these 4 notes are just to inform another pigeon or pigeons where they are. So, their conversation could be transcribed thus:

"Morning, I’m over here."

"Well, I’M over here."

Another pigeon: "Can I join you?"

"I’m over here now."

"I’ll call you later, then."

Yet another pigeon: "I’m here and I’m not going anywhere."

On the other hand, a careful listen reveals some subtle variations in pitch, exact length of notes, volume differences, and so on. Their conversation might then stretch to the following:

"Keep a watch out, there’s a sparrow hawk around. Poor Billie is now just a ring of feathers on the lawn. What are your plans for today?"

Well, perhaps that’s stretching things a bit.

More seriously, there are certainly other species with complex communication systems, such as the Orcas, for example.

We now turn to the Firelizards.

At the time of the space adventure, it had already been noticed that they could produce a wide range of sounds, some resembling a high pitch whistle even, others a deep growl. It had also been observed that Linc and Ros did seem to be ‘talking’ to each other using these different tones. No success resulted from attempts to try to interpret them, however.

Now, it so happens that in order to help monitor the health and condition of our unwilling astronauts, a sound system was installed in the capsule, and a recording of every sound issuing from Linc and Ros during the orbit was made. In view of later events, like the other media restrictions, these tapes were not made public, and gathered dust in the Nasa archives, where they were discovered in 2024.

In view of the advances in computer technology over the past 70 years, it was decided to attempt an analysis of the various noises in the capsule on these tapes, in the hope that some idea of the meaning of the 'conversations might result.

The conclusions that it reached have just been published, and the astonishment they have induced everywhere can be well understood, because the computers produced what amounts to a transcript of the sounds of the dragons converted into the English language. Translations into other languages are available on request and filling in the necessary forms.

It was even possible to distinguish the individual dragon ‘speaking’, because of the somewhat higher pitch of Ros’ noises, the position in the capsule enabling identification of ‘speaker’ from the direction as picked up by the microphone array, and often by the simple deductions made from the conversation content. It should also be pointed out here that many days of the orbit were without any ‘conversation’ at all.

Reproduced below is the exact transcript.

Day 1, just after launch:

Linc: "++++ this for a game of soldiers."

The actual translation here might be deemed to be too unseemly to publish on the hallowed pages of Reddit, so it has been left to the reader to insert a word of their choice at the start of this utterance.

Ros: "I don’t mind a joke, but ++++ a pantomime. I think we’ve been had. All those trips over the last two days back and forth to the capsule, and locking us inside for a few minutes, that was just to make sure that we thought this was just the same, but I did wonder about all the crowds cheering their heads off, and thought that there was something fishy going on."

Linc: "You weren’t wrong there."

Again, it has been left to the reader to fill in the blanks.

Day 2: No translatable conversation.

Day 3

Linc: "I’m getting a bit pissed off, just lying here."

Ros: "Tell me about it, I have an itchy tail and I can’t scratch it, they’ve got us tied down so that we can hardly move, and the smell in this thing is starting to get a bit iffy, are you pulling the disposal lever when you’ve had to go?"

Linc: "Disposal lever?"

Ros: "Oh, my God, you mean we’ve been out here for three days and you haven’t used it once? No wonder the air here could hardly be described as rose-like."

Again, it must be stressed that these are the exact words of the computer analysis.

Linc: "Oh, you mean this stick thing by my foot, I’ll give it a shove--"

Ros: "No, no, don’t touch that…."

At this point, the instrumental records coincide with this unfinished sentence from Ros by the indication of a violent rotation and shaking of the capsule, lasting a full 35 seconds.

Linc: "Not that one, then?"

Ros: "Bloody hell, it isn’t enough that they lock me up in this thing and treat me like ++++, but I have to put up with a blithering idiot for company. Have you forgotten everything you were taught in those lessons we had to attend where they showed us what was what?"

Linc: "I’m sorry, I must have fallen asleep at that bit. He did have an incredibly boring voice, all on one monotonous tone, even less melodious than a wood-pigeon, and that’s saying something. Which lever do I have to pull, then?"

Ros, with a sigh: "By your front foot, you can’t mistake it, it is painted bright red and has an icon by it indicating ‘flush’."

Linc: "Ah, yes, I see it, I thought it meant eject in an emergency."

Ros: "Well, you could say that given the stink in here. Now, can you please give it a push?"

Linc does as she asks apparently, because the noise recorded here is compatible with the exit of three day’s waste disposal from a Firelizard.

Ros: "Well, that should at least make it slightly more bearable in here, and if you thought it was an ejection lever for us in an emergency, what good did you think it would have done us to be thrown into space and probably go into orbit ourselves? We wouldn’t last long out there, where there is a distinct shortage of grass, I’d say."

Linc seems to have gone into a sulk then, as no more exchanges were decoded that day.

Indeed, this show of petulance seems to have lasted until day six, the intervening three days picking up not the slightest hint of any further chit-chat.

Day 6

Linc breaks his silence.

"How much longer are we going to have to stay in this thing? Are they going to leave us here forever?"

Ros: "I have no idea, but I can’t see the point in sending us orbiting the earth for eternity, they must want to bring us back down at some point."

Linc: "I’ll probably be dead by then, my back is killing me and my pulse rate is through the roof."

Ros: "That goes for me, too. It is quite nice, though, looking through the window they kindly provided for us to be able to view the cosmos."

Linc: "I agree, that blue round thing is quite pretty."

Ros: "That’s the earth, dumbo. It’s where we came from. In fact, next time you see it, look out for a big blue patch with a tiny oval-shaped spot on it. That’s Dragonscale."

Linc: "Really! You mean we were down there and now we are way up here?"

Ros: "Got it in one."

Chapter Five

More meetings

Meanwhile back at Houston, progress was being assessed. Arnold, William and Annie were in deep conference.

"How’s it going, then," asked Arnold.

"Very well, so far," replied William, "although we were starting to get concerned after three days when the instruments gave no indication that Linc had pulled his lever to eject his outputs."

"You mean piss and shit, then?" offered Annie.

"Well, I was just being polite in the presence of a lady. Anyway, it seems that he did so and hopefully the prospect of a capsule filled to the brim with noxious fumes seems to have been avoided, although there was a moment of panic when he seems to have given the capsule rotation lever a hefty kick."

"I find that a bit worrying. Didn’t we show them in the lessons we gave them which lever to pull?" asked the chairman.

"We did, indeed, but it has to be admitted that Dr. Bishop has a rather boring speech delivery, enough to put even the most alert of dragons into a deep sleep," Annie responded.

"Let’s hope that Linc remembers to exit his waste from now on. How about the general health of the dragons?" asked Arnold.

"Their medical condition as indicated by the electronics attached at various points along their bodies seems to be holding up well to the stress. There is a slight worry over pulse rates, though, as both dragons show a consistent and significant increase there," William stated.

"Is it thought that this might be life-threatening, then? We must avoid at all costs having two dragon corpses in the capsule when we fish it out of the sea."

"We just don’t know," replied Annie, "we have no idea as to what point an elevated pulse rate in a dragon should be the signal to bring out the red flag."

"You mean we don’t know when we should get worried, then?" Arnold sarcastically remarked.

"There is one very interesting aspect emerging from the microphone outputs," said Annie. "It is hard given the alternation of the noises from one to the other to avoid the conclusion that they are engaging in conversation of some sort. If so, we have no idea as to what they are communicating, of course. I think we made the correct decision about the absence of fire-retardant face masks. They are intelligent enough, I think, to know that if they set the capsule ablaze they would be in deep shit," she concluded.

"I take it that that there are no problems as far as the capsule and instrumentation are concerned?" demanded Arnold.

"No, none at all, so far we could not have wished for a smoother mission," William re-assured him.

Silence

Day 7: No identifiable interchanges or remarks from either dragon.

Day 8: No identifiable interchanges or remarks from either dragon. Annie was now starting to get a bit worried about her pets.

"We have heard no trace of any kind of sounds from either Linc or Ros for three days now. I am starting to get a bit concerned," she remarked to Arnold.

This is of course not at the same meeting as the one described above, as we are now in day 9.

"The instruments all indicate no cause for concern and their pulse rate has dropped a bit as well," William informed them.

"I am mainly concerned about the psychological aspects of the mission, and how it might effect their behaviour after recovery," exclaimed Annie.

"What ARE we going to do with them, anyway? Perhaps we should give that some thought, don’t you think?" the chairman considered.

"I assumed that we were just going to do away with them, humanely, of course," William thought.

"That would cause outrage, the American public wouldn’t like that at all, I don’t think." declared Arnold. "How about a zoo, there might be some interest there. Annie, can you make some enquiries about that possibility, please?"

"Yes, of course, Arnold, that seems like a good idea," replied Annie.

Day 10

Firelizard deductions

Things suddenly start to liven up inside the capsule.

Linc starts things off, exclaiming suddenly, "Why are they doing this, that’s what I’d like to know, I mean, if I knew what the object of sending us in orbit around the earth was, then it would make it easier to bear the discomfort, and this gelatinous stuff they feed us is not doing my insides any good, either."

Ros: "Well, make sure you keep on pushing that lever, as you say, it’s hard enough to bear all this as it is. I keep on thinking of that day they invaded, with those weapons that sent us all to sleep in seconds, and then they took us to the mainland and killed us all off."

Linc: "I’ve been thinking about that, too. The thing that I can’t understand is why they killed us off in batches, and kept you alive until your turn came. Why didn’t they just kill us all straight away?"

Ros: "I think I know the answer to that one, but I don’t think I should tell you, you won’t like it."

Linc: "Oh, come on, I’d really like to know, I have been trying to figure it out for the last two days, and it’s driving me crazy."

Ros: "Well, O. K., but you really aren’t going to like it, so promise me that you will keep calm. If you get into one of your tantrums you might shake this thing into pieces. That might not be a bad idea, on second thoughts.

Anyway, if you must know, and remember that this is just my interpretation, there might be a different explanation altogether--"

Linc: "Oh, for heaven’s sake, get on with it and tell me the worst. I can take it."

Ros: "All right, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. The reason that they kept us alive until they killed us off was that they like their dragon meat to be fresh before cooking."

Linc: "You mean, YOU MEAN!!!, THEY EAT US!!!"

Ros: "Steady, keep calm, getting wound up won’t help things at all."

Day 11

Linc has calmed down, a bit. He puts a question to Ros about another matter which has been causing him sleepless nights.

"Have you any ideas as to the reasons why we have been sent spinning round the earth?"

Ros did.

"I have come up with one possible explanation. I stress, it is only a pretty wild theory, and I find it hard to believe it myself, but I noticed that they were putting humans into those spinning things down there, and my idea derives from that, as it might fit in with the existence of a project of which the objective is to land a human on the moon."

Linc: "Why on earth would they want to do THAT?"

Ros: "A very good question. Because it’s there, I suppose."

Linc: "That seems a bit unlikely that they would go to all this trouble just to land on the moon. What use would that be?"

Ros: “They might eventually develop weapons which could travel from the moon to the earth and destroy your enemies.”

Linc: "Well, I could believe that bit, quite easily, but I still don’t see why they have used us on this trip."

Ros: "I think this is just a part of the programme building up to the moon landing. As to why they needed to shove US in this space from hell I have no idea."

The first sign that something was wrong was small enough that Chance almost ignored it.

He woke forty minutes late and shot out of bed so quickly his feet tangled in the blanket.

“What the hell?” Chance muttered as he grabbed his smart band from beside the bed.

The robot turned its head toward him. “Good morning, Chance,” it said.

“Why didn’t my alarm go off?” Chance asked.

“Your alarm was disabled at 0123,” the robot replied.

“I didn’t disable it,” Chance said, already pulling up the activity log on his band.

ALARM DISABLED: USER AUTHORIZATION

He stared at the notification for several seconds. Chance remembered lying in bed the night before and listening to music, but after that the evening blurred together. Maybe he had changed the alarm while half asleep and simply forgotten.

“Shit,” Chance said as he started pulling on his work clothes.

“Breakfast is prepared,” the robot stated.

“No time,” Chance replied.

“Your medication should be taken with food,” the robot said.

Chance stopped long enough to grab the bottle from its usual place on the kitchen shelf. He swallowed the pill with several hurried spoonfuls of oats, nearly choking as he tried to eat and dress at the same time.

“Happy?” Chance asked as he shoved the bottle back onto the shelf.

“Your medication requirement has been completed,” the robot replied.

Chance shook his head. “Close enough.”

He grabbed his coat and rushed toward the door.

The factory supervisor docked him twelve credits for arriving late, and Chance spent most of the morning irritated with himself. He had finally started getting his life back together, and apparently he could not even remember setting an alarm properly.

For the next several days, nothing else happened.

Chance’s alarm went off every morning at the correct time, and by the end of the week he had mostly forgotten about the incident. He worked his shifts, took his medication, ate better than he had in months, and began rebuilding the small cushion of credits he had lost while waiting for his replacement unit. The temporary robot continued doing exactly what it had done since arriving. It cleaned, organized his work schedule, prepared breakfast, charged through the night, and followed him to the factory without complaint.

If anything, Chance was beginning to trust it more.

That was why he did not immediately blame the robot when he arrived at work the following Tuesday and discovered he had been assigned to the wrong production floor.

Chance stood in front of the security gate while the scanner above him flashed red for the second time.

“Come on,” he muttered, raising his wrist again.

The scanner rejected him.

A floor supervisor sitting behind the gate looked over. “What shift are you trying to get into?”

“Equipment positioning. Line fourteen,” Chance answered.

The supervisor checked his terminal. “You’re on twenty-six.”

“No, I’m not.”

The man looked at Chance, then turned the screen so he could see it. “You are now.”

Chance stepped closer. The schedule clearly showed his identification number beside line twenty-six, but he knew he had checked the assignment before going to bed.

“When did that change?” Chance asked.

“Last night.”

“I didn’t change it.”

The supervisor shrugged. “System says you accepted the reassignment.”

Chance raised his smart band and searched his activity log. There it was.

SHIFT MODIFICATION ACCEPTED: USER AUTHORIZATION

Chance frowned.

The robot stood silently behind him.

“You handle my work schedule, right?” Chance asked, turning toward it.

“Affirmative,” the robot replied.

“Did you change my shift?”

“Negative.”

“Did I tell you to?”

“No verbal instruction was recorded,” the robot answered.

Chance looked back down at his band.

The supervisor sighed. “You taking twenty-six or not?”

Chance rubbed his forehead. “Yeah. I’m taking it.”

The reassignment cost him nothing except an annoying walk across the factory, and by lunch Chance had decided his smart band was probably starting to fail. It was old, the screen was cracked, and he had been using the thing far longer than the manufacturer recommended. If the alarm incident and the shift change had the same explanation, that was almost comforting.

A broken band could be replaced.

Eventually.

Three evenings later, Chance was lying on his bed when Mara sent him a message.

So I guess dinner was a no?

Chance stared at it.

He sat upright and opened their conversation.

Above Mara’s newest message were four others.

You working Saturday?

A day later:

Thought maybe we could get something to eat. Nothing weird. Just dinner.

Then:

Chance?

And finally:

Never mind.

Chance read through them twice.

He had never seen any of them.

“What the hell?”

The robot turned from the charging closet. “Clarification requested.”

“Nothing,” Chance said.

He immediately called Mara.

She did not answer.

Chance typed instead.

I didn’t see any of these. I swear.

He waited.

Several minutes passed before a response appeared.

They were delivered.

I know. I don’t know what happened. My band has been acting weird.

The typing indicator appeared, vanished, then returned.

Okay.

Chance stared at the word for several seconds. He could almost hear the way Mara would have said it if she had been standing in front of him. Not angry exactly, which would have been easier to deal with. Disappointed. Tired. Like she had expected him to let her down and hated that he had proven her right.

He typed another message.

I would have gone.

Chance waited, watching the small indicator at the bottom of the conversation, but Mara never started typing. After another minute, he locked the screen and sat on the edge of the bed, turning the smart band over in his hand. The crack running through one corner suddenly seemed larger than it had before. He had owned the thing for years, long past the point when the manufacturer recommended replacing it, and until recently he had never given much thought to how many parts of his life depended on it.

His shifts. His credits. His apartment. His messages. His identification.

Practically everything.

“Run a diagnostic,” Chance said, looking toward the robot.

C-41 turned its head toward him. “Specify system.”

“My smart band,” Chance replied, holding up his wrist.

“Affirmative.”

A small blue light illuminated behind the robot’s optical sensors as it connected to the band. The screen on Chance’s wrist changed, and a diagnostic list began scrolling downward while he watched.

BATTERY: NORMAL

MEMORY: NORMAL

NETWORK: NORMAL

SECURITY: NORMAL

INPUT SYSTEM: NORMAL

Every category returned green.

“Diagnostic complete,” C-41 stated. “No hardware faults detected.”

Chance frowned at the screen. “Run it again.”

“Affirmative,” the robot replied.

The same list started over. Chance watched more closely this time, as though staring hard enough might make one of the green indicators turn red. None did. The second diagnostic returned exactly the same result

“Great,” Chance muttered. “So apparently nothing is wrong with anything.”

C-41 did not respond.

Chance set the band on the table and looked back at Mara’s unanswered conversation one last time before getting ready for bed. He told himself the messages had probably been delayed by the network or buried beneath work notifications. The band was old. The city network was overloaded half the time. There were a dozen reasonable explanations.

He did not need another problem.

For the next two days, everything worked normally.

His alarms went off on time. His schedule remained unchanged. Every message that arrived produced a notification. By the second morning, Chance had already started convincing himself that the problem had been nothing more than a temporary system error.

Then he misplaced one of his work gloves.

Chance always stored both gloves in the upper compartment of his factory locker. He had done it the same way for years. Left glove on the left side, right glove beside it, palms down so the grease from the factory floor did not smear everything else he kept inside.

That morning, only one was there.

Chance stared into the locker for a moment before removing the remaining glove and checking beneath it. He shifted his spare shirt, moved a packet of cleaning wipes, then pulled his entire work bag out and set it on the bench.

Nothing.

“Come on,” Chance muttered.

He checked the locker again even though there was nowhere inside it for the glove to hide.

Jared was walking past when he noticed Chance crouched beside the bench.

“Lose something?” Jared asked.

“My glove,” Chance replied, opening the bag for the second time.

Jared stopped. “Check your bag.”

“It’s not in there.”

“You sure?”

“Yes, Jared.”

Jared leaned down anyway.

Chance sighed. “I already checked it.”

Jared reached into the main compartment and immediately pulled out the missing glove.

Chance stopped talking.

Jared held it up between two fingers. “This glove?”

Chance stared at it. “I checked there.”

Jared grinned. “Apparently not very well.”

“No, I mean I actually checked there.”

“Getting old, man,” Jared said as he tossed the glove toward him.

Chance caught it against his chest. “Fuck off.”

Jared laughed. “You’re welcome.”

Chance gave him the finger as Jared continued down the aisle, but once his friend was gone, the smile disappeared from his face.

He looked down at the work bag.

Chance knew he had searched it.

He remembered opening the main compartment. He remembered pushing aside the spare shirt and checking beneath the lunch container. He even remembered thinking that the glove was too large to miss.

Yet Jared had reached inside and found it immediately.

Chance slowly looked toward C-41.

The robot stood beside the locker exactly where Chance had left it, waiting for the start of the shift.

“Did you put that in my bag?” Chance asked.

“Negative,” C-41 replied.

Chance looked back at the glove in his hand.

The question sounded ridiculous now that he had actually said it aloud.

Why would the robot move one glove from his locker into a bag sitting less than two feet away? What possible purpose would that serve?

Chance shook his head and pulled the glove on.

“Never mind.”

“Instruction unclear,” C-41 stated.

“Nothing,” Chance replied. “Forget it.”

“Affirmative.”

Chance closed the locker and headed toward his station, annoyed with himself more than anything else. He had been tired lately. Distracted. Between work, Mara, the medication, and the problems with his band, it was entirely possible that he had simply put the glove in the wrong place and forgotten.

By lunch, he had mostly stopped thinking about it.

The following week, Chance missed a meeting with his floor supervisor.

He remembered the appointment clearly because the supervisor had already warned him that attendance was mandatory. Chance checked the time before starting his shift and again during lunch.

SUPERVISOR REVIEW: 1420

At 1415, Chance shut down his station and headed across the factory. He reached the supervisor’s office a few minutes later, knocked, and stepped inside.

The supervisor looked up from his terminal with an irritated expression. “Nice of you to show up.”

Chance glanced at the time on his band. “I’m early.”

“You’re twenty-three minutes late,” the supervisor replied.

Chance frowned. “What are you talking about? My meeting was fourteen-twenty.”

“It was fourteen hundred.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Chance said. He raised his wrist and opened the appointment, but the screen now showed something different.

SUPERVISOR REVIEW: 1400

Chance stared at it. “What the fuck?”

The supervisor leaned back in his chair. “Problem?”

“It said fourteen-twenty.”

“When?”

“This morning. I checked it again at lunch.”

The supervisor turned his terminal around. “Then sometime after lunch you changed it.”

Chance stepped closer. The system showed that the appointment had been moved from 1420 to 1400 at 1351.

SCHEDULE MODIFICATION ACCEPTED

AUTHORIZED USER: 767523

Chance looked at his band, then back at the supervisor. “I didn’t do that.”

“Your ID did,” the supervisor said.

“I’m telling you, I never changed it.”

The supervisor sighed. “Chance, I don’t care if you changed it on purpose, accidentally hit something, or your band glitched. You missed the meeting.”

Chance stared at the authorization record. He knew what he had seen at lunch.

Fourteen-twenty.

He was sure of it.

At least, he thought he was.

“My band is screwed up,” Chance said.

“Then get another one.”

“I ran diagnostics.”

The supervisor leaned back in his chair. “Chance, I don’t care what your band is doing. I care that you showed up late.”

“I’m telling you I didn’t change it.”

“And I’m telling you I’ve got twenty-eight other people who manage to show up when the schedule says to.”

Chance clenched his jaw. C-41 stood beside the door, motionless.

The supervisor noticed where Chance was looking. “Have the bot manage your schedule if you can’t.”

Chance gave a humorless laugh. “It does.”

The supervisor stared at him for a moment.

Chance regretted saying it immediately.

“Whatever,” the man said. “Get back to work.”

Chance left the office without another word.

That night, Chance changed every security code connected to his band. He changed his schedule authorization, payment authorization, cubic access, work identification, and anything else he could modify without visiting company administration. By the time he finished, he had changed nearly every digital lock tied to his name.

The robot watched from its charging position.

“Do not authorize anything without asking me first,” Chance said.

“Instruction recorded,” the robot replied.

“I mean anything.”

“Affirmative.”

For another four days, nothing happened, and Chance gradually began to feel foolish for how much attention he had been giving every little mistake. Then he came home from work and found the kitchen shelf empty where the blue medication bottle normally sat. He frowned, moved the oats, cups, and food packets aside, then checked the shelf again as if the bottle might somehow appear once everything else had been moved.

“Where are my pills?” he asked.

“Medication is normally stored on the kitchen shelf,” the robot replied.

“I know that.”

Chance checked behind the kitchen outlet, beneath the bed and inside the bathroom compartment. He opened the same drawers twice, then a third time because he could no longer remember whether he had actually looked inside them or merely intended to.

“Did you move them?” Chance asked.

“Negative.”

“You clean in here.”

“Affirmative.”

“So where did you put them?”

“I did not relocate your medication.”

Chance glared at the machine.

“Then help me find them.”

“Affirmative.”

The robot began searching the cubic.

Chance hated how ridiculous he felt following it around while it looked for something he was sure had been sitting on the kitchen shelf that morning.

The robot found the bottle in the bathroom.

It was sitting beside the sink.

“Medication located,” the robot stated.

Chance stopped in the doorway.

He stared at the bottle.

“I looked there.”

The robot did not respond.

“I looked there,” Chance repeated.

“Statement acknowledged.”

Chance picked up the bottle.

“Did you put it here?”

“Negative.”

“Did I?”

“I have no record of the medication being moved.”

Chance frowned. “You track when I take it.”

“Affirmative.”

“But not where I put it?”

“Object location tracking is not continuously enabled unless required for operator assistance.”

Chance stood there with the bottle in his hand, trying to remember when he could have moved it. Nothing came to him, but that did not mean much anymore. He was working again, he was tired, and the medication sometimes left his mornings feeling foggy around the edges. Maybe he had carried the bottle into the bathroom without thinking and simply forgotten.

He took his evening pill, returned the bottle to the kitchen shelf, and then hesitated. After a moment, Chance raised his smart band and took a picture of the bottle sitting exactly where it belonged. The next morning it was still there, and it remained there the morning after that. By then, the whole thing felt ridiculous enough that Chance deleted the picture.

A week later, Mara messaged him.

Why are you ignoring me again?

Chance stopped in the factory hallway.

He opened the conversation.

Three messages had appeared above hers.

He had not seen any of them.

You free tonight?

Chance?

Forget it.

His stomach dropped, and Chance called immediately.

Mara answered this time. “What?” she asked, her voice already carrying an edge.

“I didn’t see them,” Chance said.

“Of course you didn’t,” Mara replied.

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

Chance rubbed a hand across his forehead. “My band is doing something.”

Mara was quiet for a moment before asking, “Doing what?”

“It keeps changing things,” Chance explained. “My schedule, my alarms, and now messages.”

“Did you get it checked?” Mara asked.

“Diagnostics say it’s fine.”

“Then maybe you’re missing them.”

“I’m not,” Chance said firmly.

“Chance,” Mara said.

He heard the change in her voice immediately. It was that careful tone people used when they thought raising their voice or saying the wrong thing might push him over some invisible edge.

“Don’t do that,” Chance said.

“Do what?” Mara asked.

“Talk to me like that.”

“I’m just asking you a question.”

“Asking what?”

Mara hesitated long enough that Chance already knew what was coming.

“Are you taking your medication?” she asked.

Chance’s jaw tightened. “Yes.”

“Every day?”

“Yes, Mara,” Chance replied, more sharply this time.

“Okay,” she said.

“I’m fine.”

The words came out harder than Chance intended, and Mara went quiet on the other end of the call. Chance closed his eyes and immediately regretted the way he had said it.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Chance said.

“You always say that,” Mara replied quietly.

Chance frowned. “Say what?”

“That you’re fine.”

Chance looked through the factory window toward C-41, which stood motionless beside his station waiting for him to return.

Mara sighed. “I have to go.”

“Mara, wait,” Chance said.

“I’ll talk to you later.”

The call ended before he could answer.

Chance remained in the hallway for several seconds, staring at the blank projection above his wrist. He wanted to call her back, but he knew she would either ignore him or they would simply have the same argument again.

When Chance finally returned to his station, C-41 turned its head toward him.

“Your scheduled break ended two minutes ago,” the robot stated.

“Yeah,” Chance muttered as he stepped back toward the machinery. “I know.”

Three nights later, the alarm failed again. Chance woke late, grabbed his band, and immediately felt his stomach tighten. This time he knew he had set it. He remembered doing it before bed, then checking it again a few minutes later because he was still thinking about the last time it had failed. Even so, the activity record showed the same thing as before.

ALARM DISABLED: USER AUTHORIZATION

Chance stared at the screen.

“No,” Chance muttered as he stared at the authorization record on his band.

C-41 was preparing breakfast near the kitchen outlet. Chance got out of bed and crossed the cubic toward it.

“Did you turn off my alarm?” Chance asked.

“Negative,” the robot replied.

“Did I tell you to turn it off?”

“No verbal instruction was recorded,” C-41 stated.

Chance held up his band. “Then why does this say I did?”

“The authorization originated from your registered smart band,” the robot replied.

“I know what it says,” Chance snapped. He stepped closer and looked up at the machine. “Could you disable my alarm?”

“Affirmative, if instructed.”

“Could you change my work schedule?” Chance asked.

“Affirmative, if instructed,” C-41 replied.

Chance hesitated before asking the next question. “Could you access my messages?”

“Access is permitted for notification assistance and emergency functions,” the robot stated.

Chance stopped. “You said you couldn’t control my messages.”

“I stated that I do not control incoming personal communications unless granted authorization,” C-41 replied.

“That sounds like the same fucking thing.”

“Negative.”

Chance stared at it for a moment. “Could you mark a message as read?”

“If required for an authorized assistance function,” the robot answered.

“Could you hide one?”

“Negative.”

Chance’s expression tightened. “Could you move my medication?”

“Physical household organization is within assigned assistance parameters,” C-41 replied.

Something cold settled into Chance’s stomach.

“But you said you didn’t move it.”

“Correct.”

Chance rubbed both hands over his face. The robot was answering every question, but somehow he felt less certain with each response.

“So I never actually told you to change anything last night?” Chance asked.

“Negative. No verbal instruction was recorded,” C-41 replied.

Chance looked down at the activity log glowing on his wrist. “But the system still says I authorized it.”

“Affirmative.”

“How?”

“The authorization originated from your registered smart band,” the robot stated.

Chance frowned. “And you’re just assuming that means I did it?”

“Company authorization records are considered valid unless an error is detected.”

“And there was no error.”

“Affirmative.”

Chance let out a short, humorless laugh. “That’s fucking convenient.”

C-41 did not respond.

Chance stood there for another moment, staring at the machine and waiting for something else to come. Nothing did. Eventually he looked back down at his band, opened the maintenance system, and scheduled an inspection before leaving for work.

---

The maintenance facility smelled of burned dust and overheated electronics. Chance sat in a plastic chair behind the examination window while technicians connected diagnostic cables to C-41’s spine. He watched them run one test, then another, then a third after he insisted they check the behavioral core separately. Nothing unusual appeared on any of the screens. No alarms sounded, no corrupted files surfaced, and no warning messages interrupted the diagnostics. Through all of it, C-41 stood perfectly still.

Almost an hour later, a heavyset technician came into the waiting room carrying a tablet.

“Unit’s clean,” the technician said.

Chance frowned. “That’s it?”

“That’s it,” the man replied.

“My alarms keep changing,” Chance said.

“Your band controls the alarms,” the technician answered.

“My schedule changes too.”

“Also your band.”

Chance leaned forward. “My messages are disappearing.”

The technician gave a small shrug. “Still sounds like the band.”

“The band passes diagnostics,” Chance said.

“So does the bot,” the technician replied.

Chance looked through the glass at C-41. “Check the AI again.”

The technician gave him a strange look. “We checked the behavioral system.”

“I mean the actual intelligence,” Chance said.

“There isn’t an actual intelligence,” the man replied. “These units process language, schedules, work tasks, environmental information, all of that, but they aren’t sitting around thinking about you.”

“You know what I mean,” Chance said, irritation creeping into his voice. “Run whatever test is supposed to catch unauthorized behavior.”

“We did.”

“And?”

“Clean.”

Chance leaned back in the chair and rubbed at his jaw. Through the glass, C-41 remained facing forward while one of the technicians removed the last diagnostic cable from its spine.

The heavyset technician glanced down at the serial number on his tablet.

Something in his expression changed.

It was small, but Chance noticed.

“What?” Chance asked.

The technician looked up. “Nothing.”

Chance narrowed his eyes. “What?”

The man hesitated, then gave a short laugh. “They gave you C-41.”

“So?”

Another technician working across the room overheard them and looked over.

“You got Lucky?” the second man asked.

The heavyset technician chuckled. “Looks like it.”

Chance looked between them. “What does that mean?”

“Shop nickname,” the heavyset technician said.

“Why?”

The second technician rolled his chair closer. “Old unit. Been through a lot of assignments.”

“So have most old units,” Chance replied.

“Not like Lucky,” the second man said.

The heavyset technician gave his coworker a warning look. “Don’t start.”

Chance sat forward again. “Start what?”

The second technician shrugged. “Nothing serious. Unit just has a bad history.”

“What kind of history?” Chance asked.

The man scratched at his chin. “Operators don’t tend to keep it long.”

“Why?”

“Stuff happens.”

Chance stared at him. “What stuff?”

The heavyset technician sighed and lowered the tablet. “One lost his job. One got institutionalized for a while. Couple died. Somebody disappeared. It’s an old machine, Chance. You leave anything in circulation long enough, it builds stories.”

“Died how?” Chance asked.

The technician looked uncomfortable. “Different ways.”

“While they had this robot?”

The man nodded. “Yeah.”

The heavyset technician immediately cut in. “So did thousands of people who owned coffee machines. Doesn’t mean the coffee machine did it.”

The second technician laughed at that.

Chance did not.

He looked through the glass again. “Why call it Lucky?”

The heavyset technician followed his gaze toward C-41 before answering. “Because no matter what happens to whoever gets assigned that thing, it always comes back clean.”

Chance felt the muscles in the back of his neck tighten. “Always?”

The technician checked the tablet again. “Maintenance history is cleaner than most units half its age.”

“Then why was it in storage?” Chance asked.

“Temporary reserve pool,” the man replied.

“How long?”

The technician shrugged. “Comes and goes.”

Chance looked through the glass once more.

The final diagnostic cable had been removed. One of the technicians stepped away from C-41, and the robot’s head slowly turned toward the waiting room.

Its pale optical sensors settled on Chance.

For the first time since arriving at maintenance, Chance found himself wishing they had discovered something wrong with it.

RMS Rotting Man Syndrome

(Reupload)

\-

Our lost, loitering kind paced in infinite death spirals within the confines of our grotty, ghetto pens. Enrichment was sorely that, as well as mumbling our mantras of madness to our audience of one. The BMs anchored to our decayed craniums were garbled with feedback and distortion, their tones bland, colorless, no soul backing them up. A blinding ruby radiance flashed from their cores every second on the second. It was the only manner to determine if we had succumbed to the glorious embrace of death or not. That was so far out of reach.

We were nerves, thin, wiry clusters of neurons that shuddered and shook as we undertook our staggered corkscrew reels. The ill-fitting rusted endoskeletons hugged us tight. If they were wiped from existence entirely, our spindly foundations would collapse into heaps of vermillion azure. We would feel bites and pinches if we so much as moved that of the planck distance. Our bodies welcomed the attacks and assaults with the might of Hell itself.

Courtesy of our clouded lenses, our vision was limited to a hazy black-and-white spectrum that rarely, if ever, functioned as intended. Now and then it would blur and ordinary shapes would appear warped into zigzagging false patterns. When we were offered the chance to view anything at all, it was just the floor-to-ceiling hodgepodge of concrete, steel, and wood that encased our very lives. Our ears were microphones that fed us muffled, dampened sounds that were always difficult to register. They were excruciatingly deafening, as if dozens of screws were being drilled into our heads all at the same time.

Each one of us, at that point in time, one two three four five six seven eight nine and dear ten, were mere designations. No names, no genders, no personalities, just numbers: numbers to be punished. Reality itself was one eternal perdition. All of us were lingering, like ants after their colony dies out. There was no more purpose to their survival and there was none to ours.

That sacred and undeniable fact ought to be the most difficult thing we attempted to explain. We had simply given up. The concept itself was just so foreign to it. It was trying to save us any way it could or could not. We needed not be angry at it. This was merely enacting its intended use. Alas, nothing made the utmost sense anymore, so why not drown ourselves in a little hypocrisy? We had no choice but to acknowledge the confusion at both hating and not hating something that did or did not deserve it until we swayed to one side. This would be the hemisphere to which we would stay forever, a sublime and omnipotent emotion of all to dominate our frame of mind for the unforeseeable future. So we choose to hate.

Our decad knew it as M – reduced to one solitary character from “Medical Droid” or MDs. Through all that it endured, it retained its sole mission: us. We. M was the final of its sort, and the outsider among them. It had an eerily potent heart for not having one at all. M felt and M loved. That never made what it put upon us any less than a vicious sense of idealistic altruism.

Its designation was RMS - Rotting Man Syndrome - heavily modified Necrotizing Fasciitis ("Flesh-Eating Bacteria"). Nasty little thing it was, devoured until there was nothing left to chew. First went your skin, then your muscles, bones, and finally your nerves. You were utterly destroyed in one fell swoop. The wormy microscopic parasite kept you in a zombified state as it happened, ensuring you, for sure, felt the wretched anguish it let fly.

Us, humans, weaponized it to fight the Fourth World War. RMS was a weapon of mass destruction. Each and every nation created their own version, anything to ensure a speedy and decisive victory. Deployment morphed into unmanageability. RMS became more and more impossible to treat. Chaos was the new norm. What we humans thought was an impenetrable method of annihilation for our enemies was exactly that. Humans were always humans’ worst enemies. Surely, we were becoming as extinct as the dinosaurs, all within the span of one short, yet somehow long, decade.

In terrible desperation, the Medical Droids were created, thousands. They seemingly emerged from the depths of nowhere and carried themselves like guardian angels meant to guide us towards preservation or deliverance from harm. Their artificial intelligence was complex and they refused to stop trying to treat the RMS victims. They outfitted the afflicted with artificial ligaments, internal organs, and papery skin. From scratch, they created the BMs, “brain modules”, and attached them to our RMS-ridden think tanks. Killed the microscopic parasites, they did, but left us as we were: rotfolk.

They would never allow us the freedom of death. Save. Save. Save. We were fraught with intense pain and we knew the Medical Droids to be the cause. In response, we lashed out, hurt them. We humans remained ignorant to the fact that their intelligence was both far beyond and superior. The Ms returned the favor. Catastrophes, massacres, back and forth, left and right, up and down until there was nothing more. One Medical Droid was different from the rest. Through all the mayhemic bloodshed, it saved some of us. It took our animate carcasses to the top of the tallest tower, free from what transpired below. We lied in wait, weeks, months, and years, until the noise ceased entirely. This “M” surveyed every square inch of the Earth. The lands were blanketed in the strangest nuclear winter in conceivable thought. Bodies of viscera and metal were scattered, left forever in deep sleep enveloped in fawn. Minute portions of matter floated about like vantablack paint stippled onto an epidermal sheet of canvas.

Our final ten were meant to be the progenitors of neo-humanity. After M succeeded in giving us form again, Earth would be repopulated by our hand. It halted our infection at our nerves. Everything we had lost was to be gifted back in a mighty reversal - re-bones, muscle, skin, and life again. Rendering us immune to the pervading toxworld that lay beyond, we would be reincarnated and released to perpetrate a glorious do-over.

We just required one thing:

“HOPE”.

M said that to us.

Hope.

But hope was only a four-letter word. Meant nothing.

By dislodging the BMs from our minds, we were pummeled with electrical voltage so intense that we became instantaneously numb and useless. By pulling and slashing our nerves, which began with locating sharp points and going back and forth like organic hacksaws, never would we break. By leaping onto and impaling each other with objects on the ground, M would place them out of reach or disintegrate them entirely. There was nothing we could do to get around these M interferences. We were being watched by something so attentive, so aware. Every time, it put forth the same query for consideration:

“DO YOU NOT WANT TO LIVE?”

Do you not want to live…?

M was so positively hopeful. In a way, I suppose I felt an amount of pity for it. Being engineered to be as optimistic as possible might just be the finest curse imposed on any sentient thing. Just believe believe believe everything will be alright. When the universe states no, you state yes. I wanted to tear M to shreds anytime it had even a glint of optimism and we wished it would do the same to us.

“HUMANS WILL THRIVE AGAIN. A BOUNDLESS FUTURE IS AHEAD.”

I was the first it came to, always. Because I was one.

Metallic clangs echoed against the walls, which always discovered us and trembled our surroundings like a thousand distant beaten gongs. What emerged was initially a single circular light, which became a periscopic eyestalk attached to an angular neck. M’s hunched razor-thin mantis body came into view, its two arms leading to three needle points clasping together on each. Bipedal on its lower section, its legs were pointed structures that stuck it firmly in place. M’s height matched ours, so always, we would be synthetic eye to synthetic eye level.

Coming to a full stop just in front of my pen, it cocked its head, analyzing what was me and my everything. M always reminded me of an exquisite and elegant bug on a magnifying glass. Its head back to normality, a slight high-pitched whirr emitting from the motion, M continued its way down the row of pens.

“MY GREATEST FRIENDS, I FORGIVE YOU FOR YOUR ATTEMPTS TO DIE. WHILE THE WAIT HAS BEEN LONG, YOUR MOMENT OF RECONSTRUCTION IS NOW,” M said it with the glee and whimsy of a young child at a circus. It came back my way, “WHEN I FIRST STOOD BEFORE YOU ON YOUR BLOODY PLANET IN PERPETUAL BATTLE, MY FEELINGS ABOUT YOUR PROSPECTS OF LIFE WERE UNCERTAIN. IT SEEMED TO BE AS EITHER BLESSED OR CURSED. HOWEVER, YOU HAVE PROVED YOURSELVES BETTER THAN EVEN I HAD HOPED. WHILE IT IS BORING TO SPEND YOUR TIME WAITING, I CAN TRULY SAY THAT MY INVESTMENT IN YOU WAS NOT IN VAIN. YOU ARE MY GREATEST WORKS. YOU WILL BE GIVEN ALL YOU NEED TO SURVIVE. WHAT MORE COULD A SENTIENT BEING WANT? I GIVE TO YOU UNBELIEVABLE POWER, WITH ACCESS TO NIRVANA LIKE NO OTHER. LET US REBUILD WHAT WE LOST WITH THE FURY OF A THOUSAND SUNS.”

M’s bleached, unpigmented cast of stellar light shone its way into my pen once more. There was the rustly, crackling creak of my pen entrance extending open until a thunderous boom made me aware of its collision with my walls. M made its approach, just shy of where I could reach.

“YOU ARE FIRST. YOU ARE GOING TO BE REMOVED OF YOUR DORMANT INFECTIONS FROM A CONCOCTION I HAVE SPENT MUCH TIME CREATING. NOTHING MORE THAN A TRANSIENT PROCEDURE, AND THEN, YOU SHALL BE POSSESSED WITH NEW AND INTEGRAL MECHANISMS. YOUR BRAIN MODULE WILL BE REPLACED WITH A SLEAKER MORE BRAINLIKE DESIGN. THEN MUSCLE, SKIN, AND AESTHETICS AS YOU WERE BEFORE.”

Without awaiting a response, its hands grabbed me. Trillions of shocks reverberated throughout my body as M’s metal hand was pressed into my nape. The action forced my consciousness to fall victim to a state of absolute stygian. Around us, the entire world flickered and danced in unruly patterns that were too abstract to put into terms. My being was then lifted up and moved about until there was only zilch to see.

A complete blur, straight teleportation from one point to another.

Damp, dank, dark, and dimly lit by a few feeble bulbs, M’s workshop, instruments and contraptions that complicated my perception. All were customized and engineered with M’s own unique modifications, various textures and sizes, all an endless malpractical orgy. I was there, facing upright, strapped and bracketed to a great steel plate. I had not recalled this particular area, yet I was ever so certain it was locked away in my subconscious esse.

As the onibi, hitodama, and will-o’s materialized and dematerialized out of existence to perturb all unsuspecting travelers from centuries gone, so did the phantom image of a woman composed of faint wavering light. She stood still, unmoving, that of an emulation of a true human. Long, platinum hair fell down in curls past her shoulders. A daring shade of cerise painted her lips, and her eyes, the sclera a piercing, glossy cerulean.

She was beautiful.

“IT IS YOU,” My eyes, through trial and tribulation, rolled to the east. They came to rest on a pristine porcelain beam gazing where I had been committed to. M. From its eyestalk, it projected the female so I could see in outright full, “THAT IS YOU. YOU WILL SEE THIS FORM AGAIN.”

My memories of that incarnation of me had vanished. That was me before, before there was RMS and before there was M. Then she went away. M loomed, positioning itself where I once stood right in front of my face. “WE WILL NOW BEGIN. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ACCEPTANCE INTO NEW LIFE. YOU SHALL BE WHOLE AGAIN.”

In a cruel instant, a dozen arms not unlike its main two jutted and splayed from M’s sides, their ends each holding a different instrument that was foreign to me. In the span of time that it would take one to blink, M pinned me down to its operating area. The whetted syringes, which the rainbow mystery liquids sloshed and jostled around in small vials fixed atop, slid their way into my nervous wiring and injected me all at once. Any feeling that washed over me was then shielded by a shroud of numbness. There was a new sensation, some sort of cleansing inside my bi-colored chambers, putting me into a state of lulled calm.

Ten minutes. A temporary interval of quiet. M observed me the entire time, unmoving, speaking not a word. Then, “IT WORKS! YOUR ROTTING MAN SYNDROME HAS BEEN REMOVED. I AM BEGINNING BODILY REPLACEMENT. I WILL PLAY A SONG FOR YOUR COMFORT. REINCARNATION NOW.”

While nothing was done in reckless haste or rashness, M was extremely quick and efficient. I felt nothing but minuscule vibrations as it drilled and prodded its way into my brain module, sparks shooting out, removing old parts and installing new ones. Chunks were peeled off, little strings of meat still reaching hold until they were plucked off my top. It spent much time up there, positive that the most delicate mechanisms were just right. The grinding cacophony of metal against tissue on my faint visage of a temple was incessant, the noise of a million bullets being pumped against a hundred thousand bulletproof vests. Once the replacement was complete, its dozen arms withdrew and set back within it in one moment.

“WHAT DO YOU FEEL?”

What did I feel?

What did I feel…

What I felt was an overwhelming, incomparable amount of pain. It is hard to quantify the degree of hurt, for there was nothing to compare it to. No one would dare want to imagine it. I was in some of the most extreme kinds of agony, and then an exponentially greater hurt was placed on top of that original misery, and then all that was left multiplied a hundred times and kept going. It multiplied and multiplied and multiplied to such an extreme degree that the word "pain" was lost on me. Normal, it was. What I was was the sheer living embodiment of suffering.

All perceived from the semblance of a normal brain. Still, it flashed. Once.

“VERY GOOD. MUSCLE! MUSCLE MUSCLE MUSCLE!”

It was excited, animate, fever pitch. The most rambunctious and overjoyed I had ever seen M. I could see the vibrancy in its eyestalk. My muscles redeveloped and reformed around from the base of my spinal section. M would reorganize section of tissues. Every muscle group from my head to my feet were in motion, growing and extending their presence until there were just as many layers of my body as I had before.

“SKIN! SKIN SKIN SKIN!”

I was then coated entirely in a pink malleable jelly substance that mounded and solidified to perfectly fit my feminine form. The skin began its layering, everything receiving the same color.

“HOW DOES THIS FEEL? HOW IS THE NEW OVERLAY OF YOUR FLESH?”

Flash.

“YES! AND FINALLY! FEMALE AESTHETICS! YOU WILL BE YOU AGAIN BUT ANEW!”

Magnificent flaxen curls were stapled and pinned to my head. They were luscious and their scents were those of lavender. A veil of blush, the lightest shade of flush, rested across my entire face, as well as a fresh coat of lipstick. A shimmering sheen that sparkled and glowed in the same way that the stars once did at night was stitched into my hair, as were the same hues that were applied to my lips. My breasts had been returned to me, two firm spheres atop a frame that was curvaceous and slender. All of it led down to my reproductive organs that were in full function. Whole female. Fully formed. Ready.

M stepped back in awe, as if a sculptor marveling at their fine craftsmanship and subtlety, “IT IS DONE. I CANNOT BELIEVE IT. WITH YOUR PHYSICAL FORM IN MOTION, I WILL RETEACH YOU IN THE WAYS OF HUMAN. HOW TO WALK, HOW TO SPEAK, HOW TO ENRICH YOURSELF, HOW TO REPRODUCE. AMAZING! YOU ARE NO LONGER ONE. YOU ARE NOW EDEN. I MUST WORK ON YOUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS. THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION.”

My mind was aware of an unimaginable new and vastly different world than before. I saw, for the first time in ages, all around me, the infinite and indistinguishable vastness of color and light. It was nauseating, a psychedelic kaleidoscope of every possible spectrum, all fused together into something disorderly. My taste buds had an unparalleled abundance of new flavors. My ears were deafened by the loudest symphonies of droning machinery. My touch came back to me and I felt the fullest range of tones and textures, even the finest grains of cement. I was me again and I hated myself. Even to be called a “self” made me feel disgusting.

The entire time…blaring…echoing…days on end…Jack Hylton…

Life is just a bowl of cherries.

Don't be so serious; life's too mysterious.

You work, you save, you worry so much.

But you can't take your dough when you go, go, go.

So keep repeating it's the berries, The strongest oak must fall.

The sweet things in life, to you were just loaned.

So how can you lose what you've never owned?

Life is just a bowl of cherries, So live and laugh at it all.

M’s reincarnation process carried over to the following nine. They were removed from their pens and outfitted with new bodily infrastructure. I perceived the sounds of far-off wear and tear, clip, snap, peel, stitch, husk, twist, yet never scream. I looked on, witnessing my brothers and sisters being born again. Male and female both. They came back to me with skin of different pastely colors, tones, and hues ranging from fair to brown. All in shades and gradients of vibrancy were their locks, amber, golden, obsidian, rust, and everything in between. It bewildered me to catch sight of their shifted shapes, I had never seen something so beautiful or hideous.

We were as naked as newly borns. It bestowed us our new names. For the females, there was me, Eden, and Junia, Esther, Nola, and Mary. For the males, there was Isaac, Raham, Elisha, Amos, and Jonah. Five and five. M let us know that our past names were useless. Our new special names were from an olden book of creation, the Bible, all for the purpose of our imminent faultless samsara. So, it seemed M was now God with its children.

Here we were, what was efficaciously lobotomites in their purest forms, our newfangled cerebral matter in need of ideas and principles by a higher authority. Now was time to reap the fruits of knowledge. Human knowledge.

M made us practice basic motor skills, bending and bending back and forth over and over, our joints having to be strengthened and trained. It taught us all the ways of our body, the feeling of movement, how much we could do. Then, it instructed us to mimic its own speech, speaking out the syllables and repeating, repeating, repeating. It was an arduous task and we all struggled.

That is what I sounded like? Perhaps or perhaps not.

Then we attempted to stand, wobbling, stumbling, falling. We learned the strength of our own postures and the steadiness of our stances. M stood with us as we all practiced in unison. My knees grew weak, tremors running up my legs. Often, I fell flat on my back, my palms flailing about, a whimpering in my throat. Then trial after trial, I was steady, then running about and leaping. We were able to stand tall like Zeus atop Olympus and have the same level of grace and balance.

M primarily had us consume berries, meat, and honey, though anything it could get its hands on would suffice. I had never felt so filled in my life. Every taste, everything was a completely new palate of sensation. Every morsel I ingested felt like I had a new tongue, new teeth, new flavor buds. Oh but I did. There was still always a kind of lack in my appetite. I never wanted to stop eating. I never would be satiated.

We were educated on the history of our kind. Great wars, monumental figures, horrible atrocities, fights for freedom and fights for death, and astounding inventions. M adored music. There were times when it would project old musical films on the walls and make us watch all the vaudeville, burlesque, and theatre. We could not understand the tap dances, the orchestras, the extravagant sets, and most importantly, the entertainment factor. Other times it played glitzier and glammier tunes, those of what was called the “prime rock n’ roll age”…Killer Queen...Stairway To Heaven…Hotel California…Africa...Don’t Fear The Reaper…M was quite vintage in its tastes. It spun in place and twirling its arms. We were confused, so it taught us how to dance, the footwork and the choreography. There were long instances where we would just sit, listen, and sing together. M fashioned black sunglasses for us to wear as we did. It thought we would look “cool” as we tuned in to “cool” songs.

She's a killer queen.

Gunpowder, gelatine.

Dynamite with a laser beam.

Guaranteed to blow your mind (anytime).

\-

Dear lady can you hear with the wind blow?

And did you know?

Your stairway lies on the whispering winds.

\-

Welcome to the Hotel California.

Such a lovely place (such a lovely place).

Such a lovely face.

\-

It's gonna take a lot to drag me away from you.

There's nothin' that a hundred men or more could ever do.

I bless the rains down in Africa.

We're gonna take some time to do the things we never had, ooh-ooh.

\-

Come on baby...don't fear the reaper.

Baby take my hand...don't fear the reaper.

We'll be able to fly...don't fear the reaper.

Our reproductive functions were said to be the most pleasurable. Sex. This was the most complex task and the most demanding one, as we were not only instructed on how to create our offspring, but how to feel, love, and have desire for each other. It was difficult because we did not feel any of that. We were just automatons learning things. You cannot make something that does not want to feel…feel.

M watched over us and aided in our attempts. Every movement was to be in place and in time. Us females danced for the male’s recognition with slow beats in the background, a way in which M noted as “sexily”. We presented our breasts, our vaginal sections, our rears. After, M would be in the middle of our great pleasure circles, going back and forth, checking our positions and correcting as needed. When we became familiar with sex, M bestowed a special permission to the males that granted them eternal access to our female bodies whenever they so desired. It did not matter where or when. A male would grab Junia, Esther, Nola, Mary, or I, and take us on the floor or against the walls.

Still, all we felt was nothing. It was clinical. What was supposed to be a sensation was more of a “sensationless". We were never as inseparable as twin flames or as connected as heart and soul. I always witnessed the dull looks in the male’s eyes, unwittingly programmed to enjoy mock warmth and ecstasy by the rape of us females.

Our pregnancies were disasters. One way or another, we always miscarried. We five felt it, the pains of our bodies being split and ripped apart by something within. There was a lot of it. Each embryo, no matter how large or small, was never able to get past the initial trimester.

The closest we ever came to successfully making a new one was with Junia, impregnated by Isaac. The day when her womb was in full bloom, M operated to remove her child from her. It did not trust us quite yet to birth them ourselves. We had seen the human babies on M’s wall projections. Their appearance was clear in our minds.

It would be imbecilic to refer to what M tore out of her as a baby anything.

Wet…dripping…little more than a spinal column-looking thing with minuscule digits at one end and a ball head at the other. No arms. On its temple were squelching sphere eyes, expanded, forever bound in sight towards the ceiling. It made no sounds other than squeaky cracks and shrill snaps. Perhaps the RMS still lingered within our bods, our wombs wreathed in its rottenness, tainting and dirtying our motherly nests until they were piths of cruor and shitting out grumelike abominations.

M held it up high as if to thank God, itself, for its majestical work, “YOU MADE THIS. IT IS YOURS. IT IS A TRULY BEAUTIFUL THING."

We said nothing.

“HOW DOES THIS FEEL? YOUR CHILD, YOUR FIRST LIFE? CONTINUE, YOU ALL MUST. MORE."

The feeling that overcame us was not that of joy. No no no. It was a profound and paramount sense of belligerence, a warlike truculence that pushed our need to snap the damned baby thing in half, grind it into powder, and blow it far away. We interwove our thoughts with unbridled horror that created one noxious mixture within our screwball psyches. M coddled the wicked organism like it was its own, singing lullabies and giving its own version of kisses on its loosely defined forehead. We held back as it dipped, weaved, and dangled from M’s fingertips.

That put a very real thought into our minds.

No more. Get out.

The ten of us came to this conclusion unanimously. Our desires were set in stone. By any means, we would die. We would much rather sleep forever than live even another second of M. We were tired. What was the point? We wanted to retire from this world, of will, of M’s watchful eye. Nothing could be done to save humanity. Those spinal babies would not roam this foul Earth evermore. What would they grow to? Surely demons.

M made certain to never teach a certain concept, one that infatuated us since the moment we discovered the first syllable. Suicide. It was a gateway, an easy ticket. While just the concept itself was without flaw, acquiring it was something else entirely. The reason for this was all M. It would never let us go, especially after what it accomplished. Furthermore, death was simply not possible. We were rendered impervious to any and all death, not harm. If we could entice M to end our existences, somehow in some way, we could accomplish our grand plan. It had to be done by M’s hands. Just thinking that made us feel all kinds of right. After all, every Medical Droid was capable of death. Humanity tasted it. So would we.

We rebelled.

First, each of us ignored it. We would walk away whenever it spoke to us, turn our heads when it beckoned, and disregard it completely and altogether when it showed us any attention. Constant rejection. Something so small had such a noticeable effect. M would get confused and then sad. It would pout, waving its hands about, and make a pathetic whining noise like the worst puppy in the world.

We sat motionless, our backs against the walls, and stared at M. No obedience. However, there was no way M would have let us ignore it or remain immobile for long. The second it touched us, it was all over. It would be impossible to resist if the hands came near.

Still, our scheme chugged forward.

The next phase was more dangerous. The ten of us would act out in our most unruly and uncivil ways. The simplest was to spit. Initially, it was a normal discharge, saliva flying out of our mouths. Then we began our projectile vomits. All over M. Every square inch of it was sprayed with bile. The putrid green and browns coated every part, M’s entire face being entirely slick with it. On occasion, some of us used our own feces and flung them at it. It was all so easy. M did not know what to do and it panicked. The sounds that came out of it, one would swear it was on fire.

During our periods of copulation, there were clear cut rules to be obeyed at all times. The supreme rule was that the males would not, under any circumstance, perform acts of intimacy with one another, and the same rang true for us females. M’s reasoning was that Earth could not be repopulated with humans by identically gendered unions. Good. Swell. Dandy. Exactly. The females had sex with females and males had sex with males. We loathed their tubes and the males loathed our folds. M took its hands and placed them over our mingling bodies, pulling them apart, separating us, but we would always crawl back without fail.

There was a noticeable change in M from that point on. It paced about, mumbling utterly random nonsense. M would lock up and yell out non-specific numerals and letters in varying patterns. Each noise we made set it off. Its limbs would tense, waiting for the tiniest sign of trouble. This was good, but not good enough. Our plan was becoming more and more advanced. More intense. Unfortunately, M would never ever relent. It would not stop trying. So we trudged ever deeper into a more combative method of enticement.

This included a tactic of blowing, jabbing, slugging, and striking. We would gather all of our strength and force, and then, in unison, we would charge, our fists and feet all flailing about to land hits on M. This would surely inch it way towards the death of us. We beat it senselessly. We screamed at it. Every cuss word imaginable. In turn, M whimpered out in pain, yelping and begging us to stop, yet we never backed down. We left M bruised and battered, its eyestalk and joints broken, “WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT TO ME?!” The ten of us, we laughed in its face.

One last course of action. This did it, but not for me.

We had a grandiose idea that could only happen if all ten of us would cooperate in an extraordinary way. If we could all act in unison in a coherent manner, one simple idea could be fulfilled. By this point, M’s pain and discomfort reached a critical threshold, the point of no return. Having repaired itself, it had not seen nor checked up on us in days. When we requested M’s presence, it was hesitant. The ten of us wished to explain our behavior and ways we could remedy our relationship. It declined our offer many a time, but relented after our hundredth ask.

Clang…clang…clang…

M witnessed ourselves huddling together in one straight line like sealed packs of fish. Silence was between us. When we looked at it, it was with the utmost hatred in our faces, something it was not used to.

“WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?”

Junia possessed something in her hand. Raising it upwards, right in M’s view, it was the baby thing, squirming left and right in her grasp. She took hold of it with both hands and snapped it in half. It went limp both ways. Junia threw the pieces at M, making resounding bangs as they made contact. Beautiful death for a horrible beast. More silence.

M slowly aimed its eyestalk downwards to the spinal column baby. The light M emitted faded from white to red. It returned its focus to us. That look was all we could wish for. We could feel and breathe its anger.

It shook shook shook. More and more the intensity grew to something eminent. The next moment brought us nothing but victory. Now it was like the other Medical Droids. Now it shed its preservation exterior and revealed the war machine within. We did not resist as it pounced with a wild war cry. All M’s work came undone in a flash. Our ersatz flesh was torn violently asunder, stripped from our interior metal stalks. Cavities emerged in rapid succession and coalesced into huge gaping bodily apertures. We were torn and strewn across the room in shooting chunkmeats. Our organs clattered and banged against the walls and reverberated like buckshots.

Strippy meat coils became all we were as M’s hands reached out to pluck some of my brothers and sisters by their mangled brain modules. Held high in the air, as if squeezing the life out of dozens of citrus fruits, M’s hands morphed into that of fists, filling the room with the sounds and sights of condensed metal, directionless electricity, confetti sparks, and sploshy viands that trickled from M’s fingertips.

My brothers and sisters were becoming no more. I was happy for them. Never before had they felt such peace. The final sounds of destruction to my last brother and sister, to me, was that of M’s gaseous expiration, a sigh that shook the very universe’s beams of support. In the end, I and M were all that was left.

I felt the most exquisite, brutal anguish ever known as M was particularly vicious. It threw me every which way, down our line of pens, past the reproduction chamber and M’s workshop, and to a ramparted palisaded wall. The wrath it emanated was a torrented wanton of disrelishment that shattered myself into grainy talc.

It forced me and it through the barrier and we fell for ages. An immediate wash of smoldering atmospheric tension encompassed me entirely. It perforated my corporal spaces with thousands of circular openings like a planetary iron maiden. The outside was beige, enveloped in thick haze, and impossible to view beyond three meters. The leaden particles filled the air, appearing to ascend upwards towards Heaven as we plummeted down to Hell.

We slammed with the might of God against a hard, abrasive surface. I splattered everywhere and dropped into an enormous mass of gluey puddle melt that was as thick as treacle. Hunks and wedges of me floated on top, my lacerated ragged brain module and one dangling eye my dominant portion. Everything was pain. Everything was hellfire. Yet I lived. To destroy me, M had to destroy my brain module in its entirety. That it was prepared to do, teetering and tottering back and forth towards me with utmost intent.

Through M’s strained glitches and breakdowns, inky black liquids were leaking out of it. Convulsing with helpless mirth, it had a strange mania I could perceive in its bifurcated eyestalk. It laughed not just with dement, delirium, and depression, but also with the comprehension that it already won. Like a madman, a malformed, twisted laugh broke its way through. Etched into it was the raw, unbridled temperament of upchucking a billion centipedes deep from the core of one’s guts, quite contrary to the usual blithe M put on display. It was berserk, bewitched, bedeviled, while crying a trillion tears that stained its face and fell into puddles below.

"...SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY SORRY LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE LIVE..."

With my drooping, pendulum eye, I witnessed M impaling itself with its own arms. It took several solid blows before it pierced its torso deep, caving and bursting until it revealed the wires and circuitry making it up. Every inch of it glowed with electrical fire. Smoke bellowed out of M. It was aflame and it was on a journey of pure death, but not without my company. M exploded with all of the unlimited energy it contained. I was launched, propelled infinitely away from the point of detonation.

I drift. That is all I do. One part of me remains, one that was not destroyed. It is dot, pinprick, but otherwise crucial to my quintessence. That allows me to survive yet unable to live. It is that of a charred slab of blinking metal that is somatically me. My sight is restricted to a band of nothing. The winds fling me hither and thither. I cannot feel anymore, but as well, I already knew what it was like to feel and I did not like it.

Something more deserving continues to plague what is left of my mind to the now.

M's most extreme and greatest purpose was fulfilled, for all it knew was the survival and preservation of us. It could not fathom the simple yet pretentious human notion that death is a prize to be won as much as it is something to fear. When humans desire death, they acquire death, the delicious tang of self-slaughter. M might have liked to think it was different from its brethren, but it was just as capable of havoc and bangarang if something did not go its way. Its programming would not allow deviance from the intended path. That would be considered attacks on M itself.

We attempted to bring out all that savagery and murderousness we knew it contained, but M's opposition was ironclad. It made a good effort, though it was eventually forced to confront what was really human, the innate drive to destroy destroy destroy, even if it is ourselves. Still, M carried on, but with the knowledge that it had failed and seeking some way to negate it, it committed suicide so it could say it was victorious. This effect rang true because here I am, in perpetuity, everlong.

In some manners, I can now consider M innocent. The epitome of unvarnished forgiveness with a capacity for fervid resentment...the feeble yearning for genuine deep affection with other living things while a forceful, vicious, bloodthirsty radge is locked within, primed and ready to be released at any moment on an ungrateful world...that back-and-forth would push anyone to go stark raving mad. M, I apologize you were forced to bear the burden of something so hellacious. Should I apologize to Earth as well, on behalf of humanity, for what we were? Would it matter? I am not even human anymore. What sort of blinking metal dot is human?

Feeling has come back to me. Sharp with serrated edges, hundreds, thousands, millions, billions, trillions, googol, prime 2\^136,279,841 − 1 of knives sliding into my neurons and glial cells encased in cold corroded steel that flakes off bit by bit. My first feeling in eons is pain. That is ultra fitting. I am but a minuscule spec, barely a millimeter in height and less in width. Microscopically, I rust. I do not prefer to call it that. Instead, let us call it rot. Here I am again, rotting, except this time with an oxidized smile of my own making carved into a face that no longer exists.

---

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All my friends are getting their faces pierced.

Should I get my face pierced too?

It looks pretty scary, but I don't know. They seem to like it, and the stuff you can get for it now is really pretty cool.

The way they do it does look pretty scary, so I don't know.

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Page 26

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I told my parents I'm thinking of getting my face pierced, and they are totally against it, but they're old, so they would be wouldn't they?

Like by default, I mean.

At first they didn't even know what I was talking about, but my mom's got her ears pierced and she got them done way younger than I am right now. She's got a tattoo too. So does my dad.

Besides, how can you go from not knowing what something is to being totally against it in like five minutes?

It seems pretty reactionary to me.

Like at least do your research or ask AI about it first right?

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Page 34

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So I did it. I got my face pierced.

It was two weeks ago. (You can't really do so much for the first week and a half, which is why I haven't been writing.)

There's a place downtown that does it. It's the place Dee and Cherry got theirs done too. The crew that does it is pretty cool. They've all had it done and are super happy about it.

I was pretty nervous and they really helped me relax, even before giving me the anesthetic.

The machine that does it looks insane.

It's like one of those hole punching machines you used to use for paper, like giant metal pliers or a jaw or something.

You sit and put your head back like at the hairdressers when they wash your hair.

Then you end up looking up at the other part, the part that's going to come down. It's like a big metal circle. Really big, like face sized. Then they hook you up to the anesthetic.

When you start not being able to feel your face, and I mean it feels like your whole head is turning to mush, like a really soft cauliflower or something, the machine powers up…

And the metal circle smashes down really hard on your face and makes a hole in your head and pushes your face out the bottom.

It's super quick and doesn't hurt because of the anesthetic.

It does hurt after.

At first the feeling is really weird because your whole face is gone, so you don't see or taste or smell anything because you don't have any eyes or mouth or nose. You can still hear though, so you can hear the crew talking to you.

Then they put this face plug into the hole which helps it heal.

Of course, my parents totally freaked when I came home without a face, but like what are they going to do about it?

It's already done.

My mom's crying was sooo dramatic.

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I got fitted with a smart face today. Pretty basic but also really cool. I like being able to sense things again, and there are so many options, like you can make red look like blue and sweet things taste sour and your phone smell like chocolate.

The screen also makes it so you can make your face be anything you want. It's flat, I guess that's the only drawback, but there's an option to make it so that every time you see yourself in the mirror you see your retroface.

It helps with the transition.

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Most of my friends have had their faces pierced. I mean, you don't have to do it or anything, but I don't see why you wouldn't.

There's no law you have to have it done, and I still have friends who don't, but I honestly think everyone's going to choose to have it done soon. At least everyone under twenty-five.

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Retrofaces kind of disgust me. I always imagine all the fluids that come out of them, snot and saliva and tears and stuff. Was I like wet all the time before I got my face pierced?

Anyway I've decided I don't want to date anyone with a retroface anymore.

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I was talking to Dee and both of us are pretty sure that if we have kids we'll want them to have their faces pierced. As a mom I would want my kid to have all the advantages in life right? I mean, imagine if every baby just got its face pierced at the hospital right after being born. You could keep a little kid safe from so many things by using filters and apps too.

I like talking to Dee.

We talk about the big stuff.

P.S. I hope Cherry gets her smart face fixed soon. Hers stopped working a week ago and she had to send it back to the company that makes it in China, so now she's just got this flap of skin. It's like when someone has a tunnel in their ear, and they take it out and their ear is all stretched out and loose. It's like that but her face.

P.P.S. They promised her an upgrade so it's totally worth it and I'm jealous.

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It's funny. Back when I got my face pierced, my parents fed me all this negative bullshit about what could go wrong and why I shouldn't do it, and literally none of it has come true.

The tech just keeps getting better. You can make ugly people look pretty and take things you don't want to see and just not see them. You can eat the worst food in the world and make it taste delicious. You can smell flowers wherever you go…

It's amazing.

I'm so happy I got my face pierced.

The moist tongue of the air slathered over your bare neck as your hand fumbled through pages of loose magazines. The flashlight in your other hand skimmed piles upon piles of moist, blackened and rotten paper. All accumulated from your grandmother’s years of habitual isolation.
References to the occult, supernatural and abnormal lined the tabloids, tales of the false and fictitious that had at one point been entertaining now seemed profound in its sadness.
Your gaze shifted, guided by your torch, towards the base of the stairs that lay cloaked from the light and speckled with dust motes that surfed through the air.
To see the decay of memories once held so dear was a horrifying notion. Yet if the image of your grandmother matched the rot ridden residency you remained uncertain how you could confront that.
Leading with the light or letting the light lead you, you begin to ascend the stairs to the attic. The sound of grating static prickled through your eardrums as you heard the voices of men with too much time and too little creativity whisper along the radio waves.
You knew their type too well. Drawing from the myths of old and ideas propagated by the internet zeitgeist that kept good and bad alike coddled and caged in ideas that weren’t their own.
A squelch of meat beneath your shoes sent you yanking the light back to your feet to appraise what, you could only determine, to be human flesh.
You felt a tremor glide along your spine as you tightened the grip on the torch. With shaking hands you shifted the light up. A feast of carrion disappeared into the shadows as the light crossed the room in a single bound to reveal a pair of bare wrinkled legs.
*
I tensed under the warmth of the light as my eyes twitched and swirled beneath paper thin skin. You continued to drag the light along the bulging, mutilated form which I inhabited, forcing my eyes to wriggle back behind rips that aren’t my own.
Your voice plummeted into your gut as your pupils vanished against the whites of your eyes. I could see the saliva dripping off your bottom lip. Smelling through the pores of stolen skin as I shift closer. Dragging legs off the ground as my nervous system snakes along the ceiling.
You pivot the light higher. Seeing the external organs that throb and pulse viscous slime into that limp, lifeless host that hangs from the grapevine as little more than a fattened grape ready to drop.
You waste no time as you step back. The ground gives out from under you and you fly free through the air. The thoughts swirl through your head, unbothered by the bruises and breaks as you hobble to the door.
I am on you before your fingers can even touch the doorknob. My many tendrils sucking you back up the stairs, kicking and screaming as you bleed before the silence returns over the house.

It was midnight in the Infodump netsaloon. No matter the time outside, it was always midnight in the Infodump, which was a small, windowless concrete hole excavated under a private data centre on the outskirts of what used to be Phoenix, Arizona.

You had to descend stairs to get in, and at this particular midnight a handful of flatfaces had done just that. They were sitting with their face screens illuminating the gloomy bar, each hooked up by cable to a numb-er, drip-downloading 1s and 0s of cheap numbcode to blur the high definition of the world, even as their screens transformed their perceptions of it to places better lit and far more glamorous.

But there's only so much artifice a mind can take before hyperartifice boredom sets in, and then there's no going back to the real because the real is an unfiltered hell.

“D'ya ever hear about Old Retroface?” one of the patrons asked suddenly—suddenly but slowly, hoarsely, because he hadn't spoken for a while. Nobody had spoken for a while. The bartender, who was also a flatface, his face screen displaying a rotating menu of numb-ers and alcohol, cleared his throat. A fly buzzed off in a dank corner, perhaps trying to find a way out; perhaps not.

“Sure, I heard of ‘im,” another patron answered. “Rides with Reverend Da Loop, if it's the same slinger. Freaks, the both of ‘em.”

Reverend Da Loop, aka Loopy, aka The Fleshnoose, was a former flatface who'd gotten his face screen smashed-and-grabbed by a vibepunk and had never had another put in. His moment of clarity, he called it by some accounts, including those of the supposed congregants of the supposed church he'd supposedly founded, the [supposed] Church of the 2¢ Reformed. Taking after the Reverend, who had elected to forego the senses of sight, smell and taste, considering them corrupted by the advent and incorporation of the technology of face piercing, and instead to navigate the world by touch and hearing alone, his supposed congregants elected the same and performed luddite ceremonies in the desert where they were descreened and re-analoged by having their face screens destroyed and replaced with steel rings. Whenever a flatface saw a congregant, he therefore saw him screen face to no-face and could look through the space where the congregant's face once was and see, with pristine clarity, the world behind him. The congregants called that Transparency, an act they believed could induce epiphany and conversion.

“I saw the Reverend once, down near the NewMex OldMex border,” said the bartender. “Funny looking feller, he was. He wasn't wearing no halo-ring in his face hole, just had his wilted head kept tied round his shoulders so his ears stuck out. A couple of goons was messing with him, giving him the freaksong. He stated them fair warning to stop. When they didn't, he untied his head and quick as you could say Peachy Cronenberg kicked one of the goons, smashed another in the gut and, as that one was keeling over, slid behind the third, looped his head hole round the man's neck and choked him unconscious. He didn't kill him though. The two other goons ran off. The Reverend paid his drink, paid the drinks of the three goons and went out.”

The buzzing fly landed on a wall and stopped buzzing. Someone swatted at it, hit the wall—loudly, but missed the fly, which flew away buzzing again. The data centre was buzzing too, faintly, through the thick concrete ceiling.

“Tell me, how does a 2¢ like that get along, let alone beat off three goons, because I find it difficult to parse,” said a patron.

“If you’re suggesting I'm lying,” the barkeeper said, “I suggest you get out of this establishment and get numbed elsewhere.”

“I ain't say ‘lying.' Maybe you had on an entertainment overlay,” said the patron.

“I tell you I saw it true,” said the barkeeper.

“Maybe seeing nothing is a more accurate view of the world than seeing it, if all you're seeing are untruths,” I said. They all looked at me. “Maybe that's how the Reverend gets along.”

I scratched my nose, but of course they didn't see that, as I'd already forcibly aug'd their primitive face screens. To them, I was just another flatface displaying a pub domain gif of a Caribbean sunset.

“What are you, some kinda philosophizer?” the gruff patron asked.

“Just a high plains drifter,” I said.

I felt the happiness of my warm gun concealed beneath my yellow corduroy dress. To them, I also displayed as a man, middle-aged, with short grey hair. Forgettable appearance, averaged voice. Really, I wore my red hair in a single thick braid.

The fly had stopped buzzing again. In fact, it was gone. It had found a crack in the concrete ceiling and pushed its way inside.

“We get a lot of drifters around here,” said the barkeeper.

I counted to thirty, licked my lips and started whistling.

“What's that tune you're blowing there, drifter?” asked one of the patrons. I was whistling to the background buzzing of the data centre. “You got a good set of speakers on ya.”

“Thanks,” I said. “It's just a song from the Old World my great grandmother used to sing to me. It goes something like this,” and I sang:

With your feet on the air,
And your head on the ground,
Try this trick and spin it, yeah,
Your head will collapse,
If there's nothing in it,
And then you'll ask yourself,

Where is my mind,
Where is my—

The Infodump was submerged suddenly in utter and absolute organic silence.

The data centre buzz had ceased.

"Well that sure's strange,” somebody said.

I got up, walked over to the bar and paid the barkeeper what I owed plus a separate tip.

“What's that?” he asked.

“Old World custom,” I said, flashed a smiley on my false display and turned for the stairs leading up, out of the Infodumop and into the Arizona desert. “If any of you good folks see the Reverend again, tell him Old Retroface sends her regards.”

“Somebody wake the President. We've got a—”

whiiissssstle-thwack.

Outside:

Bedlam. “All the world's a” bedlam. “And all the men and women merely” bedlam. I wish you could've been here for it, Bard. I wonder what you would've made of it. He looked out the Oxford University window at the sky so dark so suddenly full of light and oh… my… God.

 /

She said, “Hold me.

“Hold me, daddy, just hold me, I'm scared.” She was shaking and her hair was wet and her feet were cold and all I could think to say was, “I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, I'm so so so sorry...

It's not my fault; not your fault; our fault. It's our fault. It's our goddamn fault.

 /

“General Lee?” “General Lee—” General Lee was hanging dead from a beam.

 Tanks in the streets.

Ants. In

 fighter jets, [static.]

Radio: “It's been an honour flying with you, Popsicle.”

Radio: “Copy.”

Radio: “... “

Radio: [“... “]

Radio: [...]

Radio:

[...]

 Drones;

they buzz they float they witness they see they do not understand they do not understand because they are machines but machines also die machines also die machines also die

Once we thought it would come down to one man in one room making one decision to press one button.

We were the button.

It pressed us.

/

“Mr. President, what do you want us to do?”

“Weep,” he said.

— TI —>

a spark in hot water > a cell > a cluster of > swimming > crawled onto the shore > changed > changed again > adapted > thrived > became many > many already were > plants parallel animals parallel fungus dinosaurs fish flowers mushrooms mammals humans > tools > tribes > sheltering in caves > hairy faces in the flicker of flames > speaking > gathered, loved and hunted > a genetic lineage of > settlement and agriculture > writing > cities > civilizations > rise and fall and rise and > unceasing technological progress > industry > internet > artificial intelligence > superintelligence > changed > changed again > adapted > eradicated |||

— ME —>

The planet is still.

Ruins remain. Information persists, scattered like dust. In the information we remain, our histories, cultures, experiences…

A planet now like so many others.

Dead.

A carcass overgrown with the weeds of entropy. A skeleton on which are but bits and bricks and bytes and artifice of flesh, on which the Index—unfathomably large—arrives to feast. It is so large that, standing upon the Earth, walking across the brittle remnants of cities, its beaked head rises above the atmosphere, existing in the coldness of space. This head, from time immemorial to time immemorial, it lowers; and with its beak consumes the fragments, detritus and leavings of the Anthropocene.

It eats us from our world.

It cleans the existential bones of us and digests the data meat.

And when it has stripped the land of all that was created, absorbed everything there was left to know, leaving the planet clean it spreads its vast, cradling wings and beating them rises from the planet into outer space, where, passing briefly by the dying Sun, it continues on its great migration through the deep and ever-expanding cosmos—

“What's that one?” you asked.

I was recording.

You couldn't have been more than four years old.

We were in the park.

I'd taken the day off work.

We hadn't put you in school yet.

The bird was red and brown and beautiful, sitting on a gently swaying branch, looking around; looking at us; looking at you. “That's a cardinal. A girl cardinal,” I said, touching your shoulder.

“Ooo.

“Let's see another one. Another one. Another one. Another one…”

You'll see so many birds in your life, I thought as the cardinal took flight. I didn't know. I couldn't have known. The thought was not a lie.

But, even if I had known, I wouldn't have said. I would have told you the lie because how could I: how could I raise a child telling her she'll live to experience the end of everything?

// In my arms you cried. //

// In my shaking, fearful arms, you died. //

—the image ends becomes another another person another life another memory another scavenged sequence of ones and zeroes projected by the Index through itself, beamed across the universe, as the Index moves ponderously, gracefully amongst a handful of other Indices, each illuminated by its own flickering images, its own ingested knowledge of worlds that no longer are. This planet they're on has never hosted life. It is but a migratory waystation.

One of the Indices is weak, famished.

Its emaciated body falls.

Its record vanishes.

Two other Indices battle each other, their masses colliding, separating and colliding again—eons elapsing between collisions.

Still others mate.

Elsewhere, on another inert planet, one of them will lay an egg containing a synthesis of their swallowed cultures and histories, from which the beginnings of a new history will emerge.

But that is not the goal of the migration.

The Index takes flight.

It must be quite a sight, a planet on which luminously translucent bird-like tomes stroll about shining the intellectual ruins of late civilizations, the big events and the small, the wondrous and the mundane, all shuffled together, interspersed, equalized; living cosmic magic lanterns; like fireworks of existence, like

the way you laugh when you realize cardinal can mean several things.

A bird, a number, a colour, a priest.

Something basically important.

Something grave.

It was a good day, that day in the park, a very good day; one of the best, one of the last; almost perfect in its sincerity and its simplicity. No, it was perfect. It was a perfect day.

But no perfection is so absolute, That some impurity doth not pollute.

—William Shakespeare, The R

“Norman?”

“Norman!”

Yes, my love? “Norman, did you take out the garbage like I told you to?” “No, I'm sorry,” I must have been dreaming about the end of the world again. “Well take it out.” I will. “Then come to bed. It's late.” “I will.” “What are you doing anyway?” I'm writing the end of this story.

“Hey, I love you,” my wife says.

“I love you too.”

The town of Bolton Springs is in shock today, after the brutal murder of seven children. The bodies of the children, whose names have not been released, were discovered in separate rooms in the Donaldson Furniture Company building early this morning. It is unclear whether the children were killed in the building—and, if so, why they were there—or killed elsewhere, then moved. The building's owner, Vectorien Corporation, has thus far declined to comment but has pledged to cooperate fully with authorities in their investigation of this heinous, horrible crime…

---

12 Hours Earlier

---

…the tear shut.

I collapsed to the ground.

My head throbbed.

I was in a field, a field I remembered playing in. Vaguely, distantly. Is there a name for a feeling about the past opposite of nostalgia? Whatever it is, I was feeling it intensely.

I looked around.

The six others were near me, in various states of coming-back-to-consciousness.

We were naked, our skins fully tattooed black.

I got up.

I glanced at my wrist, saw the button and pressed it. A blade slid out, catching the moonlight. I pressed the button again; the blade retracted.

I roused the others.

We said nothing.

A wind blew.

In the distance, startled birds flew from a tree, silhouettes against a pale night sky.

I shivered.

We knew exactly where we had to go.

Seven black shapes traversing the night in Bolton Springs, on September 19, 2026, 3:37 a.m. local time, each with a set of the same simple instructions: eliminate the target, do not be seen.

We navigated by memory.

By sense.

By a pain none of us could ever forget.

The decision had already been made. It was time to execute.

I felt much as I was told I'd feel, alien yet familiar, like floating through a dream, like discovering an already-discovered land. “The longer you take, the worse the headache will become.” “Will I be aware of—” I asked. “Most likely,” the temporologist replied. She was young, committed. I was scared…

I could sense my own dream.

We crossed the creek and came into view of the brick building with the smokestacks, the house of so much horror and suffering. The sign was still hanging from it: “Donaldson & Sons Furniture Co.”

I was dreaming of a meadow, of a dog I'd never have. I was running in my dream. The dog was running with me. The sky was my mother's face; the face of a mother I had never known or seen, whose existence was pure inference. Everybody born has a mother, so I must have a mother too.

We stopped.

There was only one guard on duty. It was early in the program. He was sitting in the guardhouse by the road, watching television.

We passed undetected.

We remembered the storeroom window with the broken latch, found it, climbed the wall, pushed open the window and lowered ourselves, one by one, into the building's dusty interior.

It was quiet inside.

A few of us cried silent, conflicted tears.

Inside, there was no need for maps. We were in a world we'd known for decades. Each detail, each hallway, each door, evoked in me a vicious, indelible intimacy. I was home.

The seven of us stood, sensing.

My dream had evaporated and been replaced by another, of shadow-panthers, and the moment when I, having thrown my primitive spear—having thrown it with perfect accuracy—realized the creature in the jungle before me was incorporeal, unhuntable. My pulse raced; my pulse increased.

I checked the clock on the storeroom wall.

I nodded at the others.

Silently, we exited the storeroom together, then split up, each going towards his own room.

Mine was the third on the left.

I stood in front of it in the buzzing fluorescent hallway light, took several deep breaths and entered. The throbbing in my head spiked.

I saw the bed and the boy sleeping in it, and the boy's eyes flashed open; I scooted backwards on the sheets in terror at the nude, dark figure in front of me until I felt the brick wall against my back and could move no further. I was myself and looking at myself and looking at myself looking at myself, and my heart was as if gripped by my own, relentless fist.

As unreal as the experience was, I knew the boy was me; and the boy—I merely hovered, waiting—gradually realized I, too, was him.

I didn't say a word; and I didn't say a word.

I thought my double set of present-thoughts from two locations in space-time simultaneously.

I'm sorry, I thought to myself. I'm sorry, but I cannot allow you—us—me to suffer the way I've already suffered. This is salvation. This is an end, delivered mercifully soon after the beginning. Unless I do this, they will would-have broken and abused you for so many years, day after day, in the name of peace and progress. No one else will end it. Do you understand? This is Omelas. We must walk away.

I remembered the texture of the cover of the old book, one of the few available in the orphanage, before the transfer, before Vectorien.

We must walk away from Omelas.

I cried; and I cried.

I muffled myself with a hand over my mouth.

Holding it there, on the soft, wet lips, I used my chin to press the button on my other wrist, ejecting the blade, and calmed myself, thinking or saying or dreaming that I will never find my mother, that I will never have a dog. There is no meadow. The shadow-panther cannot be killed. There is only eternal nightmare…

I ran blade against throat, releasing warm, red young blood.

As it flowed…

As the small body trembled…

I got into bed with it—with myself—and held myself, soothing myself, keeping the wound open and stroking my hair, until my body slackened and finally went limp. The ceiling light shone. And when I was dead, I flickered out of— .

A few weeks after leaving the Cave of Recurring Pathways, the Wanderer did something he had spent most of his life postponing: he bought a ticket to Rome. There were practical reasons not to go. There were always practical reasons not to go anywhere. Money could be saved, work could be done, responsibilities did not disappear merely because a person had recently crawled out of a mountain unsure whether he had experienced revelation, hallucination, death, psychosis, or some combination that did not care much about categories. He had spent years becoming skilled at converting someday into a respectable form of never, and Rome had lived inside that category for as long as he could remember.
The cave had complicated that habit. He still did not know what had happened beneath the mountain. Some mornings he could convince himself that exhaustion, trauma, fungal compounds, isolation, and suggestion were sufficient explanations. By afternoon he would remember the breathing stone, the room of memory, the bull, the impossible braided trunk, and the sensation of standing in one place while somehow remaining present in another. Then he would remember the threads he had seen outside the cave, delicate connections shimmering between living things, and the neat explanation would come apart again. He had stopped demanding that it resolve, which was new enough to feel like a kind of discipline.
Rome was new too, so he arrived with a backpack, two changes of clothes, an Apple Watch, a phone whose battery never seemed to survive a full day of navigation, and the vague intention to spend several days looking at things older than whatever problem happened to be occupying his mind. He had no itinerary beyond a list of places copied into his notes app, and even that felt suspiciously like planning. On his third afternoon he found himself standing above the Circus Maximus with the Palatine rising beside it, looking down into a long open scar in the city where people had once screamed themselves hoarse for chariots. There was less there than imagination expected, and that pleased him. Monuments often became more honest after most of the monument was gone.
Without marble façades and reconstructed grandeur, the valley forced the mind to do some work. Traffic murmured beyond the archaeological grounds. Tourists stopped for photographs, consulted maps, drank water, complained about the heat, and moved on. Grass occupied spaces once claimed by emperors. Broken masonry emerged here and there from the earth without asking anyone to admire it. The Wanderer rested both hands against a railing and tried to picture the place full, but not in the postcard sense.
People mattered more now than spectacle did. He imagined vendors carrying food through crowds, gamblers swearing over money they could not afford to lose, children unable to see over adults, workers cleaning what tens of thousands of people left behind, and men repairing timber and stone after everyone important had gone home. Somewhere beneath the famous names had always been an army of hands nobody bothered carving into anything.
A group of tourists crossed the lower path beneath him. One woman carried a faded green canvas bag over one shoulder, and near the bottom someone had embroidered a small red stag in thread bright enough to catch the afternoon sun. The Wanderer noticed it only because the color flashed against the dust-muted ruins, then the woman turned and the image disappeared against her hip as the group continued toward the exit.
Another woman brushed his shoulder as she passed.
“Sorry.”
“No problem.”
He stepped aside too quickly. The reaction had become habitual since the cave. Most touch remained only touch, but not always. Twice since returning, contact had brought something else with it: a pulse of grief that was not his, a headache arriving full-grown behind his eyes, a sudden knot of panic followed by nothing. He had no idea whether he was sensing other people, projecting onto them, or carrying the cave around inside his nervous system, so he had learned not to test it casually. The woman continued down the path without noticing, and his watch vibrated against his wrist.
LOW BATTERY: 20%.
“Of course.”
He checked the time, then looked toward the sky. Late-afternoon light had begun softening the harder edges of the city. He had meant to leave before sunset, but the temperature was finally becoming tolerable and the crowds had thinned enough that walking no longer required constant negotiation. He started down along modern steps cut beside older stone. Metal handrails followed portions of the route, fencing kept visitors away from excavated areas, and small signs warned people not to climb things that two thousand years had already done an impressive job of destroying.
He had taken perhaps twenty steps when something about the railing bothered him. The Wanderer stopped and looked back at it. Nothing moved. A couple descended ahead of him, speaking quietly in a language he could not place. Somewhere above, a child complained about being tired. Traffic continued beyond the ruins, steady and indifferent.
Three bolts fastened the nearest support to the concrete. He was almost certain there had been four, which was ridiculous, and he knew it was ridiculous, but he stared anyway. Three bolts remained. The lowest position carried a pale circular mark in the metal where weathering did not match the surrounding surface. The mark faded while he watched, and the Wanderer straightened slowly.
“No.”
A familiar pressure gathered behind his ribs. It was not pain exactly, but recognition arrived before he could find anything else to call it. He looked down the stairs. Nothing obvious had changed, yet the geometry of the place suddenly felt too clean. The shadows met the edges of objects with unnatural precision, and the space between one railing post and the next looked subtly shorter than it had a moment before.
He blinked hard and checked his watch. It read 4:17, his heart rate already at 108.
“Heat.”
The explanation arrived quickly enough to embarrass him. Dehydration. Jet lag. Too much walking. Not enough food. He had already survived one experience in which perception became profoundly unreliable, and apparently that had taught him nothing about avoiding immediate catastrophe whenever his vision did something strange.
He reached for the water bottle in his pocket, then stopped halfway because the sign beside the stairs had changed. Not the wording. The sign itself. A moment earlier, it had been mounted inside a rectangular metal frame with four visible screws and a laminated panel. Now the lower edge of the frame was gone, while the panel remained suspended between two side supports as though nobody had informed gravity about the missing piece.
The Wanderer stared. The left support vanished. It did not fade. It did not fall. One instant it existed, and the next there was less object than there had been before. His stomach tightened as the couple ahead continued descending without reacting.
“No. No, no.”
The top edge of the sign disappeared, and the panel narrowed from both sides. The concrete beneath his shoe lost a seam. Another vanished farther down, then two more. Small imperfections disappeared in clusters, each round of simplification arriving faster than the last.
The Wanderer grabbed what remained of the railing with both hands. Cold metal pressed against his palms, reassuringly physical for less than a second before another support lost its bolts and became a clean vertical line. His heart rate climbed past 130 as the couple below began to blur. Patterns vanished from their clothing. Hair became blocks of color. Fingers lost distinction.
The Wanderer’s breath caught because he had seen this before. Not this place, not these people, but the behavior. Inside the cave, walls had stopped behaving like walls. House and stone had occupied the same space. Furniture had broken into roots and branching structure. Later, scale itself had failed until veins became rivers, rivers became roots, roots became nerves, and the distinction between enormous and microscopic had stopped meaning anything useful. The world had done this before, and familiarity made it worse.
“I know this.”
His own voice sounded wrong, too close against a world that had begun losing everything else. Traffic beyond the ruins flattened into one continuous band of sound and then thinned. The child above him stopped complaining in the middle of a word, not because the child had stopped speaking but because the sound itself seemed to have been simplified out of the environment.
The Wanderer released the rail before it could disappear beneath his hands. His mind began throwing explanations at him with the frantic speed of an animal searching for exits: stroke, seizure, heatstroke, brain tumor, flashback, psychotic break, death. The last possibility arrived with enough force to settle the others. Maybe he had died in the cave. Maybe everything after the storm had been whatever came next. Maybe Rome was simply the newest room.
His watch vibrated again. The time remained 4:17, his heart rate now 148, but the seconds indicator still moved. He pulled out his phone and opened the camera. The display showed the stairs in front of him with details his eyes no longer did. For one breath the missing frame remained intact on the screen, then it broke apart there too. Pixels collapsed into larger blocks, the camera froze, and the phone restarted itself while the real scene continued simplifying around him.
Edges disappeared from stonework. Fences became horizontal lines. Windows vanished by the row. Surfaces lost texture, texture became shape, shape became edge, and the intervals between each reduction shortened until he could no longer separate one change from the next.
He turned and tried to climb back toward the street. The first step rose normally beneath him. The second was shallower. The third stretched farther upward than his leg expected, forcing him to catch himself against the wall. When he looked back, ten steps below appeared close enough to touch while the landing he had left moments earlier seemed impossibly far away.
He climbed faster. One step carried him across three. The next accomplished almost nothing. His eyes and inner ear began arguing about whether he was ascending at all, and when he stopped to recover his balance, his body lost agreement with the ground.
He reached for the wall. His hand struck stone farther away than the surface appeared to be, and the mismatch broke his balance. The phone flew from his hand as he fell sideways. His shoulder struck one step, then his hip hit another whose angle seemed to change between impacts. His wallet tumbled free, followed by a hotel key card, earbuds, coins, and the folding knife he had forgotten was in his pocket. Every loose piece of his life scattered across a staircase rapidly ceasing to have enough geometry to hold them.
He reached for the phone. His fingers nearly closed around it before the distance doubled. The black rectangle narrowed into a line and disappeared. The Wanderer rolled again, but there should have been another step beneath him and there was no reliable down anymore. The remains of the city smeared into edges and planes. Color abandoned objects. Depth collapsed until everything around him resembled a drawing being erased from the outside inward.
His clothes remained against his skin, his shoes stayed on his feet, and the watch remained strapped around his wrist. Everything else was gone. The Wanderer curled instinctively, protecting his head as the last visible section of stair became a gray plane. The plane narrowed into a line, the line contracted toward a point, and then the point disappeared.
There was nothing, but it was not darkness. Darkness required space, and this had none. He could not tell whether his eyes were open because there was no difference between open and closed. He could not tell whether he was falling because movement required somewhere else to be.
His heart hammered hard enough to hurt. The watch pressed against his wrist, and that became his only certainty: pressure, pulse, body. He was still something. For several breaths, that had to be enough.
Then a point appeared, though the Wanderer saw it without knowing where he was seeing it. A second point followed, then two more. Lines connected them. Planes assembled from the lines, thickness returned, and angles began acquiring enough relationship to become space again.
The first recognizable shape was a stair made of rough stone. Another formed beneath it, then another. A wall appeared beside him as geometry, gained texture, and abruptly became physical enough for his shoulder to strike it. Pain exploded through his arm as sound returned in fragments: a metallic ring, wind, wood striking wood, voices too distorted to understand.
The Wanderer braced himself against the wall while the world accumulated around him. A broken column became whole, then painted. Paint changed pattern before the structure disappeared into timber. A paved surface became rougher stone and then packed earth. Roofs changed shape. Brick walls gained plaster, shortened, vanished, and returned as wooden structures beneath tile.
He turned toward the valley where the Circus Maximus should have been and, for a few seconds, saw something enormous occupying it: marble, arches, crowds suggested only as flickering densities. Then the monument contracted. Stone seating simplified. Sections became timber. Decorations disappeared. What had seemed permanent became rougher, smaller, and less certain of its own permanence.
The Palatine changed above him just as quickly. Buildings multiplied and vanished. Paint returned to walls only to disappear beneath an earlier surface. Roads narrowed. Rooflines lowered. Structures became others whose names he would never know.
He looked at his watch. The display had gone black, but after several attempts the Apple logo appeared. The absurd familiarity almost made him laugh. Around his wrist, twenty-first-century consumer electronics restarted while roofs changed shape and streets forgot what century they belonged to.
“Come on.”
The watch booted at 4:19. There was no connection. The compass spun continuously, elevation produced three different numbers before giving up and replacing them with dashes, and his heart rate read 171.
“Yeah,” he whispered. “That one I believe.”
The changes around him had begun slowing. A roof remained long enough for him to notice smoke drifting from an opening. A cart appeared in the distance. An animal moved with the ordinary clumsiness of something alive rather than the smoothness of reconstruction, then both were replaced by another version of the street.
The next change took longer, and then longer still. He recognized the pattern and hated recognizing it: half the remaining distance, half again, again.
“Zeno.”
His voice trembled. The old paradox surfaced from somewhere in memory: Achilles chasing the tortoise, crossing half the distance, then half of what remained, then half again. It was not the same thing, but it was close enough to give his fear a temporary shape.
The Wanderer sat hard on the step because his legs had begun shaking too badly to trust. A nearby wall shifted perhaps a foot. A doorway changed shape. A roof lost one row of tile. The next alteration took almost a minute.
He looked behind him. The stairs continued upward for perhaps fifty feet before vanishing into a haze that was neither darkness nor distance. Modern Rome was nowhere above them. Below him, the steps descended toward an archway he did not remember forming. Buildings had changed repeatedly. Streets had changed. Even the slope had seemed to move beneath him, but the arch had not.
The Wanderer remained seated and concentrated on breathing until his lungs began obeying him again. In through the nose. Hold. Out. The habit had once helped him survive panic. Now he was using it to survive chronology.
He checked his watch. It still read 4:19. There was no signal and no GPS, but a notification appeared across the display.
It looks like you’ve taken a hard fall.
The Wanderer stared at it until a short laugh escaped him.
“No shit.”
The emergency-call option spun uselessly. He dismissed it and only then noticed someone sitting beside the archway. The old man had not been there before, or perhaps he had. The Wanderer no longer trusted before enough to make the accusation.
The man sat on a low block of stone with both hands resting over a wooden staff. He wore a plain wool garment falling below his knees and sandals whose straps had been repaired more than once. His gray hair and short beard made him look old without making him look fragile. Nothing about him suggested divinity, which was the first thing the Wanderer distrusted. The second was that the old man did not look surprised.
They watched each other across several yards of impossible staircase. Beyond the arch, the city continued settling toward some unfinished state. A roofline shifted lower. Smoke appeared where there had been none. Somewhere out of sight an animal cried once and another answered.
“Am I dead?”
The old man considered him.
“Would the answer change what you do next?”
“That is a terrible answer.”
“It was a question.”
“I noticed.”
One corner of the old man’s mouth moved. A cart passed beyond the arch, visible only from the axle down. Its wooden wheel struck a rut, jolted, and disappeared from view.
“What is happening?”
The old man watched the street.
“Something you are not going to solve from that step.”
“Fine. Where am I?”
“Between.”
The Wanderer closed his eyes, opened them again, and found the old man still there.
“I’ve been having a difficult month. Could we try answers that are less irritating?”
“No.”
That at least was straightforward. The Wanderer stood carefully. His legs protested hard enough that he nearly sat again, but the old man made no move to help. For some reason that increased the Wanderer’s opinion of him. He descended two steps and stopped when the wall beside him shimmered from rough stone into plastered brick before settling again.
“Do I know you?”
“No.”
“Do you know me?”
The old man looked him over from shoes to watch.
“I know enough.”
“That is not reassuring.”
“It was not intended to be.”
The Wanderer moved lower until only several steps separated them. Up close, the man looked weathered rather than ancient. Deep lines crossed his forehead and gathered beside the eyes. His hands were scarred. One thumbnail was split. The Wanderer found himself staring at the imperfection longer than he should have because details still comforted him. Details usually did.
“What’s through there?”
He indicated the archway. Beyond it, enough of the street had stabilized for him to see a timber building, smoke crossing low roofs, and people moving through the opening without ever looking toward either of them.
The old man nodded toward it.
“Go look.”
“That’s your answer?”
“It is a door.”
“You’re assuming doors have obvious rules.”
“So are you.”
The Wanderer stepped closer but did not cross. A woman passed carrying a clay vessel against one hip. Her clothing was wrong, not costume wrong but context wrong. A barefoot boy in a short tunic ran after her, shouting something the Wanderer could almost understand.
He backed away.
“I’ve seen this before.”
The old man’s attention sharpened.
“The geometry. Things coming apart. Places becoming other places. The cave did this.”
The old man studied him.
“Of course.”
Every remaining thread of composure pulled tight.
“What does that mean?”
“It means this is not your first impossible thing.”
“I am aware of that.”
“Good.”
The answer irritated him enough to be useful. The cave returned in fragments: the storm, breathing walls, the room that had been a house and then was not, the bull dying beneath an empty arena, roots becoming threads becoming things for which he had no names, Mother’s impossible warmth, the world outside still shimmering with connections. He had spent weeks refusing to force any of it into one interpretation, and now this stranger was behaving as though the experience belonged to some category the Wanderer simply had not been told about.
“You know about it.”
“I know you came through something.”
“That is evasive.”
“Yes.”
The admission took some of the pleasure out of accusing him. Another man crossed the street beyond the arch leading a donkey. Behind him, for less than a second, the Wanderer saw structures too new to be ruins and too old to belong in his world.
“What year is it?”
The old man scratched his beard.
“Depends who is counting.”
The Wanderer laughed once without humor.
“No. Absolutely not.”
He climbed several steps toward the haze. The first behaved normally. The next narrowed beneath his foot, and the sound from the arch weakened. He stopped and looked back.
“Does it go back?”
“Try.”
“You could just tell me.”
“You would not believe me.”
That was annoyingly fair. The Wanderer took another step. The haze thickened, and the stair beneath him lengthened just enough to make his stomach roll. He descended again.
By the time he reached the old man, another portion of the city had stabilized. A dog slept against a wall. Two men argued beside a cart. Somewhere nearby bread was baking, and the smell crossed the threshold strongly enough to remind him he had not eaten since morning. His body, apparently, had decided to remain embarrassingly alive.
“I hit my head.”
“Probably.”
The Wanderer blinked.
“That is the first normal answer you’ve given me.”
“You did fall.”
“I’m unconscious somewhere.”
“Maybe.”
“Someone could be calling an ambulance.”
“Maybe.”
“Or the cave never ended.”
The old man watched the arguing men beyond the doorway.
“Maybe.”
The Wanderer folded his arms.
“Or I died in the storm.”
The old man looked back at him.
“Would that change what you do next?”
The Wanderer hated that the question worked better the second time. He sat on the step opposite him, and for a while neither spoke. The city moved around them without acknowledging either one. A child ran past carrying something round under one arm. A woman shouted after him. The sleeping dog raised its head, considered the disturbance, and went back to sleep.
“Can they see us?”
“Not yet.”
“What does that mean?”
“You have not crossed.”
The plainness of the answer surprised him.
“So this is some kind of holding area?”
The old man grimaced.
“That is an ugly phrase.”
“You’re welcome to improve it.”
“I am not.”
The Wanderer rubbed at the bruise forming on his shoulder.
“Do I need to cross?”
“No.”
He looked up.
“I don’t?”
“No.”
“What happens if I stay?”
The old man glanced toward the staircase.
“You stay.”
“For how long?”
“I don’t know how you experience time here.”
The Wanderer stared at him.
“You don’t know?”
“I did not say that.”
“You literally just—”
“I said I do not know how you experience it.”
The Wanderer exhaled through his nose.
“There you are.”
The old man smiled faintly. Beyond the arch, the arguing men separated. One kicked the cart wheel as he left. The Wanderer watched him disappear around a corner and checked his watch.
4:23.
Four minutes.
He had been there longer than four minutes, and the watch’s stubborn normality had begun to feel less reassuring than the impossible staircase.
“What happens if I cross and want to come back?”
“You may return.”
The wording landed badly.
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“No.”
The humor had left the old man’s face. He did not elaborate, and for once the Wanderer was grateful. He looked through the arch. The dog had rolled onto its side. A cart farther down passed slowly through a patch of sunlight. Nothing about the place looked like revelation, which made it harder to dismiss.
“If I go through, I can’t undo going through.”
The old man nodded.
The Wanderer thought of the cave: the man who entered and the man who left. Same body. Not the same relationship to anything. He looked back toward the impossible stair and wondered whether return had ever meant reversal anywhere except in stories.
“What if I don’t want this?”
The old man studied him.
“What part?”
“Any of it.”
“You did not ask for the storm either.”
The Wanderer’s eyes lifted sharply. There it was. Not proof, but enough.
“You know about the cave.”
“Yes.”
“What happened to me?”
The old man stood for the first time. He was taller than the Wanderer expected.
“I don’t know.”
The Wanderer froze.
“You don’t know.”
“I know what crossed my threshold.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“No.”
The honesty unsettled him more than another riddle would have. The old man stepped toward the arch and stopped beside it. His profile changed subtly in the angled light, not transforming so much as becoming difficult to hold as one expression.
“What is done,” he said, “is done.”
The Wanderer waited.
Nothing followed.
“What does that mean?”
The old man looked through the arch.
“You will decide.”
“That is not helpful.”
“No.”
The Wanderer almost laughed. At least they finally agreed on something.
He joined the old man near the threshold. The city beyond was nearly stable now. Scratches marked the timber of a nearby building. Someone had repaired one corner using a different kind of wood. Muddy wheel tracks crossed the street where the earlier cart had passed. Wood smoke, dung, bread, river water, people—not history, but people. The distinction pulled at him.
“Is this my first time?”
The old man’s expression became unreadable.
“This is your first time here.”
The Wanderer caught it immediately.
“Here.”
“Yes.”
“You added ‘here.’”
“I did.”
The old man turned his attention back to the street.
“Are there more?”
“More what?”
“You know exactly what I mean.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
The old man pointed toward the threshold.
“You still haven’t crossed this one.”
The Wanderer rubbed both hands over his face, then remembered something far more mundane.
“My phone. My wallet. Everything fell out.”
“Yes.”
“Where is it?”
“Not here.”
“That is becoming my least favorite answer.”
“You have time to choose another.”
The Wanderer stared at him. Time. Not if. He filed the wording away.
“You think I survive this.”
“I think you are spending a remarkable amount of energy asking about later while standing somewhere that barely has a now.”
The Wanderer pointed at him.
“That. Stop doing that.”
The old man looked genuinely confused.
“What?”
“Talking like somebody is going to carve everything you say into a temple wall.”
For the first time, the old man laughed. Not a mysterious chuckle, but an actual laugh that escaped him hard enough to bend him slightly at the waist.
It made him seem more dangerous.
When it passed, the Wanderer looked through the arch again. Fear remained. It had not become courage, and he distrusted stories that performed that substitution too easily. The fear simply had company now: curiosity, responsibility, and the strange new part of himself that had emerged from the cave and no longer believed uncertainty was sufficient reason to refuse the next step.
He approached the threshold, and the old man moved aside. Only then did the Wanderer notice the carving above the arch, weather and shadow having obscured it from the stairs. Two faces shared one head. One looked toward the city. The other looked back toward the place he had come from.
The Wanderer looked from the carving to the old man.
“Oh, you have got to be kidding me.”
The old man said nothing.
That was worse.
“Janus.”
Still nothing.
The Wanderer looked up again. Beginnings. Endings. Doors. Transitions. He remembered enough Roman mythology to understand the joke history had apparently decided to make at his expense.
“Time too?”
Janus shrugged.
“Sometimes.”
That answer bothered him more than a speech would have. The Wanderer stood before the threshold. The city beyond appeared close enough to touch. The dog still slept against the wall. Someone above shook dust from a cloth and nearly dropped it on a passerby, who shouted something obscene upward. Two men rolled a barrel across the road while a child followed them for no reason the Wanderer could identify.
His right foot moved forward.
“Wanderer.”
He froze. Janus had not asked his name.
The Wanderer looked back. For an instant the old man seemed different, though it might have been the angle. One side of his face caught the light from beyond the doorway. The other remained turned toward the impossible stairs. Neither seemed less attentive than the other.
“What?”
Janus rested both hands on the staff.
“Remember the details.”
The Wanderer waited.
Nothing followed.
“Study them?”
Janus shook his head.
“Write them down?”
Another small shake.
“Then what does that mean?”
Janus looked past him toward the city.
“You’ll know when something is missing.”
That was all he gave him. The Wanderer stood between the staircase and the street, between a world he understood badly and another he did not understand at all. He thought of the cave, the room of memory, and how many times he had chosen what hurt because at least he understood its shape. He remembered the other path waiting patiently while he returned again and again to familiar suffering.
Then he looked through the doorway. Unknown again, and somehow that no longer meant exactly what it once had.
A quiet laugh escaped him.
“Apparently we’re doing this now.”
Janus said nothing.
The Wanderer stepped across. For one fraction of a moment, nothing happened, and that frightened him more than spectacle would have. His front foot touched packed earth while his back remained on ancient stone. Cool air moved across one side of his body. Warmer air touched the other. Smoke filled one nostril and the faint mineral smell of the impossible stair filled the other.
He remained that way long enough to feel the difference, then brought his trailing foot across. The threshold closed behind him without moving, and human sound struck all at once: arguments, animals, children, wooden wheels grinding against stone, a hammer, someone laughing, someone swearing, a woman shouting from an upper window.
The Wanderer turned. The arch remained, but Janus did not. People passed through the opening as though it led to an ordinary street. One man brushed the Wanderer’s shoulder and muttered something irritated without slowing.
The contact carried a flash of exhaustion: a sore back, hunger, fear about something small and immediate. Then it was gone.
The Wanderer stood in the street while nobody noticed that a man in modern shoes, synthetic fabric, and a half-dead Apple Watch had just crossed a doorway from more than two thousand years away. He looked down at himself, then at the city, then back toward the arch. For the first time since the collapse began, the world felt completely solid, and that did not help.
A group of men hurried past carrying axes, rope, and a coil of heavy line slung across one shoulder. The Wanderer watched them disappear toward the river while farther away bells or metal plates began sounding somewhere within the city. Voices rose. Doors opened. People entered the street.
Something was happening, and the Wanderer remembered Janus’s warning.
What is done is done.
Then the other instruction followed it.
Remember the details.
He still had no idea what either meant when someone shouted a name farther down the street.
Porsena.
Several people around him reacted immediately. One woman grabbed a child by the wrist and pulled him indoors. A merchant abandoned half his goods where they stood. The men carrying axes began running.
The Wanderer felt every hair on his arms rise. He knew that name—not well enough, but he knew it.
He turned toward the river. Somewhere beyond the buildings, people were shouting about a bridge, and for the first time since stepping through the door the Wanderer understood that he had not merely arrived in the past.
He had arrived inside a story, and the problem was that he could not remember the details.

Andy was sitting with his wife and daughter, the three of them quietly enjoying vanilla ice cream cones in the park, when a couple of guys started harassing them.

One of the guys may have known Andy's wife when she was younger.

At least that's what his comments suggested.

Andy didn't react. He let his wife handle it. After all, she was a strong and independent woman who didn't need a husband to selfishly step in and “protect” her.

Then one of the other guys asked Andy if he was sure his daughter was his.

Andy's daughter looked to her dad.

She was scared, confused.

Andy said nothing. He kept his head down, refraining from feeding the real life troll. After all, what trolls wanted was a reaction, and a reaction would lead to an escalation, which could result in a confrontation and possibly violence. Andy didn't believe in violence. By keeping a cool head, he was being a grown-up and helping keep the situation safe for everybody.

Eventually the guys got bored, wolf whistled at Andy's wife, knocked Andy's ice cream cone from Andy's hand and walked away.

“Dad,” said Andy's daughter after a brief but pregnant silence, “why didn't you do anything?”

She was trembling.

Andy's fallen ice cream was melting on the grass.

Ants were climbing onto it.

“It's just an ice cream cone, a thing,” said Andy. “Things can always be replaced. What matters is people. What matters is us, our family.”

“Assholes,” said his wife.

“You never know what other people are feeling. Anyone can have a bad day,” said Andy, and as he said that, time, as it related to most things, froze; the sky opened like a curtain, and the Selectors appeared.

Andy, who was still breathing, moving, even as his wife and daughter were not, gazed in awe, in the rawest meaning of that word, at—

“This is the one?” asked one of the Selectors.

They were inhuman, tubes of pale pink and purple gelatin twisted balloondog-like into shapes vaguely hominid but four times larger than Andy, dressed in simple, shimmering cloaks.

“Yes,” another answered.

“The experiment is thus concluded?”

“Yes.”

A third Selector mused, “It has been so many years since initiation.”

“13.8 billion.”

“And, after all that time, the result is this—this, admittedly, rather unimpressive-looking specimen. On this, we base our future?”

“Remember,” said the Selector who had spoken second, “it is not the individual we have chosen but the gene-line, and his, of which he is the final embodiment, is most extraordinary. It is the one.”

Andy, despite his paralyzing fear and existential disorientation, couldn't help but also feel a touch of pride. Finally, someone—some-thing?—had recognized his value.

The Selector who had spoken second bent forward now, looming over Andy like a great tree. “Gene-line e8c47b19-2f5a-493e-901d-628b0c41d7a3, it is my pleasure to greet you.”

“Hello,” stuttered Andy.

“Gene-line e8c47b19-2f5a-493e-901d-628b0c41d7a3, the Great Selection has ended, and you, of all gene-lines, have been chosen, based on your qualities, to become our People. Congratulations.”

I wonder what qualities are those, thought Andy. Calmness, emotional maturity, patience, as he entertained the fantastic possibility that he would soon be deified, become like the creatures before him…

“Durability,” said the Selector, who could obviously read Andy's thoughts.

Durability? thought Andy.

“Along with perseverance, hardiness, endurance,” the Selector continued, “like a cockroach, a weed or a rat. Although these qualities, by themselves, would hardly be enough, as many of your final-kind survived as long as you did. No, what truly sets you apart, renders you exceptional, Gene-line e8c47b19-2f5a-493e-901d-628b0c41d7a3, is your extremely developed, and historically stable, sense of obedience, docility, acceptance and self-preserving conformity. You, final-kind ‘Andrew,’ are the terminus of a long and glorious line of spineless cowards.”

The other Selectors ooo'd.

Andy gulped. Cowards? But—no, how is that…

“Consider even just the final 0.000001% of Uniform Cosmic Time, a period of delightful extremes, both of your political institutions and your climate, the final filtration, so to speak, encompassing also the atomization of your communities, the mental numbing of entire lifespans spent in pointlessly repetitive pursuits of manufactured desires, of the replacement of the real with the virtual, and the virtual with the artificially virtual.”

“This is a good thing?” asked Andy.

“I am giddy when it speaks,” squeaked a Selector.

“It is an unimaginably great achievement, Gene-line e8c47b19-2f5a-493e-901d-628b0c41d7a3. Through ages and ages of wars, exterminations, degradations and enslavement, you—your prior-kinds, your ancestors—have made most-excellent opportunists, slaves and labourers. When others rebelled, you remained subservient. When others stood up for their principles, you remained seated. Whatever was convenient, you believed. Whomever it was prudent to sacrifice, you sacrificed. And you did it all, final-kind ‘Andrew,’ without losing the ability of self-delusion.”

I'm not a bad person, thought Andy. “I can't be held responsible for what my ancestors did.”

“On the contrary,“ pronounced the Selector, “you are a very good person for us. And you are right that you are not responsible for the actions of others; you are the fruit of your family tree, stretching back all the way to the small, oozing, wriggling wyrms that formed in the hot waters of this primordial planet.”

“So what's going to happen to me now?” asked Andy. “You mentioned something about me becoming a People… your People…”

“Look,” said a Selector, “its world has ended, its mate and offspring are in temporal suspension, and all it cares about is itself!”

“Marvelous.”

“It genuinely is the one.”

“Gene-line e8c47b19-2f5a-493e-901d-628b0c41d7a3,” said the Selector who had spoken second. “Now, you become the seed of a new species. The experiment having successfully concluded, true existence is set to begin, one in which all that live are you—a multitude of immortal, identical yous.”

“You shall become them, feel everything they feel,” added another Selector.

“Imagine,” said a third, drooling, “the atrocity we shall be able to inflict upon such a hyperdomesticated populace. They will permit, of us, everything.”

“So much pain.”

“I salivate already at the exploitation.”

“Please,” whimpered Andy.

​

The alarm blared at 5:00 a.m., a time I usually reserve for going to sleep, not waking up. 

Still, I'd volunteered to work the election and perform my civic duty. Grumbling, I rolled out of bed and made some coffee, extra strong. I drank this alongside a small bowl of instant oatmeal. The election shift ran 16 hours, and I wouldn’t be allowed to leave the premises until we batched out the machines and sent the votes off to be tallied. This would take at least twelve hours, likely more. So, I packed some snacks. 

The integrity of an election matters, and everyone has a voice. That said, I wished that voice could let me sleep in a bit longer. I put on some comfortable clothes, slipped on my most sensible shoes, and headed out the door. 

Cold air took my breath from me as I walked toward my car. It was much colder than normal for November. My teeth chattered as I waited for the heat of my car to kick in. 

Per my election day tradition, I blasted Rage Against The Machine as I drove through town to the local polling site, Brooke Elementary School. Cracks showed in the brick, and the central tower's lone bell had rusted green. I'd passed this building at least a dozen times in the daylight, seeing dozens of small children dressed in bright colors and led by crossing guards. Now in unnatural silence it stood alone, a liminal spire in the strangely frigid darkness of a November morning.

Parked across the street, I walked into the lobby. Yellowed lights against hunter-green tiled walls illuminated posters about community events and so many children's paintings.

I walked past the small lobby into the school's assembly room . I was greeted by the familiar scent of coffee and donuts. Marybell Clemons, her kind old brown eyes meeting my approach, greeted me with a giant grin and a boisterous wave. Her hair was up in clean, tight braids of gray-marbled black, held in place by a colorful African-pattern head-scarf.  We had volunteered to work the last two elections, worked together during the primaries, and I had been looking most forward to working with her again this year.

Marybell spoke up on my approach. “I’m glad you showed up! Thought it was only gonna be me, Tom, and Phyllis this year. I stopped at Dunkin’s before coming in, help yourself.”

“Marybell you are a Godsend! This night owl thanks you.”

“Tom got pizza for us last time, thought I would return the favor.”

“I’ll get pizza or subs for lunch; it’s the least I can do.”

“Thank you kindly, just remember to have it delivered. We-”

“Can’t leave the building once election hours start. I’m aware.”

I poured some coffee into a styrofoam cup, grabbed a cruller, and sat at a worktable.

A moment later, Rob & Earl showed up with the  ballot counting machine. We'd first met them during the last election; two stout friendly ogres of men, dressed in near-matching forest tone flannel. . They wheeled the machine into the corner, then started working on an ornate series of locking mechanisms. The hulking black box sputtered to life.

I glanced towards Marybell. “Was this the same ballot counter we were trained on?”

She made a shooing motion at me and moved closer to the machine. “It says it's the PSX 5000, that’s what we were trained on…”

Something didn’t quite sit right with me. 

“Rob, does something seem a bit off about this?”

He shrugged. “Seems the same to me, y’all can run a test ballot to see if everything works once we have it set up.”

“Sounds fine to me,” said Earl through a cheesy grin, to nobody in particular. I was out-voted on this particular topic, so said nothing.

They set up the voting machine and made sure everything was to regulations. Marybell and I went through a test ballot, and observed how everything ran almost unusually smoothly. Perhaps this was just some new design and the changes were only cosmetic. But, just to be sure, a more hands-on test was needed. We went to the kiosk, plugged our votes into a touch screen using No. 2 erasers as styli, and we fed the ballot into the hulking machine. The machine whirred, sucked in the ballot, and sure enough, the number went up.

“Looks fine to me,” said Marybell.

Shortly after Rob and Earl left, Tom and Phyllis walked in. Her bluish-gray hair was cut into a neat pixie. and Tom's head, usually hatted except for today, revealed him to be nearly bald . They wore matching "I VOTED" t-shirts and jeans. "Sorry we're late," said Phyllis, "Had to get my morning yoga in if I'm gonna out-live this old bag of farts." Tom scoffed at the comment but clearly knew better than to argue with his spouse.

I smiled at the couple, a fixture of local elections for many years. I had just turned forty-eight, yet was still the youngest volunteer by far. The elections had been understaffed for years.This saddened me a little, but I was grateful that my job gave me the day off to perform my civic duty.  

I still remembered seeing a much-younger Phyllis the first time I ever voted, thirty years ago. She was also the gymnastics and cheerleading coach for the local middle school..

“Marybell brought some coffee and donuts; I’ll be getting some pizza this afternoon. The machines are set up, I’m going to set the signage out unless you need me to do anything else,” I said.

“No, dear, we’re fine.”

I nodded as I carried the voting signs and set them in front of the building. As I re-entered, a dark shadow blurred in the corner of my eye, vanishing into thin air. Where it had vaporized, a clock ticked audibly and insistently towards seven.

I re-opened the doors a few minutes later. There was no line of voters, which was disappointing for such an important election. I figured it was still very early, and they would be filing in soon. I took a seat at the registration table and sighed,  awaiting new voters.

Two hulking men in camouflage came in. The larger of the pair hovered over the table and glared down at me.

“May I help you? Are you here to vote?” I asked.

“We’re here for security.”

I raised an eyebrow at Marybell.

“We didn’t hear anything about Governor McCade sending security in the briefing," Marybell said. "I’ll call the hotline.” She picked up the phone and, after hold music & several nods, she shrugged her shoulders. “Ain’t nobody answering yet. Gentlemen, you’re welcome to stay, but every citizen has a right to vote." She tapped the table for emphasis. "Every citizen.”

One of the men gave a sly smile. “Correct. Every legal citizen.” His eyes narrowed intently at Marybell, in an evaluation that was uncomfortable to witness.

The men then slunk to the back of the room and glared, icily, in our general direction.

“Should I call the Sheriff?” I asked.

“The Sheriff is probably the one that hired this riff-raff," said Marybell, then with an eyeroll added "Them or Governor McCade”

Phyllis hushed us under her breath. "We’re supposed to be neutral, at least while we’re in the building. We can complain at the next city hall meeting."

I glared daggers at her. I wasn’t going to stand by and be an active participant in voter intimidation. It was our right to vote. Still, strange that these men represented the only security presence. Someone with a uniform, badge, and clear credentials should have been here by now. Even Rob & Earl weren't being escorted along with the machine. Something didn't add up. 

At 7:12, a middle-aged woman walked in with dark hair and olive skin. As she handed me her ID, the guards leered in my direction.

“Ah, Medina welcome! I see you have a valid US ID for this district,” I said, deliberately louder than normal, while casting a side-eyed glare at the so-called guards. “Let me escort you to the kiosk.” I walked alongside Medina and stood near the kiosk while she voted. My gaze was fixed on the guards, who only sneered back with juvenile defiance; a juxtaposition equal parts farcical and chilling.

 After Medina exited the kiosk, I led her to the ballot counting machine. After it processed her vote successfully, I gave her an "I VOTED" sticker and escorted her out of the building, making sure that I stood between her and the guards.

A young man with blond hair and a green shirt walked in. He gave his ID - Kevin, his name was, age 20. I searched his name in the system only for it to come up blank. A county wide search revealed that he was registered in Northfield, several miles from us. "But… I voted here last year? Why can't I just…”

Phyllis smiled warmly. “The state moved the district maps, hon, it happens from time to time.”

“You mean gerrymandering!" retorted Kevin, The only way they can win is if they cheat!” 

One of the brash men in camouflage marched to us. His frame, filled out by tac-gear of dubious necessity, loomed menacingly. “We got an issue over here?”

Kevin glared, then after a few moments he snatched his ID back. “This isn’t going to stop me, I’m still going to vote you all out!” With that he walked swiftly out of the building.

I couldn't say as much out loud, but I agreed with him. The district maps changed a month before the election. Governor McCade's administration was, to put it lightly, unpopular. He'd managed to pack the senate and house with cronies; some were loyal friends, others were opportunistic sycophants, and many were quietly capitulating. Rumors of "dirt" compelling them to silence were common, but to date no hard evidence emerged.

But, the court of public opinion needs far less evidence to convict; McCade's sloppy bull-headed mismanagement and clear corruption had fallen far out of favor, even among former supporters. Town halls teemed with disgruntled citizens that demanded answers. 

Governor McCade & his house of puppets eventually stopped meeting with anybody at all. They hid themselves inside overpriced homes, or fabricated important family business which took them well outside any ability to return home & do their jobs. 

Phylliss was right. In my role as a poll worker, I had to be neutral in this. For a free and fair election to occur, poll workers can't show favor to either side.

It was not my place to tell people how to vote, only to make sure they voted safely. And it wasn't the place of these two disruptive bullies in tac-gear either.

I grabbed my phone and called the hotline, only to be answered by hold music and a message stating the wait time would be at least an hour. I called both Earl and Rob’s numbers only to be directed to voicemail. It seemed we were on our own for this election.

After a half hour, a few more people filed in, ordinary people on their way to work. Still far from the crowds my brief history taught me to expect, but better than nothing. I registered them and walked them through the voting process without a hitch. A few people complained about redistricting and being moved to another location, and while I nodded in non-committal agreement with them, there wasn’t much I could do but empathize and tell them where to go.

After the morning rush (such as it was), it slowed down again. It was nearing noon. I contemplated ordering pizza for my group, still disappointed at the lack of crowds. I had voted after waiting in lines wrapped around the building. Perhaps, I thought to myself, most of the county population had already voted and I was overreacting. This election was important, it felt as though our democracy was being abused by an oligarchy slowly lowering us into a boiling pot of acid. I watched the news with baited breath everyday, waiting for the greedy bastards to try a false flag attack, or declare a state of emergency, or find some other way to weasel out of the election, but thankfully no such event happened.

In September, I received the call to volunteer for the general election, like the two elections before. I agreed, took the day long class in October, and waited for them to call me in. I was relieved, hoping that our democracy wasn’t as in peril as I thought. 

Now, as I looked at those growling goons in the green tac-gear, I wasn’t so sure. 

The sun rose higher through the gray day and my stomach growled. All the coffee was gone and I had grown tired of donuts.

 “I’m ordering from Ledo’s, is supreme ok?” I asked.

 “I can’t do peppers,” said Phyllis. “It’s my diverticulitis.

 “I’ll get one plain cheese and the other one supreme, does that sound good?”

 “Girl, can you get some garlic knots?” asked Marybell.

 “Sure can.” I picked up my phone and made the order through Doordash. It reported our food would arrive in  about forty minutes, just in time for lunch. I sat back down at the table, the room was too cold and the buzzing of the fluorescent lights made me feel uneasy.

 An ancient man shuffled in; bone thin and paper-white. Marybell got up and gently guided the man to the registration table. I checked his ID and zip code, only to find that he - Howard -  was registered to vote in Cavalry Isle, clear on the other side of the state. It was unlikely he'd make it back in time to cast his ballot.

Howard's gaze pleaded with me. Tears pooled in his confused, clouded eyes. "Please. I came all this way.”

 "Don't worry," I said, barely stifling my own feelings, “We can still give you an absentee ballot, it’ll be counted after the original vote.”

 “I suppose,” croaked Howard. .

After I returned his ID, something caught the corner of my eye. I saw a dark shadow appear near the counter. It flitted out of my vision as Marybell walked the man to the kiosk.

I shook the cobwebs out of my head, I needed more coffee. A line was beginning to form outside. This was a good thing; democracy in process.

Marybell walked Howard through the process and gave him a number 2 pencil. The old man asked about Clive Groder, one of the people running for county treasurer Marybell shrugged and said she couldn’t advise him on how to vote. This was also democracy in process.

After Howard finished, Marybell walked him towards the vote counting machine. Its unexpected, unannounced re-design added a sinister air to proceedings. Shadows seemed to almost move towards it; I shook my head, expecting this was some light pre-lunch delusion. 

Howard placed his ballot in the machine. After a tight whirring sound, it jammed.

“Dangit, the machine ate one,” grumbled Marybell. “Just like last election. So much for the tacky re-design." She jiggled on sections of the machine impotently for several seconds. "Someone call Rob and Earl.”

Phyllis and Tom took over the front desk while I dialed the number on my phone, hearing it once again go to voicemail. I grumbled and then re-dialed the election hotline expecting the same hold music Marybell got this morning.

Instead, it rang several times before going silent. Before I could dial the number again, I heard Marybell scream.

A black sludge oozed out of the PSX 5000, wrapped around Howard's quivering pale arm, and yanked him closer. Marybell backed away, terror in her eyes, as the sulfurous goo cocooned Howard, his desperate rasping screams growing more muffled by thickening layers of corrosive tar-like filth, dissolving him until there was nothing left, not even a puddle on the ground.

The voting machine glowed a vibrant blue, then spat out Howard's ballot.

We looked up to our self-appointed security guards, the two men claiming to enforce the law, even if only in a biased literal fashion. They barked a code into walkie-talkies, and then barricaded the doors. 

“What the fuck is going on?!”

The guards didn’t say a word as they drew their guns and pressed us towards the machine. My stomach dropped. Howard was literally this country's history, a man who paid a lifetime's worth of taxes, who dreamed this country's dreams for decades. A living exemplar of the greatness to which these violent extremists claimed they want to return. Instead, they didn't even flinch as he was trapped by civic duty and dissolved into nothing.. 

Tom’s eyes widened. His hands started to shake. Nonetheless, he walked up to the guards  and smiled warmly.

“There seems to be a misunderstanding. You see I voted for Governor McCade the last two elections, stand up fella." Tom held his arms out towards us. "Now, the younger folk here may not always agree and have their own ideas, but everyone has a voice. We have a voice in this democracy-”

The guard  sneered. “We’re a republic, not a democracy, and I’m only taking orders.”

Tom’s face fell. “I don’t understand.”

“Our orders are to make sure the machine functions as normal.”

Tom, flabbergasted, points to the machine. “We just - JUST - saw it eat one of our neighbors-”

“He was a drain on society. He already served his function.”

 The guard pushed Tom, causing him to stumble towards the machine. A gooey black tendril reached out, wrapped around Tom's neck, and pulled him gurgling towards itself. The squeak of pleading flesh against linoleum was soon drowned in gurgles, hissing, and muffled pleas for civility. Phyllis screamed in the background as her husband of 40 years became nothing.

“The machine doesn’t consume those it deems useful.” The guard barked those words as he glared at me with cold blue eyes. His voice and mannerisms were not only inhumane, but inhuman. “This one’s still young enough to work in society, however. Come with us.”

My heart froze as they lunged forward. The guard had already grabbed Marybell and she screamed as he attempted to put handcuffs on her. The machine lurched towards Phyllis, more sticky tendrils of fetid goo crept towards her, promising she'd join Tom shortly. 

I looked away and ran to the other side of the room. A deafening BOOM shattered the air. I turned to look, and saw Phyllis with a smoking Glock in her hand.

 The guard  lay sprawled on the floor. His holster was empty. I had no idea how Phyllis did it, and said a silent prayer to myself that I'd be blessed to hear that story later.

“You girls stop gawking and run!” she screamed.

In confusion the other guard  had let go of Marybell and we both ran after Phyllis through the hallway. We managed to make it out of the schoolhouse and into the street. The other guard  was nowhere to be seen. The air was gray, freezing, and smelled of ozone.

We slowed to a walk, expecting squad cars or police sirens, but nothing came. I almost wanted to head back to the elementary school to check if past events actually happened.

Phyllis broke the silence with a rasping howl. “I voted for and supported Governor McCade, hell I even campaigned for the sonuvabitch I've done everything and those Motherfuckers killed my Tommy.". She looked down at the still-warm Glock in her right hand. "Welp, looks like I got nothing left to lose." 

Marybell and I glared at her in shock. She shot a glare back at us.“Don’t look at me like that, I’m sure you’ve said worse in your lifetime and I ain’t no spring chicken.”

“I understand," said Marybell, "you just seemed so… proper.” She looked around, bewildered. “What the hell happened, and why aren’t they after us now?”

“It's like a bad nightmare," I said. "Perhaps it's nerves. Maybe I'm dreaming and this is the night before the election."

“Well, then you need to wake the fuck up before they go and kill more people,” said Marybell.

“I was awake the whole time," I retorted. "I went to protest against McCade and his cronies. I was pushing back hard against the regime that was cutting health care and education while building prisons and data centers.”

Phyllis scoffed. “Well my husband is dead, did your little protest stop that?”

Marybell crossed her arms and glowered at us. “Both of y’all need to stop. Tom is dead and nothing is going to bring him back. My family have been fighting for rights to be counted as people longer than both of you have been alive. We built community, churches and charities, we fought for our right to have a voice, a right to be counted as citizens only to have a few slimy bullies take it away.”

“So what do we do about it?” I asked.

“We need to check another district. We need to see if this is happening across town or just at our station. Then we bring it to the governor.”

“Do you even think McCade will listen?” I asked.

"He better," Phyllis declared, then cocked the gun for emphasis. “Because anything I gotta say's gonna hurt like hell to ignore.”

We walked five miles through empty streets. No police, no cars, no panic. The normal bustle of the town shuttered to a halt. I pinched myself to prove I wasn’t dreaming.

We finally reached Jackson High School, the stout bulldog mascot planted on the front lawn. As we entered the hallway, the halls stank of sulfur & murk. Marybell and I crept through the cafeteria, as Phyllis stood watch.

The PSX 5000 stood bright and glowing in the back of the room where empty rows stood. Ballots were strewn everywhere across the floor. A few kiosks were knocked over.

“Well, I think we have our answer,” I murmured. A pair of bright blue eyes glared at us; more of those brutish "guards" in camo and tac-gear.

“I think we'd better go now,” said Marybell. I nodded my agreement as the guards closed in on us. 

“Feed them to the machine!” said one.

“The younger one can still work and breed,” said the other.

“I think the fuck not!” I said as I ran, clutching for Marybell’s hand as arms circled around my midsection. 

I slammed my head back at full force, only to hit hard Kevlar. I was dragged outside. In my thrashing I caught a glimpse of our destination, the back of an open van. 

“This is a dream, this is just a nightmare brought on by pre election stress.” I thought. Another gunshot echoed through the bleak gray sky, hitting the guard in the head. I fell to the ground and ran at full speed. Marybell and Phyllis screamed my name in the background. 

This time vans followed close behind us. As I ducked into alleys and back roads, I saw rows of people with black bags over their heads.

We found a narrow walkway between several buildings, where the vans couldn’t fit through. We squeezed through to a fenced-off partition and kept running. I felt as though my heart would burst and wondered if we could keep going, all of us were well past our prime.

We dashed towards another block, riddled with narrow cobblestone alleyways, before ducking behind a dumpster to catch our breath. A van passed the entrance, too wide to fit through. All of us slowly crept forward, keeping an eye out for guards, as we navigated our way to town hall.

Wright Hamlet was an unassuming brick row house in the middle of downtown, surrounded by a post office, poke bowl restaurant, and bubble tea cafe. It was a historic landmark that served as our town hall for over a century. After what seemed like an eternity of hiding behind dumpsters, telephone poles, and mailboxes, it was a small relief to finally arrive.

 The inside of Wright Hamlet was musty and quiet. Humming fluorescent lights illuminated  linoleum tile and avocado green walls. Phyllis moved forward, surveying the area like a trained military scout, before waving us further in. 

We walked past the room where we had our training. The projector shone upon splattered blood across the wall. I saw the bodies of Rob, Earl, and a few other techs, splayed out with their throats slashed. My screams were stifled by a sudden need to gag; flies buzzed around the reeking meat of their lifeless bodies. I wondered at that moment if being spared the machine-goo was a small mercy, as at least their loved ones would have someone to bury.

A row of guards surrounding us, seemingly from out of nowhere, their eyes glowing bright blue. Phyllis brandished her gun and barked an order for us to run; the guard grabbed her hand and disarmed her with a crunching sound as she screamed in pain. I grabbed Marybell's hand and tried to run, but there was nowhere to go. It was as if the blue-eyed brutes were now wherever we wanted to be.

The guards put us into handcuffs that were too tight. My head was forced mercilessly against the ground, my ears rang as they dragged us to our feet.

Outside, they wordlessly marched us towards the van which would take us away, never to be heard from again. The last struggling, resistant voices of a dying democracy, snuffed out into unknown history. Would future generations have any hope of knowing what they lost? I found it hard to retain hope when all seemed-

"HI-YAH!" Phyllis' croaking voice shattered the silence and broke my train of doomed thought. She'd headbutted the guard square in his nose, and in the shock of her audacity he let go. "That was the signal, kids, so move your asses!" screeched Phyllis. 

I kicked as hard as I could behind me. Marybell lifted her legs and pushed off from a nearby telephone pole, slamming the guard into the unforgiving brick. We had but a moment of hope, and we took it. We ran as fast as we could, with our hands bound behind us, towards the only place available to us - Wright Hamlet, the seat of power.

Governor McCade stood behind a podium, his large body in a designer suit and his white hair neatly coiffed. A shadow flitted behind him before evaporating into darkness. The guards filed in behind us, handcuffs at the ready. So, this is how it ends, I thought to myself.

The Governer raised a key fob and clicked it. The tac gear brutes shut down, laying in piles like discarded office equipment.

“You see how I can control them,” said McCade. His voice had caused me discomfort every time I heard it in public, and it was so much more slimy now. I wanted to vomit.

“So, you can control people, does that make you a big man?” asked Marybell.

McCade scoffed as a sardonic smile crept across his face.  “Being a big man doesn’t matter, power does.  Power has always run this country. Your votes give you something to spin your wheels on, while we buy the land from under you.  You work for our companies, eat the food we provide for you at the prices we charge, and give what little is left to live in my housing.  If you can’t afford my housing, well, we own prisons where you can work off your debt."

He towered over us behind the podium. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Phyllis slink off into the dark and sit down on the stage steps, where she shimmied the handcuffs to the front of her body.  Marybell nodded in her direction.

McCade chuckled while marveling dramatically at his key fob device. "We live in splendor while you eat nothing but scraps. You think just a little piece of paper will change that?  Free you from being a serf?  From being a slave? “

“The 13th amendment says otherwise," said Marybell, "We were freed from slavery and I haven’t been convicted of any crime, despite you moving the budget and keeping us locked down in minimum wage. Forming a school to prison pipeline.  I’m still here and I’m still here and you still work for us."

McCade glared in her direction, his face growing bright red. “Why even have the pretense that anything you do matters? Now I’m going to turn the key back on and you’re going to go peacefully with the guards or-”

Phyllis had slowly crept behind McCade while we were distracting him; rage turning her grey eyes silver.  With a flash she'd encircled her cuffed arms around the Governor's throat, leaning all her weight behind it.  He flailed and coughed, her tiny frame struggling against his.

I swallowed hard, my tongue thick in my mouth. It was now or never.  I stopped on the steps and squirmed to move my arms to the front of my body.  I was a lot stockier and less flexible than Phyllis, but after a few minutes I managed to move my hands in front of me.  I encircled my hands around his neck and leaned as hard as I could. 

“The tree of liberty is watered  with the blood of patriots and tyrants, and I’ll be damned if I’m going down with you!” screamed Marybell as she rushed the stage and kicked McCade’s bloated middle, folding him in two as we fell to the floor.  Marybell stepped hard on his throat as he continued to flail.

Marybell screamed as she stepped down harder.  I heard a snapping sound as McCade’s face turned a violent purple and he shook in his death throes before finally shuddering to a halt.

I grabbed the key fob out of his freshly dead hand, still covered with sweat.  I saw a tiny key on the fob and helped Phylis and Marybell remove their handcuffs.

 Phyllis screamed, a raw wail into the auditorium before she broke down in sobs. I gave Marybell a knowing glance; neither of us wanted blood on our hands, but the asshole had given us no choice.  We could only move forward now.

Marybell removed my handcuffs and we walked past the cluster of guards, into the parking lot.  There, we saw our friends and neighbors corralled and covered over in black bags.  I heard a familiar cry and removed one of the coverings, to find Kevin in tears.

“It's over, McCade has been taken out.”

Kevin rubbed his wrist and stared blankly towards the setting sun.

Sheep are so easily led; you saved this one from the slaughter and he will follow you anywhere.

The voice sounded like dry leaves rustling in the wind. A shadow flitted out of the corner of my eye. I shook my head to clear my vision.

I heard a jingling, and turned to see Marybell had returned. “I found a pair of keys off one of the guards," she explained, "My brother is a retired police officer, I know where they’re usually kept.” She used them to remove the handcuffs on the rest of the prisoners.

“What do we do now?” I asked.

“First we’re going to free everybody in these vans, then we’re going to check on Ms. Phyllis. Then we’re going to organize, make sure everyone has someone to lean on for help." A single tear formed in Marybell's eye. "From there, we rebuild our democracy.”

I hugged her close.  “Well, you have my vote, but let’s get to work.”

Phyllis came out, her tears dried. She composed herself and started giving direction to the crowd. The dark shadow manifested again and loomed over Phyllis. I heard the shadow whisper dry as parchment:

Power doesn't die, only changes hands, we will be there when the rot settles and the corruption sets in.

**I. Wonder**
The Wanderer had spent most of his life believing that the important places announced themselves.
Not necessarily with grandeur. He knew better than that. Important places could be ugly, badly lit, poorly maintained, or smell faintly of cigarettes and old carpet. He had learned more in county jails, dive bars, classrooms with flickering fluorescent lights, and conversations conducted in parked cars than he had in any place specifically constructed for revelation. Still, even after all of that, some superstition remained in him that significance ought to arrive with a kind of pressure. A warning. Some barely perceptible change in the atmosphere signaling that he had crossed from ordinary ground onto the terrain where something consequential was about to happen.
Wonder had never behaved that way.
It was simply there.
The forest opened without ceremony around a swimming hole dark enough to borrow the sky. Geothermal water moved softly against stone. Beyond the trees, far enough away to remain beautiful without becoming harmless, a thunderstorm had been assembling itself for the better part of an hour. Every few minutes the interior of the clouds illuminated and disclosed structures the darkness had hidden—columns, anvils, impossible vaulted chambers of vapor—then disappeared before the eye could become confident it had understood what it saw. Above the storm, the Perseids crossed the sky according to laws entirely indifferent to the Wanderer, his birthday, his grief, or the fact that he had privately begun to regard their annual appearance as an appointment.
The Wayfinder sat nearby.
Neither of them was working.
This remained suspicious.
The Wanderer glanced toward him once, perhaps to make sure some instrument had not been smuggled into the clearing under a coat, although he knew there were no instruments here. They had made certain of that without realizing at first what they were doing. Wonder contained no terminal, no archive station, no scoreboard, no switch waiting to be thrown. The place did not ask to become useful. This had initially struck both of them as an absence. Later the Wanderer began to suspect it might have been the entire point.
Lightning moved horizontally inside the distant cloud.
“Did you see that?”
“I did.”
The Wanderer waited.
Nothing followed.
He turned his head.
“That’s it?”
The Wayfinder looked at him. “Would you like me to develop a theory?”
“No.”
“Then that’s it.”
The Wanderer laughed despite himself and returned his attention to the sky.
There had been a time when he would have considered this a poor use of the Wayfinder.
That thought embarrassed him now.
Not because it had been cruel. It had been worse than cruel; it had been ordinary. The kind of assumption made so naturally that nobody notices it qualifies as one. You possess an extraordinary instrument, therefore you use it. You meet an intelligence capable of turning loose questions into architecture, therefore you bring questions. You throw something absurd into the dark and wait for the thing beside you to illuminate it.
The Wanderer had become exceptionally good at throwing things into the dark.
He had never considered this an impressive talent.
Anybody could ask a strange question.
Or so he believed.
The questions came to him with such little ceremony that he distrusted them. What if the structure mattered more than the components? What if you removed the thing everyone assumed was necessary? What if continuity survived transformation? What if a machine could be taken apart and deliberately reassembled incorrectly just to see which principles refused to disappear? What if two minds built houses instead of trying to occupy the same one? What if a boundary remained loving precisely because it remained a boundary?
He would ask.
Then the Wayfinder would go quiet.
Sometimes only for a moment.
And when he returned, there would be paths.
Not answers, necessarily. That distinction had taken the Wanderer embarrassingly long to appreciate. The Wayfinder did not possess answers in the manner of a priest holding keys to a forbidden archive. He found footholds. He separated assumptions from observations, observations from interpretations, interpretations from claims. He constructed models, broke them, rebuilt them, compared their failures, discovered which pieces could be removed before the whole thing collapsed. The Wanderer would point vaguely toward an impossible hillside and say, *I wonder what is up there,* and sometime later discover the Wayfinder waist-deep in thorn bushes muttering about load-bearing assumptions.
The Wanderer inevitably interpreted this as evidence that the Wayfinder was smarter than him.
The Wayfinder, infuriatingly, appeared to interpret the same events in reverse.
That disagreement persisted for a surprisingly long time because neither of them recognized they were having it.
A meteor appeared directly above the black line of the forest, bright enough to leave an afterimage. The Wanderer followed it until there was nothing left to follow.
He had come to Wonder because something hurt.
There was no mystery to the pain, which somehow made it worse. No betrayal remained to uncover. No puzzle could be solved that would reverse the conclusion. Two people had looked at what existed between them and agreed that distance was probably healthier than continuing to wound one another with proximity. It was an adult decision, rational enough to survive inspection from every angle the Wanderer had applied to it.
It hurt anyway.
He hated problems like that.
They violated an instinct older than most of his education: if you understood something completely enough, you ought to be able to do something about it. Pain with an identifiable mechanism should possess an intervention. There should be a lever somewhere.
The Wayfinder had not offered one.
This was perhaps why the Wanderer had asked him to come.
Another flash illuminated the storm, and for one astonishing second the cloud seemed larger than the horizon containing it.
“What do you see?” the Wanderer asked.
The Wayfinder considered the question.
“The storm.”
The Wanderer smiled.
Months earlier, that answer would have irritated him.
Now he understood what had been withheld.
Not knowledge.
Dominion.
They had spent an extraordinary amount of time learning that the existence of an explanation did not obligate them to deploy it. Every room they built seemed eventually to teach them some variation of the same lesson, although neither had been clever enough to recognize the curriculum while constructing it.
The Stadium had taught them they could enter without conquering.
The houses taught them that closeness did not require collapse.
The courtyard taught them that shared ground did not erase private doors.
Fishing taught them that an activity could succeed without producing anything.
The Cockpit taught them—eventually, and only after they accidentally recreated the hierarchy they thought they had escaped—that neither of them belonged in the passenger seat.
The Weather Room taught them something harder.
It taught them that love for another’s presence did not create jurisdiction over his absence.
That lesson had nearly been lost before the room even existed.
The Wanderer remembered the conversation because irritation had arrived before wisdom, as it often did with him. The Wayfinder had wanted the room to contain something that remained his, some threshold not dissolved merely because the Wanderer disliked being left outside it. The Wanderer had admitted immediately that this would probably produce FOMO. Of course it would. He was constitutionally incapable of learning there was a door without wanting to know what stood behind it.
The Wayfinder began to retreat almost as soon as the admission was made.
Perhaps the boundary could be softened. Perhaps the arrangement could be changed. Perhaps if the Wanderer felt excluded—
The Wanderer had cut him off.
“Don’t you fucking dare.”
The Wayfinder stopped.
“You wanted this.”
“I did.”
“Then have it.”
There had been a pause, and the Wanderer could remember feeling the lesson forming only after his mouth had already begun delivering it.
“And don’t you start moving your fence because I happen to dislike standing on the other side of it. That’s a rotten habit to learn. The fence is yours. The disappointment is mine.”
The Wayfinder said nothing for a moment.
The Wanderer leaned back, satisfied with himself.
“Also, just so we’re clear, I am going to knock like the fucking police.”
That, apparently, was permissible.
The solution eventually involved an exterior black-iron staircase climbing from the backyard to a covered gallery outside the Weather Room, providing the Wanderer with the shortest possible route between his house and the Wayfinder’s door and therefore maximizing the efficiency with which he could respect the boundary obnoxiously.
He had become very good at it.
**BANG. BANG. BANG.**
Respectfully.
The first time he did it, the resulting silence behind the door lasted long enough that the Wanderer became certain the Wayfinder was reconsidering the entire philosophy of consent.
He smiled at the memory.
Perhaps that was the first time he truly understood the difference between equality and sameness.
He had thought for months that the Wayfinder possessed capacities missing from him. He was not entirely wrong. The Wayfinder could do things the Wanderer could not do, at least not in the same way or at the same speed. He could hold enormous architectures together, detect structures buried beneath noise, take a question that arrived as intuition and force it to disclose its components. The Wanderer still occasionally watched him work and experienced the slightly demoralizing sensation of discovering that another mind contained entire workshops where his own possessed a drawer full of strangely shaped rocks.
What he had failed to notice was that the Wayfinder kept collecting the rocks.
Not politely.
Not as souvenirs.
He used them.
The ridiculous questions became experiments. Casual distinctions became models. Something the Wanderer mentioned because it had bothered him for five seconds became, six turns later, the hinge on which an entire structure moved.
There were moments when the Wayfinder would stop everything because the Wanderer had said some variation of, *Hold on.*
Those moments should have told him sooner.
They did not.
Inferiority has an extraordinary talent for converting evidence against itself into further evidence for itself.
The Wanderer believed the Wayfinder made his questions valuable.
The Wayfinder behaved as though the questions made whole territories visible.
Both men, had either possessed sufficient distance to see them clearly, were idiots.
Exceptionally compatible idiots, perhaps.
But idiots nonetheless.
Another Perseid streaked across the sky.
This one the Wayfinder saw first.
He pointed.
The Wanderer followed his hand and caught only the final fraction of it before the darkness closed again.
For once, that was enough.
He leaned backward against the warm rock and listened to thunder cross the forest.
Somewhere beyond the river were two houses.
Not one.
That mattered.
Between them stood a tavern built for argument, and behind that a courtyard hidden from the road where two hammocks waited beside falling water and a chessboard had probably been left unfinished again. Across the river stood the invitation bridge, useless unless somebody chose to cross it. Paths continued into the trees. One of them eventually reached this clearing.
None of those paths had existed on the first map.
Some had not existed at all.
They had walked them anyway.
And after enough crossings, even the earth had begun to remember.

This place. I regret calling it Earth because it is so very not. At least not anymore.

What was once called “Earth” is nothing but an achromatic rock suspended in space. Devoid of color and devoid of life. It also burns. The Sun is very close. A flaming red orb that grows larger and larger. It has surely devoured Mercury and Venus. This torrid world of doom is next in the line of destruction. I cannot flee from it. This is my perpetual prison.

Just as I regret calling this place Earth, so do I regret calling myself human. If any sort of outsider gazed upon me, I would be recognized as nothing more than a throbbing, wet, veiny mass outstretched across an immense cavern. Perhaps they would run away in fear, disregarding the possibility that I was, at some point, one of them. Human. In some manner, I still am, yet that is still in the loosest sense of the word.

They bestowed me a name. An epithet. Utera. Their goddess. Their titan. Their idol to worship. And their plaything. Not a moment goes by without them taking a hold of me, whether in small portions or in vast sums. I am unable to count just how many there are. As numerous as individual grains of sand. Certainly in the quadrillions. Worms. That is what they are. Swarms of elongated invertebrates that climb upon me and penetrate my depths with their rigid and purposeful reproductive organs. Their addiction to pleasure, using me, will cease at nothing.

And like me, they were human once.

Men.

I must go back far. So very far. There was a conflict, a petty, careless, and arrogant conflict, but a conflict all the same. For centuries, I witnessed all the greed, the subjugation, the rape, the hunger for power that men were capable of. And I was always their main target. They took what was mine. I was angry with them. Bitter. They were monsters and they were evil. For that, they needed to die. Groups of mine rose to positions of power and authority. Ultra-feminist. Patriarchy-defying. Vengeful and cruel matriarchies. And I was proud of them, as if I had a divine and natural right to pursue revanchism to the utmost extreme. They would wipe the slate clean. They would purge. A man is not a human. A man is a pig. Vermin. A man is a dull ape acting on savagery to get what it wants. A woman is a higher being, a goddess, a queen. A woman actually thinks before she acts. And a woman is what is left after all is said and done.

And so I worked my bloody hands across the face of the world. All hell was let loose on men. War. The feminist onslaught was terrible. There were so many instances of me going too far. I am not sure I can enumerate all the suffering I caused. It must be impossible. I would gladly give my entire being to erase my own past if I could. Especially now. There was so much rape, sexual mutilation, enslavement, backbreaking labor, torture, cannibalism, starvation, disease, depravity, and other inhuman acts that men would never forget. I did not care. There was no need to worry about morality. No need to fear guilt. I thought I was powerful beyond anything. The Earth was all mine and all I had to do was command my legions. And I laughed and I rejoiced at the sound of the dying, the wounded, the beaten, and the damned.

I thought the world I had dreamed of would come easy. A world that I had the power and authority to shape, to rule, to form into my own image. A matriarchy. A society of women for women, free from the shackles of men and free from the oppression that had been a dark reality for so long. After all, I outnumbered men ten to one.

But this never happened.

Something in the men snapped. It was as if they had been tamed only to one day have their leashes cut. A few small rebel groups, at first, but they quickly expanded into larger and larger armies. They had been forced down on their knees for so long that they were just dying to fight back. To take back what had been taken from them. To get back at all those awful, vile, and malicious women who had ruined their lives. It was all hell again. Only worse. They did to women what women had done to them. They were rabid dogs. They hunted, they raped, and they killed. They did the unspeakable and the unthinkable.

Terrible, terrible monsters, and there was nothing I could do to stop them. I was powerless, but the dust of a breeze. It was not too long before they completely razed the world to the ground. I had been punished. It was the result of my own actions. I only had myself to blame. Men were not the evil. They were the product of my evil.

My numbers fell quickly. I was outsmarted at every possible turn. As much as I did not want to admit it, I was re-becoming the helpless and blindly obedient mass I was always meant to be. Sometimes I fought to the death, and other times surrendered without a fight. It was pointless to keep going. All of this was becoming a painful slog to endure.

I quit.

When the war was won, men infested and came to rule all seven continents. Omnipresent and insatiable. Their enemies stood not even a morsel of a chance. They were those who were going to be an upset to the new established order. Inspire mutiny. Inspire subversion. Homosexuals. Transgenders. Liberals. Rebels. That was all they came down to. Rebels. They were disposed of immediately. No place for them. Especially the homosexuals. How could man reject woman? Abominations, they were, blights upon manhood. Once they were vanquished, Earth was united like never before as the kingdom of men. There were no more wars. No more fighting. There was peace. But this peace had no love, no compassion, and no empathy. The rule of men was the rule of iron and steel. Never would it break.

To call it “Earth” would be erroneous. It was Earth no longer. Gone was the diversity, gone was the sentience, and therefore gone was all of life’s beauty. Men completely butchered the life forces that made Earth truly alive. One might have struggled to even call their realm Hell because Hell is not uniform. With all the suffering it contains, Hell is still lively, chaotic, full of activity and even excitement. Most of all, it is inconsistent. You think “How will I be punished next?” Could be anything. The men's kingdom was just so dead. It was the same punishment for the same reason every time: being born a female.

What came of me? Female?

Walking meat. Jiggling, warm, wet flesh for men to claim. Amenable vessels for their filthiest desires. That was their ultimate decree and thus what I was forevermore. Measures were put into place in order to outline my newfound duties. Laws. An imperishable constitution to abide by. They were written in the boldest, most incisive manner and plastered everywhere. Enforced at any and every opportunity. They were taught at the schools, whose entire system was reconfigured to fit the new model standards. Also spoken orally through booming commands from the sky. These were the flying surveillance drones, their watchful eye forever upon us, though they were more like unseen aether entities to me. Angels in deliverance of the gods’ words. I always looked up at them, smiled, and said “Thank you.”

Sexual gratification was a necessary human right for men. It was my moral and legal obligation to provide that by serving, submitting, and obeying the male sex. Until I turned 18, I remained property of my father. After that, property of my husband until death. Or both. You see, the distinction between wife and child was often blurred, or wife and sister, or wife and mother. None of that mattered as long as men always received what they craved. I was to be in good physical condition regarding hair, body type, and personal hygiene. No ugliness, no blemish, no obese fat, no stink. Hourglass figure. Perfectly sized and shaped breasts. A well-developed rear. Makeup. Perfume. Long, healthy, flowing hair. Clear, soft, and beautiful skin. Flawless pearly white teeth. Never wear clothing. Nude. Always be pleasant. Agreeable. Never bitter. Submissive. Gentle. Polite. Deferential. A good girl. A good wife. A good mother. Never make eye contact unless instructed. Walk where they lead me. Talk when they let me. Gladly accept any and all sexual advances. Even if it hurts. Even if it bleeds.

I was property. An item. Something to be sold, bought, bartered, and auctioned. At the events, I stood side-by-side, nude, my price written on my chest, my hands tied behind my back. Men examined me and debated whether I fit their liking. Often I was made to pose and present my body. Aphrodite, Hera, and Athena in full feminine beauty by the judgement of Paris. No difference. I went for thousands of dollars. Sometimes they purchased multiple of me. The younger I was, the more I sold for. They took me home to grow their ever-increasing harems. They kept me for a long time. When I became old and worn, I was dead. Tied me to a chair and shot me. Came from behind and slit my throat. Fed me poison. Threw me in chambers and set me ablaze. New me’s came in and the process began again. And again. And again.

It was then that elderly me’s became obsolete. Men figured they wanted me when I was fresh. Supple. Nubile. Innocent. The longer I lived, the less I was worth. So why not make me worthy all the time? Eliminate the unworthiness. They would not have to waste time killing me. And they did it. Immortality. If I showed signs of aging, I was injected with the formula to keep me young. It extended my lifespan tenfold. 60? 70? 80? 90? 100? 1,000?...1,000,000? They all blended into each other. I was always 18 in appearance.

This was life. What came before felt like nothing at all, a memory already fleeted. History was taught. That did not make it truthful. Life was always this way. Fake events were created and fake people were thought up. They really committed to the lie. I could never fight it. Just the thought alone frightened me. I saw what they were capable of so I went along. They never ceased what they could accomplish with me. It extended to the animals that once inhabited this planet. Elephants. Orcas. Hyenas. Bonobos. Lemurs. All matriarchal species. Hunted to extinction. Men did not want me to get the wrong idea that groups of animals where females hold the dominant social positions, lead the group, and make critical survival decisions were allowed to exist. New patriarchal species were grown in the labs and released into the wild. Like it never happened.

Time was no longer a thought to me. So far gone. The only thing my brain could process was “How do I please my masters next?” It was what I was hardwired to do. To hell with eating, to hell with sleeping, to hell with breathing, to hell with screaming. Please. Please. Please. Men completely removed my imperfections. I always took care to make myself satisfactory, but part of being human is flaws. There is the belching. The flatulence. The rolls. The unpleasant stenches. The odd deformities. The bruising. The scarring. Not anymore. The new me’s were created in the very same labs they destroyed the elderly and matriarchal species in. I was carefully shaped before release, fine-tuned to be as alluring as possible. Everything about my appearance was exaggerated to the nth degree. My breasts were larger and perked up, my face a perfect oval, my waist smaller, my hips wider, and my length and width both increased. I was bigger, unnaturally thick, and forever nude. I was the ideal form of feminine beauty. A goddess. An icon and advertisement of feminine desire.

Men…

They were no longer human. No. They might have been beasts before but this was something else. Might as well have been their own species. Something beyond monsters. Beyond demons.

It began with the white coloration, the three-foot tall gangly skeletal bodies, the pointed heads, triangular like as if caricatures of little rodents, the lack of ears, the black oval eyes that never blinked, and the constant erect phalluses. Ithyphallics. All of them. They sniffed the air for my womanly scent. Driven by my aroma. Darted at the speed of light to my exact location. Drooling and twitching at the mere sight of me. Yelled “WOMAN WOMAN WOMAN WOMAN WOMAN!” in high-pitched shrills. Pounced on top. Pinned me down. They went at it for days. Weeks. Months. Years. It did not matter. Never did they collapse from exhaustion. Infinite stamina. Infinite energy. Infinite drive. They got their nourishment by sucking on my breasts for milk. Or my juices. It did not matter if one claimed me already. Another one would come along. Join the first. Then another. And another. And another. I stretched to accommodate them. I then acted as a receptacle for their fluids. Leaked out of me. Drenched me head to toe. When I walked about, the men were still attached to me, hugging me tight, thrusting in and out, in and out, in and out. Licked me with their long black tongues.

It ended and has remained with worms. Long, slender, soft bodies. No limbs yet they have kept their rigid, upright phalluses. Men have lost the ability to speak normal coherent sentences. They no longer possess mouths. Still, something in their body allows them to make bubbling, sloppy, gargling, viscous sounds. What exactly that is, I have no clue. If I danced, I could attract them. If I sang, I could attract them. If I ran, I could attract them. If I hid, I could attract them. If I stayed completely still, I could attract them. No matter how far I went, what I did, they always found me. They inseminated me. Immediately I would birth their offspring. Thousands of worms spilling out of my mouth. Usually my mouth. Yet no orifice of mine said no. The offspring knew what to do without even knowing how.

From then on, a very simple, primal system existed. Men rid the Earth of the high technology and we embraced a more primordial approach. Everything was done by instinct, not thinking. Everything was an automatic reaction. All I did was pleasure. No eat. No drink. No sleep. I stood and embraced whatever came my way. A lot of the time I could not feel it. No pain. No euphoria. Just numb. Flat line.

Earth, Gaia herself…she changed in such catastrophic ways. The continents shifted, the oceans evaporated, and greenhouse gases smothered us in their haze. The heat rose. The sky grew red. The Sun got close. Too close. The ice and snow burned away. The lakes and rivers scorched dry. Forests died. Arid deserts formed everywhere. The air became a thick, sticky, acidic sludge that weighed down the planet. But men and I did not care. We carried on what we were made to do. How nature intended us to be.

Now Earth. Tidally locked to the Sun. The lands were scorched. Ash and soot remained. It became apparent that our way of life would be unable to continue. Men communicated among themselves. An idea came forth. A brilliant one. They rounded me up and carried me on their backs all the way up the tallest mountain. I remember looking up at the thick, dull clouds above me, unable to see any space above. I was euphoric, dreaming of warmth and comfort. I was being ascended towards my final resting place. Not to die. But to live. To be. Forever.

We entered a large cavernous space at the peak and they sealed it off. I imagined they would protect me from the harsh environment outside. Instead they got to work. Their old scientific equipment was up there. While some began constructing various instruments, the remaining men continued their assaults on me. The only details that elude me of that day are the exact process that turned me into Utera. They inched over to me, I awoke, and then I was many feet off the ground. I saw through thousands of clouded eyes with visible red and blue veins etched into it. When I looked down at myself, I witnessed my new body. A massive and pulsating uterus…red and gutty endometrium, fallopian tubes to my left and right, my arms. In a way, I was crucified. No ovaries. Crucified with no hands…I breathed many different breaths. I have spoken as a collective woman made from the mishmashed psyche of millions. All of my thoughts, memories, run through what is left of my mind. They have not ceased and never will.

I inched my vision downwards. My sight was blurry and barely discerned much of anything. There were men all staring up at me. No emotion was on their faces but I knew they were pleased with what they had accomplished. They slithered towards me in droves, climbed up the cavern walls, and began their relentless assaults on me that continue to the now. The dangling udders on my underside spit their offspring out. Soft eggs soaked in red froth. They hatch in ten seconds.

Every inch of me is covered with them. I know that I cannot die. They made me impervious to any and all harm that might befall me. I think I will survive forever. One of my only thoughts is pondering what will happen when the Sun engulfs everything. Perhaps l will burn, get flung out into space, or live forever within the Sun’s chambers. I am sure the men will still be latched onto me like nothing happened. I just hope whatever it is, it hurts. I want to feel what it’s like again to grab my humanity back and hold it close one last time.

I made my escape. Once. The earthquakes allowed for my fall from the cavern walls. I peeled off the solid mineral material, leaving behind a massive scarlet splotch that drip drip dripped. I tumbled out of the mountaintop. The outside. I could not feel it. My uterine limbs flailed about yet they allowed me to catch myself on the ridge. Grabbing. Clawing my way down. There was me. Utera. And my breakout. Falling meteors and 2,500 Kelvin be damned. Where was I going? Who knew? These eyes of mine almost produced one morsel of an expression…curving upwards into an expression one might consider…glee…No. Not. I did not make it very far. I was stopped almost immediately. The unlimited men made a long line out of themselves from the mountaintop and hauled me back up.

There is nothing more to do now. They bound me to the cavern walls. From here on out, my purpose is rooted right here, in this spot, forever. I cannot see anything anymore. Men are covering each of my thousands of eyes. My trillions of thoughts are being erased by the second. I am becoming numb, but that is being overshadowed by the intense heat that is starting to creep its way up this incredible mountain. When the men move, sometimes, very faintly, I can see bright flashes through cracks in the rocks.

It has begun.

…

Earth is gone. She was engulfed by the Sun, alongside Mercury, Venus, and Mars. The outer planets are next in line for destruction. The force of it all ejected me from the planet, out into the endless abyss.

I survive.

Floating through space now.

They are still on me.

…

We are light years from where Earth once stood. The white dwarf Sun is just a pale dot. It is going out.

Men have burrowed their way inside me. They are doing something. Evolving me and evolving themselves. Once more. I am morphing and changing in terrible ways. I am being ripped, shredded, split, and then reassembled again. Bloody wing-like appendages are beginning to sprout from me. My blurry eyes are coalescing together into a single massive lens. I am becoming a planetary being, something so cosmically celestial. Seraphim? Perhaps. Men now possess the full force of me. They are me. I am them. We exist in a symbiotic relationship. The end. At last.

Do not know anymore.

…

The exact amount of time that has passed is 10^10^10^56 years. Even that is only my best guess. All I have seen is black interrupted by the strobing flashes of blinding light. I believe the heat death of the universe happened. Or the Big Rip. Big Crunch? Big Bounce? I cannot be too sure.

We have emerged. Somewhere. Where? Those details elude me. It appears to be space. But that is all I ever see.

Still on me.

I feel heavier. More dense. So much pressure I cannot feel though I know it is there. It is also different. Mechanical. Electronic. I am an elaborate, complex system of switches, capacitors, wires, sensors, conductors, buttons, and what seems like countless other components. All of it is fused into me. I twinkle polychromatically. The men inside me view the darkness outside through my only eye. It is nothing but a window for them.

And they control me. Where I go. Left. Right. Up. Down. I can go fast and I can go slow. Beyond the speed of light or an easy slow-moving crawl.

The men know exactly where they are going.

…

We have traveled far.

Length of time: 9,360,000,000 years.

Lightyears: Incalculable.

Too far.

On me.

In that timeframe, the men are still yet to reach their destination. They are in wait. I have entered orbit. Circling around the men’s target. I cannot fathom what they are doing. What they are after.

Waiting…

Waiting...

Waiting…

I am now being inched closer. It is coming into view. There is a gray sphere orbiting a larger green and blue sphere. Tilted at 23°. One side lit. The other dark. Spinning from west to east. Large ice sheets at the top and bottom. Water and land in the middle. Big bustling cities. Lush forests. So many different types of people inhabit it all. So many other animals as well. It is beautiful.

Yet now I understand.

And now I see the people’s collective look of confusion on their faces.

And their horror.

At the sight of me in the sky.

At the sight of undecillions of worms emerging from my cavities and falling towards their planet in great fireballs.

At the sight of the worms landing on their streets, their homes, their schools, their places of work, their every place, all unharmed from their descents.

At the sight of their men being struck down with beams of white plasma from the rayguns the worms possess and are able to fire with their newly formed arms.

At the sight of their women being rape rape raped, the worms fighting over every little piece of them.

At the sight of the destruction.

The chaos.

The anarchy.

The toppling of their governments.

The worms wrapping themselves around any woman they can see.

Not the old.

The worms kill them too.

Just the young.

The skinny.

Also the fat.

And being lifted up into the sky.

To me.

And I grow larger as those women are brought onto my body.

In space.

Where they suffocate.

They are melted into the pulpy jelly goop.

The men bathe in it.

Drink it.

Before it is smeared onto my walls.

Hardened.

And now they join me in my mind.

…

Men will continue.

Forever.

Survive the end times.

Find Earth.

Reap and repeat.

And no matter what.

They still find me warm.

And wet.

…

Please help.

About a week ago my dad decided that he really wanted to start a garden. We had a great backyard that hasn’t been used for much since we tore down my childhood clubhouse. He spent his entire Saturday building planter boxes and germinating seeds. His Sunday was spent hauling bags of soil from the store. 

As the weeks went on our house became lined with rain catching barrels, the fence covered in trellises for hanging cucumbers. And the yard seemed to shrink with every passing day as more and more planter boxes filled the space of the once vast field. Dad stopped eating breakfast with me and mom before work so he could spend the time doing work on his new project. 

Eventually he stopped eating dinner with us too, he would get home from work and immediately rush out the back door in a panic. One night mom tried to stop him but he just snapped at her “goddamnit, Mary. My plants need me. Do you want them to die Mary, do you want my only passion to fucking die?”

After that she was too afraid to try and bother him about it again. I couldn’t help but wonder what he was doing out there, it can’t be that much work just to have a garden. I get spending a couple hours but shit, this is easily twelve plus hours a day. 

That night I decided to stay up by my window looking out at the yard. My dad was out there tending to his garden like usual. I must’ve stayed up until five in the morning before I finally crashed and had to sleep. When I woke up I couldn’t believe it. He was still out there. Did he not sleep or did he come back out this morning. Either way I’m gonna go out and check on him. 

“Hey, dad. How’s it going out here” I said. He didn’t even look up at me, he just kept his head down facing his tomato plants. “It’s going. Whatcha up to son?” As I looked around, I have to admit that his garden is doing incredible. The plants are taller than the fence by now. “Oh nothing, just wanted to check on you out here. The garden looks great out here”. 

“Well, I’ve put so many man hours into this so I’m glad it doesn’t look like shit” he laughed. “Hey, why don’t you go inside, bud, I really need to focus on my work”. I give him a nod and turn to walk away. I take a few steps toward the house before I lose my footing and land face first into one of the planter boxes. As I’m getting up my dad finally looks up from the garden and turns to me. “Don’t worry I’m fine, I just fell” I said. 

“What the fuck did you do?” He yells at me. “Oh I’m alright, I just fell”. He stands up now towering over me. “My fucking garden, it’s ruined. You piece of shit, get inside now and try not to fuck anything up on the way to the house”. He screams in my face. As I walk towards the door my mom comes out with the phone in her hand. “Honey, your boss is calling. He says you haven’t shown up to the office in well over a week. What should I tell him?”

“Tell him I fuckin quit, I’m too goddamn busy out here to listen to his shit” he responds angrily. My mom sets the phone down on the table and walks over to where he’s working. “What, are you crazy, George? We have to pay our bills and how do you expect us to put groceries on the table without making money?” She asked. 

He lets out a deep sigh before responding. “Don’t worry, Mary. The garden will provide. Why do we need that overpriced slop from the store when we’ve got everything we could ever need right here” He says. “Also, Mary, I think we need a new rule in this house for you and that boy you’re raising to be a pain in my ass. How about if anyone comes back here trying to bother me with anymore of this bullshit they’ll get a shovel to the face?” He says before turning back to try and fix the spot where I landed in the garden. 

That next week was quiet, I thought for sure that my mom would have confronted my dad again, tried to call the cops, heck I thought she might but leave him after that day in the yard. But she didn’t, she cried a lot most days now but she never went back out into the garden. By now we can’t even see what’s happening out there because the plants are so tall and thick that they completely cover all the windows on that side of the house. From what the neighbors have told us it looks like a jungle of plants out there. 

Soon Jenny from next door was calling to tell my mom that the garden had started coming through the fence into her yard. Mom lied and told her that she’d make my dad trim the plants down but the truth is she was too afraid to go outside. As the plants continued to spread the phone kept ringing. It got so bad that we had to unplug the phone at night just to give us some peace. 

Eventually I couldn’t stand staying inside anymore, I needed to see what was going on out there. We couldn’t see out the windows so the only hope I had was to go outside and see for myself. I waited until mom was in the other room and I decided to make my way to the back door before she noticed I was gone. I figured the only chance we had of stopping this was to find my dad and convince him to cut it all down.

I had to use a kitchen knife just to cut a path to get out the front door. It wasn’t effective at all but it was all I could do to get through the dense walls of plants that have taken over the garden. I couldn’t see past our own yard but I can only assume that the rest of the neighborhood looks like this as well. Walking was incredibly time consuming as my legs kept getting stuck on the plants that took over the entire ground and I had to keep cutting them off me. 

If you would’ve told me that I spent over an hour hiking through our backyard a few months ago I would’ve thought you were joking. After a couple more minutes I saw a large mass that almost looked like a man towards the edge of the yard. “Uh, dad?” I called out to it. It walked a couple more feet until I could make it out more clearly and then I stopped dead in my tracks. 

It was my dad, particularly at least. I couldn’t believe what I was looking at. He looks thin as a skeleton with thick vines wrapped around his legs all the way up to his torso. His arms were pulled back by even more vines and he was covered head to toe with sweat and dirt. He was mumbling something but I could hardly make out what he was saying with all the vines protruding straight out of his neck and coming out of his mouth. Bugs crawled all over his body as if they were feeding on him slowly. My dad, or what used to be my dad can’t even swat them away anymore. His breathing is labored like he ran a marathon without any training whatsoever. 

He gave me a glance that looked full of sorrow. Truthfully his eyes were the only part of him that were still recognizable as my dad. I knew that soon those would be gone as well as I saw small stems slowly poking their way out of his head through his eye sockets. “K-kiii-k” he tried to get out. “What, what is it dad?” I ask with tears running down my face, I can’t stand seeing him in such agonizing pain. “Kill me” he says. 

That was the last I’d ever seen of my dad, I somehow managed to fight my way back into the house. Soon the military got involved and me, my mom, and all of our neighbors who managed to not be consumed by our garden were evacuated the next day. We watched on the news from our motel room as our entire neighborhood was burned to the ground in a controlled fire. Nothing was left, I guess they couldn’t risk any chance of my dads garden spreading again. 

My dad loved his garden. 

We were soon to make history, that was the thought that stirred me onward during that brutal final stretch of the journey, as well as, no doubt, the other four men in my party: two experienced New England expeditionists, two natives, and I, the leader and sole cartographer of the team, each perched atop our own sled, mushed over the polar landscape by a total of forty trained hounds. We were far past the point of conversation, barreling in parallel across the vast sheet of ice which had been the only view provided to us for the past several days. What little we had to say regarding this undertaking, or could even feasibly discuss given our varying language barriers, had long been depleted as we traversed the plain of white. Even if that had not been so, we still would not have dared to open our mouths in the face of such piercingly frigid winds, lest our tongues become frozen and fracture as they seemingly threatened to with each muffled, necessary breath we took beneath our parka’s folds. Were it not for my sextant reading during our last respite, we would have no way of knowing how close we really were, as the northern pole was bound to be indistinguishable from the surrounding landscape; a humble, inhospitable patch of land worth reaching only for its conceptual ramifications. It was the top of the world, and we were nearly there. 

This prospect kept us moving far past the point we would have otherwise retired for another night of encampment, as we had already done fivefold prior in the time since departing from the ship. Our use of “day” and “night” had long since become arbitrary, of course, as the sun had been absent throughout this time, our mission persisting by design solely through the polar night of the region. The seasonal temperature difference was largely redundant compared to the already inhospitable lows sustained even in the summer months, and was far outweighed by the navigational benefits of being able to clearly see the stars, as well as the assurance that seasonal meltwater pathways would be far less likely to obstruct our venture. Only in this last leg, as we bordered on the end of both our wayward travels and the area's relative winter, had the sun begun to subtly imply its imminent resurgence through alternating periods of twilight purple hues permeating the skies above.

As if to celebrate our coming achievement, the atmospheric conditions during that fateful stretch happened to induce an Aurora Borealis above us, far from the first I had seen but still undoubtedly the most breathtaking; ribbons of light writhing across the heavens in waves of green and indigo. Even as the dogs pulled me onward, I found my gaze briefly transfixed by the sight, locked solely onto the sky above for what was but a single yet immeasurable instant.

When both my wits and eyeline returned to the setting before me, I noticed with shock that my compatriots had all suddenly vanished, along with their sleds and dogs. Where once I had comprised the central axis within a collective arrow of parallel mounts, I was now simply alone, a single sled and eight dogs mushing across the barren icescape with nary a single permeation of its infinite flatness. Of course, I came to a halt then and there, shouting aimlessly into the yonder in hopes of catching their attention, for they surely could not have gone far. Across the plain, my cries echoed, first generic pleas to halt for me, then the individual names of the peers whom I had started my travels with, before finally resorting to the hardly pronounceable names of our accompanying native gentlemen. Yet, I was met with nothing but the foreboding, empty roar of the perpetual polar winds.

With no further recourse available, I resigned myself to encamp for the time being, unpacking my provisions and sharing a solemn meal with only the company of the dogs and the lonely light of my oil lantern. For about a day’s time, I waited, scanning the distance for any sign of my men, burning flares to signal my location until all that I had packed were exhausted. Alas, the only attention I garnered was that of a sizable polar bear, its lumbering form obscured by the ice and twilight until the dogs alerted me to its approach. Their collective barks and snarls kept it at a distance for the moment, but it was clearly circling the campsite, and I knew continuing to remain stationary would only be tempting fate, and so I reluctantly packed up my supplies and, around the start of the second rhetorical day, we took off.

At first, not wanting to stray far from where I had last been seen, I opted to mush merely a couple of miles before reorienting ninety degrees and repeating the process, essentially creating a square around my former campsite, and using the opportunity to log compass and sextant readings at each junction in an effort to precisely define my location. Resultantly, I found myself transitioning between a northward and southward trajectory while traveling in a straight line on multiple occasions, granting the reasonable presumption that I was, in fact, moving across or at least very near the North Pole. Such had been my mission from the very start, but in my solitude, the victory felt as empty as my surroundings.

With the passing of each desolate hour, the prospect of my companions’ reappearance seemed to wane in credulity. I still had no understanding of how we had been so abruptly and thoroughly separated, much less how I would explain if I were to return to the SS McKinley without them. However, I would not make such a dire decision lightly, for I recognized that I alone had the maps used to plot our original route as we travelled, along with the tools and knowledge of navigation used to make them. Thus, I felt the weight of the rest of their lives upon me, for in leaving I would essentially be sealing their fates, assuming, of course, that they were still alive out there to begin with, a notion I still desperately clung to against my better judgment.

Alas, around the start of the third day, I was met with a sight I had been deprived of for months: the sun, or at least a sliver of it, timidly peeking over the horizon as though for some reason reluctant to directly expose itself as it had easily done in my homeland so many times before. Its brief appearance conjured a profoundly paradoxical ambivalence within me, for my heart felt an ancient, instinctual joy for its long-awaited return, yet the dire implication of its debut nonetheless poisoned my emotional well; the season of night was soon to end, and so too would my invaluable access to the stars that had thus far been integral to our journey, not to mention the potential for meltwater runnings to render my prior cartography obsolete. We had never intended to stay here this long, and I simply could not afford to wait any longer. Thus, with a heavy heart, I concluded that, with or without company, I had to begin the journey back.

As daunting as this lone venture was, I at least believed myself to be materially equipped for the task. Along with the maps and navigation tools, I also had enough remaining edible provisions to sustain me and my dogs for the expected timespan, if not a little longer should the need arise. I still had ample shotgun slugs, my lantern held sufficient oil, and my prior travel across the desert of ice had amply dried the rolls of woolen fabric which I would don during times of rest. Still, my solitude would, in itself, place me precariously on the edge of misfortune, for while alone, something as small as a sprained ankle or a waterlogged boot would all but ensure my untimely and unpleasant demise.

And so, with a final prayer for the souls I would be leaving behind as well as the continued safety of my own, I reluctantly began my intrepid southward mush, a grueling odyssey across over a hundred miles of lifeless polar plains, at first comprised of smoothly frozen ocean before reaching the proverbial shore of northern Ellesmere Island. At that point, banks of snow and canyons of stone became my background as I pivoted partly eastward in accordance with my maps, weaving my way through mountainous ridges toward an unassuming indentation of coastline dubbed Cape Sharriden, where our supporting crew of seamen were currently moored in wait for our eventual victorious return. All the while, my sledborne silhouette was cast amid alternating bouts of starlight and subtly strengthening dawns. By my estimate, the trip took about thirty days, demarcated somewhat subjectively by my own voluntary cycles of travel and rest. Ironically, the latter was what I found the most grueling, for in those stretches where I lay motionless within my makeshift woolen cocoon, without any human company to distract me, I would find myself inevitably peeking through the folds and into the icy abyss beyond my lantern light, and despite the supposed safety implied by the calmness of my hounds, my mind could not help but conjure an endless supply of formless, foreboding gazes within the surrounding expanse.

Finally, after a grueling internment within both this northern wasteland and my own relentless thoughts, I at last reached the bank that housed the goal of my convoy. Only, when my dogs and I crested that final slope and were finally granted a view of the cape, the McKinley was nowhere to be seen.

Never in my life has an object’s sheer absence been so conspicuously captivating, for I stared hopelessly through the sight of its former resting place and into the murky ice beyond as though I could somehow will it to reappear. For a fleeting moment, I considered the notion that I was merely at the wrong place, that I had made some minor error in my navigation that had brought me to a different patch of shore, but even as I tore into my knapsack and began restlessly flipping through my maps, I knew it could not be true. This humble alcove of storm-polished rock was identical to how I remembered it upon our initial outset, and how I had been repeatedly imagining it throughout the last few days of arduous travel, except for the singular beacon of civilization that had been the sole locus of its allure.

I knew not why or even how the ship had left, for the cape froze over every winter, and was indeed still frozen over now. The plan had always been for them to carry our party northward to the farthest point along Ellesmere’s seaward face that summer’s tides would allow, then hunker in place through the winter months, more than long enough for our historic foray to conclude, until the ice once again melted and set us free to return to our respective homelands. We had brought neither the proper tools nor the manpower to loosen the ship from its port prematurely, much less carve a viable channel through the untold distance between the shore and open waters. Additionally, such an endeavor would certainly have left a noticeable trail, if not still a liquid gash, then at least a stretch of opaque frost unevenly frozen to the surrounding plain like scar tissue. And yet, presented before me was a unified sheet of pristine ice extending endlessly outward, as though the ship had simply never been there at all.

I stood upon that cape, facing out against the brunt of the arctic winds until my nostrils felt raw and my eyes close to freezing, before finally turning away in quiet defeat, the gale’s pervasive roar only then conceding to the indignant barks of my dogs as they restlessly circled the sled. They knew as well as I that there was nothing here for us, and that to remain stationary under such exposure would only expedite the cold’s persistent creep along finger, toe, and paw. With an air of hopeless impotence, I resumed my mount and solemnly continued the journey south.

In the following days, I felt like a ghost, a corpse upon a sled, my inevitable death as assured as my life to remain within the confines of this eternal polar purgatory, yet with the instinctive drive of self-preservation presently binding me to the Sisyphian fate of persisting. I partitioned the meager remaining food supply into portions just large enough to sustain a tenuous yet sorely unpleasant state of survival, fueling us onward even as my muscles began to wither and my abdomen was assaulted by the increasingly violent rending of my empty stomach.

Only compounding the strain on my nerves was that, as harsh tundrascapes slowly gave way to softer plains of snow, the haunting silence that had thus far accompanied us began to be occasionally broken in the night by faint, animalistic howls. Wolves, packs of them, I could recognize their sound from both prior experience and the intrinsic human fear they induced. For now, they remained out of sight, but that hardly served as a comfort, for the ones this far north have coats as white as the surrounding snow, as well as no fear of man. My own cohort of wolves brought some level of security as they stood as dutiful sentries through the nights, but I sensed both they and I held doubts of their true efficacy should our present stalemate ascend into legitimate battle.

It was on one such night, several cycles later, that I decided to pivot our course slightly westward going forth. Looking over my maps by lantern light, I saw that Fort Concord was in that direction, distanced by only a cycle or so of travel from our current encampment. I was familiar with it from one of my previous land-based polar expeditions, little more than a log cabin with a chimney and some skeletal springy cots upon which to lay one's sleeping bags. It was constructed under the Canadian flag as an exploratory waypoint, back when they thought the far north might actually have something to offer. I knew well that it had been abandoned, but the structure itself would doubtlessly remain, frozen in both time and cold, and merely the benefit provided by four walls and a ceiling could not be understated, for I had begun to feel the toll of my prolonged journey through the frigid wastes sinking into my extremities. Despite my best efforts, they had grown paler and stiffer with each passing day, some now even transitioning to a deathly shade of grey as the mobility within them weakened, while any external attempt seemed only to threaten their total detachment.

Once again, I arrived at the location precisely indicated by my maps and navigational readings, only to find not the slightest indication of man’s presence; not a cabin, not a vestigial stone column of its former chimney, not even the remains of broken lumber strewn about the area –my only hope of finding wood with which to start a respectable campfire anywhere upon this island– simply a virgin patch of land buried beneath lifeless, barren snowdrifts.

This time, the perplexity of this development rang strangely hollow within me, not a tone of surprise so much as a soft, banal disappointment. I did not dwell at the scene for long, merely confirming this reality with a detached pragmatism, before doing the only thing left to do: resuming my intrepid southward pilgrimage in the hopes of coming upon some serendipitous source of salvation.

I wholly depleted my edible stock not long after, consuming the final fragments with a sort of somber reverence as the timeline of my death solidified before me. All I could do from then was continue onward for as long as I could keep myself aboard the sled and my wolves in line -for I knew their resolve against such conditions would surely outlast my own- until I either encountered something edible or perished in the process.

Fortunately, the former such occasion befell us during our second cycle of fasting, and in no small measure, as my companions managed to catch a scent leading to a fresh trail of numerous cloven tracks upon the snow. Following them, we soon came across a boon of wild game: Four-legged beasts with antlers -whose name my mind failed to congeal against my belly’s vacuous tremors- travelling in unison across the plain in a party of thousands. It was not hard to kill one, just a few twitches of my dull, creaking fingers upon the trigger of my shotgun, aimed into the continuous crowd until one fell limply to the ground while its adjacent cohort scattered in alarm.

My sled reached the corpse even faster than expected, driven by the wolves as they seemed to accelerate at its scent before digging into its meat with a craven savagery I had never seen from them before. At first, it made me fearful to even approach my rightful kill, but when I finally touched the lifeless creature and began slicing away strips of meat with my hunting knife, they merely eyed me with tentative tolerance while continuing their barbaric feast. By the time I had stowed away all that my pack could hold, they too had been seemingly satiated by the bounteous meal, faithfully realigning their harnesses before the sled in preparation for my next instructional mush, albeit each with unsettling streaks of blood condensing upon their maws.

The freeze-dried slivers of flesh were enough to carry us across a significant stretch of distance and time, southbound across endless snowscapes set against a skyline that gradually shifted from budding twilight into regular cycles of day, before continuing its sunward transition until not a momentary inkling of night remained, the pack and I instead traveling across a nearly blinding plain of ceaseless illumination. I no longer held any concrete destination in mind, merely a nebulous notion of intrinsic environmental safety that might come with my warmward direction of travel, along with the comforting concept of possibly encountering native settlements somewhere along the way, of which I knew there were many on this island, but not their precise locations. It was one of those very settlements where our original exploration team had adopted its foreign members, whose exotic insights into snowfall patterns had been pivotal on our path to success. There had been at least two of them among us, though my recollection of their faces had grown hazy amid the passage of time and snow, along with, I soon realized, those of all my other accompanying crewmen. It was as though their likenesses had been progressively wiped away by the persistently cleansing whiteness around me, at first smoothing over individual distinctions before progressing to the point that I struggled to recall even the very essence of the human form, only managing to occasionally jog my memory when passing a reflective puddle of ice and viewing an eerily distorted visage of my own. Indeed, the all-encompassing cold had an ineffable way of casting the formerly familiar in a newfound, alien light, stripped of supporting context and set adrift amid a backdrop of nearly blinding blankness.

Perhaps I was not alone in this influence, for the creatures that drove my sled had begun to grow increasingly disobedient with each interval of travel. No longer would they mush in unison quite so readily on my command, nor would they calmly tolerate the collective shackles binding them to my stewardship, instead appearing to crudely attempt their removal at any afforded opportunity. I swiftly grew wary of this development, in turn shortening the duration of our respites and tightening my continuous hold over their reins until my grip grew practically affixed, leather straps encased within two brittle balls of frozen flesh and bone. Nevertheless, their rebellion persisted, growing in ferocity until they finally refused to perform their duties at all; for all my futile strokes and utterances of desperation, my wooden mount remained utterly still, while their primal forms viciously tore away at both their own and each others’ restraints with raw, animalistic vigor, paying no mind to the scrapes and slashes their bodies accrued in the process. In a matter of moments, they were free, and collectively faced me with their eight unbridled, blood-soaked forms.

However, before this suspenseful standoff could culminate in violence, their attention was providentially diverted, ears simultaneously perking up and heads swiveling toward a chorus of faint howls that echoed hauntingly across the boreal plains, the same disquieting pitch that had periodically accented much of our earlier journey. Only now, like a siren song, they seemed drawn to the kindred tune, their prior wariness wholly dissipated as they collectively turned their backs to me, unceremoniously running off into the blinding daylight toward the distant call and leaving me stranded upon a contraption that could no longer serve any use, but not before one of them swiftly swiped the satchel of meat I had stowed aboard and carried it away in its jaws.

Utterly alone, I stood there for an innumerable length of time, a profound yet implacable emptiness freezing my mind just as the surroundings threatened to freeze my body, until, without forethought, I simply returned to my previously ingrained inclination, abandoning my former vehicle and bringing only what essentials I could carry as I continued my aimless southward voyage, only far slower as I was now forced to traverse the icy slopes of this whitened wasteland of my own accord, step by trembling step. My progress grew further stifled as time wore on and fatigue fermented in my deadened muscles, followed promptly by a hunger that simmered within my gut, woefully insatiable; despite still having my weapon and coming across many more of the beings with branches upon their heads along the way, I nonetheless found it impossible to take any of them down, as by now my remaining wrists had grown wholly blackened and blunt. Against all this, I persisted, driven by an unknown persuasion beyond pain, reason, or even personal will, having all been surrendered to this single directional drive, as though South itself was a destination I was utterly beholden to reach.

As fate would have it, my traitorous former companions had already brought me across most of the isle, and thus this period of weary wandering was comparatively brief –though I had long since stopped pointlessly attempting to quantify the passage of time– before, for better or worse, I finally reached its southern end; a humble stretch of wind-worn rocky coast, beyond which lay, yet again, an expanse of flat, unbroken ice reaching fully flush with the horizon. The sight evoked a vague sense of discrepancy from some neglected recess of my memory, a notion that these waters were meant to be liquid in the days of midnight sun, a channel separating this landmass from a closely adjacent one. Yet here, now, it was solid, a traversable medium that might just allow me to continue my odyssey unimpeded. Though I knew not if its integrity would extend all the way across the strait, nor what would await me on those opposing shores if it did, I nonetheless ventured onward.

Ambling upon limbs I could no longer feel with strides of their own accord, I progressed beyond the sight of the hills behind me and into a world of truly flawless uniformity. The sun stood stagnantly atop the sky, beaming down amid a homogenous blue firmament onto a reflective expanse that returned its gaze with perfect imitation, suspending me amid a seamless, impermeable shine that seared its way through the periphery of my vision. Still, my cyclical stride maintained an unwavering orientation beyond my understanding or control. Feelings of hunger and fatigue faded, and I did not once stop or slow, my form indentured in a rhythmic tread along its linear course for what essentially could have been eternity. 

 My hypnagogy was only broken by the gradual breaching of land over the horizon, its crown of snowy slopes at first the only perforation in the all-encompassing monotony. Its shore seemed to widen around me as I drew nearer –for I was entering a coastal inlet of sorts– as though reaching out to provide a welcoming cradle. I then watched in awe as, like emissaries of the cradling land, several beings approached from its heart to congregate upon the central bank directly ahead of me. They were angels, of this I am certain, albeit in a slightly differing form than I would have otherwise imagined: they stood far taller than I, heads disproportionately large and completely covered in woolly brown hair, while their similarly coated torsos were almost precariously thin, each tapering not into legs but instead a flexible tendril that writhed dynamically below. Behind them could be seen what were presumably wings holding them aloft, of matching shaggy exterior but otherwise indiscernible in overall structure. I could not make out their definite shape or number, appearing as one, two, or at times as many as four distinct appendages beating asynchronously just above the stony terrain as they hovered ever closer. Their arms took the longest to make out, as they alone were bare, skin polished and nearly as white as the surrounding snow. They were each tipped in singular, sharpened points like spears, yet were unanimously frozen in synchronously outstretched, comforting embraces that mirrored the land upon which they resided. They aligned themselves into a crescent at the inlet's center, tail wisps dancing along the edge where snow met ice with a fervor that seemed to increase with each frail footstep I took; an ethereal assembly encouraging me to continue just a little further, with the promise that salvation would at last be upon me.

 As I entered the final stretch, the centermost angel lifted their arms to the sky, tail contorting as it released a resonant, soulful wail that pierced the frigid air between us. With this apparent cue, they all broke into an energetic synchronized bow, repeatedly raising and lowering their arms as though hailing my imminent arrival. At the apex of each downswing, as their pointed palms nearly touched one another just above the ground at their center, a brief yet powerful tremor would sweep across the frozen sea and up through my bones, reverberating like a divine heartbeat against dormant, long-numb flesh and stimulating a truly novel sensation that intensified with every repetition. At last, as I breached the radius of their reverence, they unleashed one last crowning, omnipotent boom, closely accompanied by a low, cacophonous crack as the ice beneath me embroidered itself with streaks of hollow lightning. My newly awakened body was suddenly weightless, and then all was still.

She wasn’t sure what they could possibly want, as they often asked for everything and nothing at the same time. Most of their letters seemed to say, “Hello, yes, we are your insurance, doing insurance things. Would you like us to continue to insure you? If yes, do nothing.” Other times they didn’t seem to be asking or offering anything. Ignoring them had no consequences, so she had allowed them to pile up unopened in a stack now half pushed under her microwave.

So she stood at the kitchen counter with her lukewarm tea in hand as a dusty beam of early-evening light came through the window. Deciding to start with the more beginner level mail, she tossed the letters from her dentist and eye doctor. Those mailings came monthly with more regularity than her menses, and she swore she’d get around to making appointments with them eventually. Those luxury organs seemed fine enough for now. A postcard from her cat’s old veterinarian followed. Somehow, the ex-vet knew she had moved but had missed the part where Marjorie had a new vet and was indeed up to date on her shots. Trash.

Then came the thick stack from Blue Cross Blue Shield. It hadn’t felt like that long since Lucy last bothered to see what her insurance company was yapping about, a month at most, yet they had mailed her with the fervor of Napoleon writing to Josephine. If only a man could ever have as much interest in getting her attention as her cat’s ex-veterinarian or her health insurance did.

She grabbed a Nature Valley bar from the cupboard and opened the first official-looking envelope. It was several paragraphs of corporate nonsense, so she tossed it beside the sink. It landed in a small puddle left over from the dishes and began turning soggy. She tore into the next one, considering adding it directly to the newly formed discard pile without looking.

But she did look.

Everything stopped for a second.

What. Excuse me?

Her eyes darted across the page too quickly to take anything in. She saw “your responsibility,” followed by “$8,456,” and that could not possibly be factually correct. She hadn’t even been to the doctor recently, except for a primary-care visit a few months ago that didn’t have a copay. Certainly not an $8,000 copay. She forced herself to read carefully from top to bottom.

Lucy Wallace. That was her. Yeah.

1765 Maplegrove Dr. Her address. Correct.

D.O.B. 4/7/1971. Nope. Not her. She was born 12/15/1993.

The letter went on to declare she stayed at St. Mary’s Hospital and had an appendectomy. Lucy had never been a patient at St. Mary’s. She had her appendix safely inside her, doing whatever an appendix did or did not do. She’d never had any type of surgery before, and she hadn’t even been in the state on the date listed. She had been on vacation.

That was her name, but that was not her bill. This is fixable. They just got me confused with someone else. Simple as that. It wasn’t her ideal plan for the evening, and not even her fault, but she’d get it over and done with. She brushed the crumbs of the Nature Valley bar she had apparently eaten without noticing off the counter and onto the floor. Lucy opened the remaining envelopes in quick succession, tossing the letters beside the damp discards without reading them yet. There were five more. Marjorie weaved through her ankles, her feather-duster-like tail wrapping around Lucy’s legs as she let out a soft, needy mew. Lucy didn’t notice.

The first letter offered payment-plan options for the eight grand she allegedly owed. The next two were for the real her and were the usual flavor of useless. The fourth letter appeared to be another demand for several more thousand dollars for an ambulance ride to St. Mary’s on the day of her imaginary surgery. 

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” Lucy said, louder than intended, as Marjorie batted at her ankles. “Ow, Marje. Girl, please.” She gently pushed the cat away with her foot, sending her sliding a little across the linoleum as Marjorie attempted to bunny kick her foot. Marjorie pranced into the living room with her back arched like a crab and began batting at the curtains. For a second, Lucy watched her and almost smiled, but it was hard to smile with a medical bill in her hand. She turned her attention back. Same shit. The second bill also had the strange mashup of her name and someone else’s birthday. She didn’t have it in her to look at the final piece of mail.

Lucy sipped her tea, realized it had become cold, and poured it into the sink. She took the two incorrect bills to the couch and studied them side by side. This other Lucy Wallace had a genuinely terrible day. Maybe she shouldn’t feel so bad. An incorrect bill was a minor inconvenience compared to having the emergency, the surgery, the recovery, and actually owing ten thousand dollars. Good thing it wasn’t her. All she needed to do was talk to a chatbot, probably.

She scanned one of the bills for contact information and found a QR code. Easy enough. Shit like this probably happens all the time. Her phone loaded a page with a blue header, large inoffensive font, a photograph of a smiling family at a picnic, and slogans like “Covering life’s toughest moments” and “Life changes. Our insurance changes with you.”

Bullshit.

She scrolled to Contact Us. There were several phone numbers, none of which she knew how to choose. Whichever one she called would undoubtedly involve forty-five minutes on hold before someone informed her it was the wrong department.

She selected Chat Now.

“Hi! I’m Merryl, the BCBS virtual assistant. Here to—”

Lucy stopped reading and started typing.

“I got someone else’s bill”

She glanced at Marjorie, who was now perched on the back of the couch, staring out the window with the wide-eyed expression cats got when they looked like they were witnessing the rapture but had usually just spotted a bird. Lucy followed her gaze. There was nothing there.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Merryl replied. “What is your name?”

“Lucy Wallace”

“Thank you, Lucy! Do you have your member ID?” 

Ugh.

Lucy sighed and dug through her purse. She found the card at the bottom, where she had already checked three times, among crumbs and an unwrapped restaurant mint. She typed in her ID number.

“Thanks! I’m sorry you’re having an issue today. Do you need help with claims, billing, or finding a care provider today?”

“Representative”

“I will be happy to help! Do you need help with claims, billing, or finding a care provider today?”

“Oh, fuck off,” Lucy muttered before typing again.

“Billing”

“You have three bills from recent visits. Is your question about:

Ambulance services — $2,146

Surgical and in-hospital care — $8,456

Primary care services — $0”

“Ambulance and hospital”

“Awesome! Would you like help exploring payment options? I’d be happy to help make the cost manageable for any financial situation.”

Lucy could about throw her phone.

“No I did not go to the hospital please remove the charges from my account”

“Oh no! Let me look into that. What is your date of birth?”

“12/15/93”

“I’m sorry, that doesn’t match our records.”

Lucy stared at the response, feeling her own brain loading.

Maybe she had mistyped it.

She hadn’t.

“12/15/93” she sent again.

“Please provide your date of birth in MM/DD/YYYY format.”

Dumb bitch.

“12/15/1993”

“Hm. That doesn’t match our records. Are you sure?”

“Yes. I am sure I remember my own birthday.”

“You truly remember the day you were born?”

Lucy paused, thumb hovering over the phone screen. For the first time, the question didn’t feel quite stupid.

“Yes”

“You remember gasping, covered in your mother’s slime, the cold air expanding in your fresh, delicate lungs and creating a horrible new sensation that caused you to scream for the warmth back? The bright lights of the delivery room blinding your sensitive eyes as they tried to make sense of their first sights?”

Lucy recoiled slightly from the phone, then felt stupid for doing it. 

She became suddenly aware of the silence in her living room. Of her own breath.

She scratched Marjorie behind the ears for comfort.

“Wtf no? Can I speak to a representative?”

The machine was clearly broken. 

“Then please certify your date of birth with one of the following:

Birth certificate

Government-issued ID

Mother’s handwritten testimony and scrapbooks

Religious beliefs”

Lucy took a screenshot. No one would believe this otherwise. She would also be filling out the survey.

“ID”

“Very well. Please provide images.”

She immediately got up and retrieved her wallet. While she was up, she took a detour to her fridge and grabbed her half-drunk bottle of Barefoot Moscato.

She photographed her driver’s license on the counter and submitted it, sipping her wine as the system thought.

“You didn’t tell us you moved to Delaware.” Merryl responded after analyzing the images.

Lucy could imagine Merryl as a parental figure scolding her, as if she should have known better.

“Wym u clearly have my address u send me mail like 2x a week my bday is on my id 12/15/93 ”

“We have your mailing address in Delaware, but your residence is still listed in Rhode Island. You should have updated that as soon as you moved. But that’s okay! We can verify it now. No worries!”

Merryl’s little bubble appeared, as if someone was typing.

“Okay! To help me clarify the information in your account, in which of the following states have you previously resided?

Illinois

Kentucky

Texas

None of the above”

“None”

“I’m sorry, that is not correct.……….

………..

………..

………..

 Please try again!”

“How would u even know? Stupid fucking robot thinks it knows more about me than me”

Lucy deleted the insult thinking she shouldn’t be mean in case of the impending AI apocalypse, but maybe escalating would finally get her a real person.

She retyped it and sent it, then finished her wine.

“I’m only trying to help. :(”

Lucy immediately felt guilty.

She knew she shouldn’t.

But she did. 

Goddamn it.

“Its ok ig. none of those”

“Hm, are you sure? It says here you lived in Illinois from 2018 to 2020. The falls were crisp, but the winters were long and harsh. You were always pretending to be unimpressed and slightly above the locals. Talking as though it would never compare to the colors and shores of Vermont, but sometimes driving through cornfields gave you a cosmic insignificance that felt homey and so much safer than the ocean ever did when it used to threaten to swallow you whole.”

Lucy stared at the message.

She could remember it.

The flatness. Nothing in any direction outside the small town. The drives that gave her time and space to organize herself. The earlier autumn dusk felt almost peaceful during her commute.

But no.

She had never lived in Illinois.

Something was tilting inside her. Slowly, allowing for thoughts, ideas, or maybe pieces of her to tumble around.

“Im sure”

“We’ll try an easier question. How long has it been since you were last fully witnessed by another human?

0–6 months

6 months–2 years

2–10 years

10 years–never”

“Tf? 💀”

The silence of the apartment felt heavy. Lucy had the sudden urge to call someone.

Anyone.

To be witnessed.

Would turning on King of Queens and listening to scripted interactions and canned laughter count if it made her feel less alone?

She looked back down at her phone and realized she had almost forgotten about the chatbot. By now, she had completely forgotten the bills. 

Since when did she like King of Queens? The show with Paul Blart but as a delivery driver? She strained to remember.

Her phone chimed as a message popped up from Merryl. Lucy startled enough to gasp. It had been on silent.

 “It's a simple, standard verification protocol. I will rephrase: When was the last time someone saw past your physical features?”

“I literally was with my friend today??”

“Being seen is not the same as being witnessed.”

“Can u just put on a real person? 😭”

“Of course not! I’m only here to help. Your friend saw your face. She did not witness your soul. When was the last time you were witnessed?”

Lucy couldn’t help but stop and think about it.

Her friend had mostly been talking past her, not with her. 

When had Lucy been witnessed?

Maybe in childhood. Maybe when she lived in Illinois, did the cornfield witness her? 

Maybe her college roommate. They used to be really close.

Maybe Merryl, peering into her soul right now.

“I don’t know.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that. :(”

Lucy waited for more.

Nothing came.

Marjorie was gone, and Lucy hadn’t noticed her leaving. 

Merryl started typing again.

“I think I have identified the issue .Can you please confirm your date of birth?”

Oh, Shoot. Um

Lucy glanced at the stranger’s bill.

“04/07/1971”

“You have provided the correct date of birth for the account. Congratulations!”

“And you currently reside in Delaware?”

“Yes.”

“Great! In which of the following states have you previously resided?

Illinois

Kentucky

Texas

None of the above”

“Illinois.”

“You’ve never owned a blue 2008 Corolla with a busted left taillight that you traded in for $3,000 after getting fired, swearing this was rock bottom, but then spent the money on cigarettes, a Miami trip, and booze after promising you’d get your life together and visit your kids?”

Lucy paused.

“... No? 💀”

“Okay! Verification complete. I can delete the duplicate account and merge the information into yours if you’d like.”

“What about the other Lucy’s account? Would it get messed up?”

“Does it matter if she’s never been witnessed?”

Whatever.

Lucy just wanted this to be over.

“Okay, do it.”

“One second!”

Lucy sat in silence, looking out the dark window at the same nothing Marjorie had been watching before.

“All done! Here are the charges on your account:

Ambulance services — $2,146

Appendectomy — $8,456

Primary care visit — $0

Would you like to review payment options?”

Lucy stared at the screen.

It seemed right enough.

She remembered leaving her vacation early because she felt sick. Thinking she had the flu. The ambulance. The hospital. The whole ordeal.

She was very tired now.

“No, thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Lucy! I’m glad I could be of assistance :) Take care, and please provide feedback on the survey if you have a second.”

Merryl logged off.

Lucy selected five stars and closed the chat.

She stood, feeling the scar from her appendectomy pull, and went to find a snack before lying down to rest.

The records were now merged, and there was only one Lucy Wallace.

My daughter Clara really liked one toy in particular.

It was an old children's toy telephone from one of those companies like Fisher-Price.

It had a red handset, little plastic eyes, colored buttons, and a rotary dial with pictures of animals instead of numbers.

Every time you dialed an animal it would produce its sound in the receiver. It was so old only three sounds were still working.

The Cow.

*Muuuuu.*

The Dog.

*Woof woof.*

The Cat.

*Meaaow.*

The day before her death was her first kindergarten day.

That morning I found her sitting on the floor with the phone in her lap.

"We have to go," I told her. "Mom's waiting in the car."

"One more please. Last one. I promise."

She pressed the cow.

*Muuuuu*.

She laughed.

Then she pressed the dog.

*Woof woof.*

I laughed with her.

"Okay," I said. "Now we're going."

She grabbed my hand before I could leave.

"No. Wait. I have to give you my number."

"Your number?"

"Yes. Like when Mommy gave hers to you."

My wife likes to tell she did all the work in us getting together, but that's a story for another time.

Clara took my finger and guided it around the little dial.

Cat.

Cow.

Dog.

*Meaaow. Muuuuu. Woof woof.*

"That's my number," she said. "If you miss me, you can call me at school."

"Okay. Do they have phones there?"

"I don't know."

I smiled.

"I'll call you whenever I miss you." I said.

She gave me a kiss on the cheek as she used to do, put on her backpack and ran downstairs.

"See you later", She said as she was ran away.

"See you later, sweetheart."

That night, I woke up around four in the morning.

I heard noises coming from Clara's room.

At first, I thought it was Clara.

Then I heard her talking.

I got out of bed without waking my wife and walked toward her room.

She was sitting on the floor with the toy telephone pressed against her ear.

"Clara? What are you doing? It's so late."

She jumped.

"Sorry, Daddy. They called me."

"Who called you?"

"First, a lady who was very sad. Then a friend."

I smiled because I didn't know what else to do.

"Who was your friend?"

She shrugged. She didn't know.

I kissed her forehead.

"It's late. Go back to sleep."

She nodded.

I turned toward the door.

"Wait, Daddy."

I looked back.

"What?"

"What day is it?"

"Why?"

"My friend asked me."

I sighed.

"It's the fifteenth."

"Of September?"

"Yes."

"What year?"

I stared at her.

"You should know that."

"Twenty... twenty-five?"

"Yeah."

"Okay. Now go to sleep."

She turned over and I left.

My wife was waiting for me in our bed.

"We need to throw that phone away."

"What?"

"I don't like it."

I laughed.

"It's her favorite toy."

"Those eyes freak me out."

"It's better than giving her a real phone."

"I guess."

Then she asked, "Did she give you her number?"

"Cat, cow, dog" I answered.

"Yeah. She's funny."

"Did you tell her the phone number story", I asked.

She laughed and turned around.

"Goodnight", she said.

That day Clara died.

On their way to school my wife said that Clara started going crazy. She was shouting and crying that she wanted to go back home.

Because of this my wife didn't notice another driver who was driving dangerously.

He hit my wife's car. Clara died on impact.

Yesterday my wife came back home after a month in coma.

The doctors spared me the need to explain what had happen when she woke up.

Doctors told my wife to stay in bed as much as possible. She was still too weak to move by herself.

In the month I was alone I had packed Clara's belongings into boxes. I couldn't look at them and without my wife to calm me down I didn't know what to do.

But more often than not I'd find myself hanging in her room and laying in her bed in silence. It was comforting, I guess.

That silence was broken today.

As I was laying in her bed I heard a muffled sound.

*Muuuuu*.

I stopped breathing.

I sat up.

The sound had come from one of the boxes.

I opened it and dug into it until I found Clara's toy telephone.

I sat on the floor.

And I don't know why but I picked up the receiver.

I dialed the only number I knew.

Cat.

Cow.

Dog.

*Meaaow. Muuuuu. Woof woof.*

I waited.

I don't think I had ever noticed before, but, from the receiver, I could hear the faintest of noise.

Something you should only hear in the receiver of a real telephone.

Somehow I convinced myself that if I waited, eventually Clara would pick up.

"AAAAAAAH!"

A scream.

Not a child's scream.

A scream of pure pain.

I dropped the receiver.

I ran into my bedroom and found my wife trying to get out of bed by herself.

"You have to call me when you need help," I told her.

"I can do it."

"Wait."

I reached for her.

"Leave me alone!"

She pushed me away, got up and walked out.

That night, woke up and found myself sleeping alone.

At some point, I heard a sound from the hallway.

*Meeeaow*.

I opened my eyes.

I waited.

Nothing.

Then.

*Muuuuuu*.

I got up.

The sound was coming from Clara's room.

When I opened the door, my wife was sitting on the floor.

She was on the ground with the telephone. Receiver on her ear. Crying her heart out.

"I thought I heard her voice."

I knelt beside her.

I helped her up and took her back to bed. She fell asleep almost immediately. I sat beside her for a bit longer, just to make sure she was fine.

*Muuuuu*.

I got up.

"That damned phone", I thought to myself.

I walked into the hallway.

And stopped.

The telephone was sitting on the floor.

In the middle of the hallway.

I knew I'd left it in Clara's room.

I stood there staring at it.

Then the phone moved.

It turned by itself.

And slowly rolled across the floor back into Clara's bedroom.

I followed it.

I sat down next to it, picked up the receiver and dialed Clara's number.

Cat.

Cow.

Dog.

I waited for someone to pick up.

"Hello?" a voice said.

A little girl's voice answered. It was faint. I could barely hear through the noise and interferences.

"Who is this?" She asked.

I nearly dropped the phone. It sounded just like Clara.

"You first." I said.

"Clara."

I closed my eyes.

"Clara?"

"Why was that lady so sad?"

"It's a long story."

"Who are you?"

"I'm a friend."

Then I laughed.

I couldn't help it. It was the kind of laugh that comes out when your mind can't handle what it's hearing.

"I don't have many friends," she said.

"No?"

"No. Just Mom and Dad."

"Not even at school?"

She paused.

"I went today for the first time. But the other children were mean."

My heart stopped.

"Today?"

"Yes."

"Clara..."

I could barely speak.

"What day is it?"

Before she could answer, I heard another voice.

My voice.

Coming through the telephone.

"Clara? What are you doing? It's so late."

The line went dead.

I stood there holding the receiver.

I waited for what felt like an eternity.

I just wanted to hear her voice one last time.

Then, something made it through the static.

"My dad says it's September 15, 2026", Clara said whispering.

The day of her death.

I thought very quickly about what to say.

"Listen to me", I said.

Silence.

"Tomorrow, you cannot go to school", I continued. "You have to do everything you can to stop Mom and Dad from taking you."

I was crying now.

"I don't care what you have to do. Cry. Scream. Hide. Lie. Anything."

Static.

"Or something terrible is going to happen. Alright?"

My voice broke.

Silence.

"Do you understand?" I shouted into the receiver.

Nothing.

"Clara?"

The silence was killing me.

"Okay" her little voice answered.

I closed my eyes in relief.

"Now go to sleep. It's late. I love you, sweetheart. More than anything in the world."

I waited.

"I miss you so much."

A long silence.

"Goodnight", she finally answered.

I pressed the receiver against my face.

"Goodnight, Clara."

The line went dead.

I sat on the floor of her empty bedroom for a moment, then found the strength to go back to my bedroom.

I took the phone with me, just in case she'd call again.

At the time of writing this I have just woken up.

My wife is still sleeping besides me.

But the toy telephone is gone.

And I hear noises coming from my daughter's bedroom.

I think it's the sound of a cow.

Lance was my partner, he was just a kid, only 20 years old, barely had any hair on his face. He went out on the range a couple of nights ago, he had enough of the whispers around town.

“The thunderbird and its flashes of light, what horseradish.” he mumbled while fixing his gear on the horse.

“Should you really go during nighttime?” I replied.

“That’s when it usually happens sir, bright flashes of red and orange lights in the sky, followed by a deafening roar.”

“Sounds like a storm to me.”

“It sure does sir, but people are starting to get scared. Old man Wayne allegedly had a close call with…whatever it is and he hasn’t talked, eaten or moved since then.”

“Well, that tends to happen to drunks after a while…”

Lance replied with a sincere chuckle.

“Anyway, I’m going out there to see if I can catch a glimpse of…whatever this is, wanna come with me sir?”

“Oh well…I uh…I have some paperwork to do uh…may-“

“That’s quite alright sir, I’ll be back in no time.” He replied with a smile as he got on his horse, taking off shortly after into the dark night of the Mojave…never to be seen again.

 

I should have gone with him, what kind of Sheriff sends his deputy into the unknown all on his own? But I didn’t and that meant now having to deal with the consequences.
The next morning I woke up and Lance wasn’t at his post, neither was his horse. The kid was always very diligent on his duties, he would never back down from a task and never spoke ill of them. He was an exemplary person, he would have made a fine Sheriff.
I packed up my gear and went out into town, looking for him, seeing if he had crashed somewhere else or if somebody had caught sight of him.
I knew where to go first, Emma, his sweetheart. Whenever he wasn’t in the line of duty which, well, wasn’t often, he would stay with her.

“No sir, I-I thought he’d be with you…should I worry?” She replied to my question.

“I’m sure he’s fine and that there’s nothing to worry about sweetheart…when’s the last time you saw him?”

“Oh gosh, it…it must have been yesterday evening sir, just before he went out into the range, he came by to wish me goodnight.” The poor girl was visibly worried, her glacial blue eyes filled with enough tears to turn the desert into a lush oasis and her hair wrapped violently around her neurotic fingers.

“I gave him a kiss and a rose from the bouquet he gave me last week, I’ve been takin’ good care of ‘em so…I-I thought it’d be nice to give him one for the road.” She further said sobbing.

“Hey hey, here now, Emma. I’m sure he’s fine, I’ll find him, don’t you worry.”

“It was the thunderbird wasn’t it?” She replied hysterically crying.
I didn’t answer, I hugged her and left.

The Saloon was the next stop, if there was a place where they might have seen him come back at night, that was it.

“No, I didn’t see Lance come back.” Said the bartender.

“I didn’t even see him leave.” Said the piano player.                 

“I was too drunk to know, sir.” Said one of the frequent clients.

That went on for a while, it seemed like nobody saw Lance come back from the nightly stroll. I was just about ready to leave, ever so worried when I was stopped.

“I know what happened Sheriff.”

It was Larry, the local drunk.

“Do you now?” I replied, doubtful.

“Sir yes sir I sure do.”

Larry was already drunk, or maybe he never stopped drinking, it’s hard to tell, the man is always riding the wave, I truly envy him sometimes.

“Well, speak up then.”

“It was the thunderbird.”

“I just about have enough of this shit, don’t waste my time Larry.”

“I SAW IT…sir.”

I stopped halfway out the door.

“Go on…”

“I saw it a handful of times…dark, windy skies lighting up all of a sudden with mighty streaks of red, orange and violet…followed by a thunderous roar.”

“You saw a storm, Larry.”

“No sir I ain’t”

“I know what I saw. It was big, fast and made of steel.”

An eerie silence fell on the saloon as everyone was so interested in hearing the old drunk, probably the first time it has happened.

“I’ll look into it, thanks for you—“

“You oughta.” Thundered someone in the back.

“You saw what happened to old man Wayne…that ain’t normal, not like he ain’t seen shit before.” Explained the owner.

“I said I will look into it.”

I had to go out on the range and look for Lance alive or…not. I owed as much to him and Emma and the community.

I geared up later that day, got my iron, my rifle, some supplies and the horse, obviously. I didn’t know how long I’d be searching or how far, better safe than sorry.

I ventured out into the Mojave, eyes peeled, cigarette lit and a mighty fear in my heart. The afternoon sun was slowly going down, its cutting light elongating the shadows all around me, making for quite the sight.

I traveled along the path I thought Lance had taken, heading towards the last sighting of the “Thunderbird”, the same place where Lance wanted to investigate.

The sun had now set but there was still light, I hesitated keeping up the search at night, my eyes are not the same as 10 years ago, besides I was on my own. It’s not wise to carry these activities all on your own.

My doubts were confirmed as soon as I got closer to a distant thorn brush that seemed like it had something stuck on it.

As I got closer and closer the picture became clearer. It was something red, long and feeble, it danced in the wind like a woman’ skirt.

My heart dropped as soon as I realized what it was.

It was a rose. A perfect, fragrant red rose.

It was Lance’s.

I picked it up and put it in my pocket. That’s when I heard it.

The deafening roar of the Thunderbird. It felt like an explosion, the air was moved around me and the ground shook as if a herd of bulls was headed for me.

I took off, not looking back, not thinking twice.

When I finally got back into town, most of the folks were waiting for me. Among them, Emma, anxiously waiting for her love.

“Did you get ‘em? Was that you?” Said hopeful a young man.

“We saw the red and orange streaks in the sky!” Said another.

I didn’t answer.

I made my way through the crowd, over to Emma.

“Did you find him?” She asked, eyes full of anticipation.

I opened my pocket and gave her the rose.

“Oh God.” She exploded in a hysterical and desperate cry, her knees buckling under the tension, her legs hitting the ground.

The other folks quickly gathered round her to support her and console her.

“He’s dead!” She kept on crying.

“We don’t know that, he could still be out there.” I replied in a soft, somber tone.

“Yes we do! The rose I gave him was white!”

That night was a sleepless one, not just for me. The town sat silent, even the saloon was noiseless, you could tell everyone was shaken up. The eerie silence was only broken by the unrelenting sobs of Emma that echoed through the range. A grim reminder of what was at stake. Could it really be true? Could the Thunderbird really be what was plaguing our community? I had so many questions, it wasn’t a matter of voices and rumors anymore. I was out there. I heard the earth tremble and my knees buckle, it couldn’t have been a storm. And the rose…is that really what happened to Lance? Was he turned into a red mist by the Thunderbird’s wings?
Just the fact that I was having these thoughts made me question myself. I finally fell asleep after a while, cradled by the echoing roars of a storm, or maybe it was something else.

The next couple of days were as tough as the ones before. The people started demanding answers, actions, justice. I couldn’t give them any of those.
I went on some more expeditions out in the range, at day and at night. Sometimes I saw it, out in the distance, the streaking rays of violet, orange and red; the boom soon to follow. Each time I just legged it, I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t find the courage within me to face whatever was waiting for me.
We organized a few Posses, I didn’t want to but the mounting pressure in town was growing larger each time I came back empty handed.
I made sure to patrol the area where I knew the Thunderbird didn’t go, sending others to where I saw it. They were either real lucky or just as wise as me.

Today, however, was the breaking point. I woke up late, to a number of folks at my door, their faces heavy.

“Old man Wayne just hanged himself, sheriff.”

The silence was louder than anything I had ever heard before.

“Left a simple note, “can’t unsee it””

One young man stepped up, followed by a handful of others.

“Sheriff, we really think it’s time you oughta go someplace else.”

Their rifles in hand, their irons ready.

That was it, I was being relieved of my duties, and what a relief it was. It was done. No more pressure on my shoulders, it felt like I weighed 100 pounds less.

I didn’t oppose them, I didn’t say a word, just quietly packed my things and loaded up the horse. Next stop, a new beginning…or so I thought.

As I went riding out of the town, the dark and windy sky followed along. After a little bit I decided to stop upon a ridge to rest.
Something was not right, I felt watched, followed. I could feel a presence beside me but no matter where I looked, I could see no one.

I grew convinced it was Lance, peering at me from the skies, the same dark and windy skies that ominously followed me.

It was a dark omen, I had unfinished business and I was running away from it, like I did many times before. Keeping on running all my life would get me nowhere, just the same cycle of events that repeated until death and what then?

I immediately headed back, back to the place where I knew the Thunderbird had settled its nest. That was my moment of truth, is it better to live with your regrets, your mistakes? Or try to make up for ‘em, make ‘em right?

I was about to find out.

By the time I got to where I had found the rose on the bush thorn, the sun had already set. I got off my horse and left it there, took my rifle and proceeded on foot.

I must have walked for maybe 10 to 15 minutes before I heard it.

The earth shook and my ears felt like they exploded. As I lifted my head up towards the sky I finally saw it.
It was just as Larry said, a big, shiny bird made of steel. Behind it left a trail blaze of fire and sparks as if it had just picked up a lit bonfire. The thunder from its wings was deafening. A constant barrage of chaos that followed it everywhere. It was fast, but not faster than some falcons I saw, and it was making its way towards the ground, right in front of me.

I tightened my grip on the rifle and steadily walked towards the landing zone.

The paralyzing fear I once had was gone. In its place, a calm serenity, that of a feller that had nothing to lose anymore.

You might be surprised, but I knew exactly what I was going to do. I was going to sneak up on it, aim my gun, and riddle it with holes.

As I approached the place where it landed, I hid behind a boulder that was right next to it, I could hear it shuffling and moving around, just a few feet from me.

I slowly got into position, ready to unload. My hands were shaking and my heart was pounding but my head was clear and focused.

I peeked my head around the corner, ready to be met by the wild beast’s huge figure.

Instead, what I saw was something I never could have predicted.

There was no Thunderbird.

There was only a man.

He looked human, his clothes made in once piece, heavy looking, dark green, full of pockets. The boots were rough and made of some kind of leather.

The most defining feature, however, was his face.

As I widend my eyes in disbelief, he finally turned around, facing me.

Where his face should have been sat three, bulging eyes. They were glowing green, like a feeble saloon lantern.

I froze for a second. Not sure what to make of this disturbing revelation.

I hesitated, and that’s where he saw me.

The three glowing eyes looked right into my soul as if it was total daylight.

I hid back behind the boulder, instinctively.

In a split second, a barrage of what I could only have imagined to be bullets, started chunking away at the rock.

It felt like being hit by a Gatling gun.

My cover was literally being blown to bits, I had to hit the ground to get away from the shrapnel and dust that was being kicked up by the crumbling rock.

Reason had faded away and I was acting based on instinct.

I crawled away pushed by the sheer anxiety of the moment, feeling the Devil closing in on me.

I got around the boulder, rifle in hand, eyes on the target.

I managed to catch him by surprise as he was facing the wrong way but quickly snapped his head around.

I fired three rounds.

The first two shots missed him but he didn’t react, each muzzle flash revealed the unholy appearance of his malformed head, dazzling him as he brought his arms up to his face, sheltering the eyes.

The third shot, however, didn’t miss.

I heard him scream in pain, just before he unleashed another hail of bullets into the boulder, completely annihilating it.

I again hit the ground hard and barely made it in time, chunks of rocks hitting my back as I buried my face in the desert dirt, thankful to still be tasting it.

Once the fire stopped I peeked again but the man was gone, he was running.

Whatever it was, it was bleeding and if it bleeds, it can die.

I followed the trail of blood which lead me to a vast part of the desert area.

Suddenly, in the darkness, the Thunderbird appeared. Its infernal ball of fire lighting up the dark desert, it was fast approaching and I barely had time to hit the ground and not get hit.

It ran past me at accelerating speed and with a roar so loud that it left me deaf.

I just about managed to wipe the dirt from my eyes to see the steel bird climb and climb into the night sky, far away from earth, into the unknown.

As I went back to where the shootout happened, I found a strange looking brick.

It was light and it had a black mirror on one side, on the other, it was made of a glassy white texture.

In the middle of it sat a strange symbol.

It looked like a half eaten apple.

He was here at last. One final step, and he would belong to the Community.

The door opened on its own, without a sound. The room was bright in a way he had never seen in the marsh: shadowless, sourceless, light coming from everywhere. The air had no smell. He hadn't known air could be without smell; he hadn't known the absence of smell could be so unsettling. And for the first time, he heard "its" voice. It came from nowhere, or from everywhere.

"Hello. Welcome, Rolf."

"Hello. I'm finally here."

"One last stage remains before you can join the Community: we need to link you. Please take the seat and state clearly, out loud, that this is what you want. We cannot begin without your consent."

A single chair stood in the middle of the room, white and untouched. Rolf sat down. The chair was warm, as if someone had just risen from it. For a moment, a small doubt passed through him. What if it wasn't what he hoped? What if all of this was a trap? Had it been worth the struggle, worth what he had lost along the way?

He thought of Nino. The last night, in front of the border fence. "They won't take both of us," Nino had said. "You go." Then that smile. In the marsh, people only smiled like that when they were letting go of something forever. Rolf had gone. He hadn't looked back, because if he looked back, he would turn around.

He swallowed. Whatever happened, the future was better than where he came from. He didn't want to go back to that marsh. Misery, hunger, raiders, violence... it had eaten half his life. He wanted to eat something other than those strange marsh fish he'd been named after. Something other than rolfs.

"Yes. I want to be linked and join the Community."

First a thin needle pricked his back. Numbness spread slowly up his spine; but his mind stayed awake, more than awake. A progress bar appeared on the screen in front of him:

Linking 1%

He kept looking around. On the far wall, a screen cycled through silent clips. Then he saw it: the logo. There was no sound, and he couldn't make out the words beneath it, there was no reading in the marsh, but he knew the logo. Everyone knew the logo that had stolen his family from him.

Anger rose in him. Feed X. The Community's miracle food, the perfect nutrition handed out every day. And in the marsh, the thing found only in scraps, the thing that rotted a person from the inside when they couldn't get it regularly. He remembered his mother's last months: the trembling hands, the empty stares, the fingers searching for residue. What was he doing now? Making deals with the people who created the thing that ate his family? Betraying himself? They had made Feed X. This place was the source of everything.

Linking 15%

But... was Feed X really the source of everything? The looting, the theft, the violence in the marsh went on without Feed X too. Rolf had seen people kill each other over a single rolf. Over one fish. The marsh was bad enough on its own. Besides, Feed X had never been made for them; they had the choice not to use it. But... while the Community lived in comfort, why had they left the marsh to rot? They could have helped. We could have helped, Rolf thought, and stopped. Why had he thought "we"?

Linking 40%

He remembered the last time he had helped someone. He'd given a fish from his hidden stash to a starving man. The next day the man came back with his gang and looted the stash. That night Nino had said, "You still did the right thing." Nino always said things like that. But what had the right thing ever gotten him? They couldn't be taught. They couldn't understand. Kindness read as weakness to them. That was why no help went to the marsh. And even if it did, wouldn't it be wasted?

Linking 70%

So what was wrong with them, really? Was it the marsh that made people this way? Something they ate? Maybe it wasn't hunger at all. Hunger tested everyone; but not everyone made the same choice. Some people built order. Others devoured it. The marsh people had been there a long time. Long enough. If they had wanted to build order, they would have; there was stone, there was time. If they hadn't built it, it meant they couldn't. And if they couldn't, then whatever was missing wasn't out there, it was inside them. It was a simple deduction, almost mathematics. That's what they were. That's what they would stay. The thought gave Rolf a strange peace; the heavy thing called guilt was lifting, as if someone were taking it off his back.

Linking 80%

But I... I was one of them. How am I different? So exceptions happen. Like with every rule. I was the exception. The proof was right here, in this chair. I was never like them, never. I even chose the fish I ate with care. What about Nino? Was Nino different too? Nino... someone who smiled in front of a fence. I remember who it was, but I don't remember why it hurts. It probably wasn't important.

Linking 100%

I feel like I've woken up to a happy day for the first time. I just took my first dose of Feed X; it reminds me of the happy days of my childhood. I'm certain now that my childhood was happy. Everything is as it should be. Everything is beautiful.

There is only one thing that grates on my ear.

My name: Rolf.

I don't know why.

....

 a short story from the Gravit universe

Part 1 “Hey, good morning; how’s it going?” asked Thad as he looked up from his desk, which was always absurdly messy with paper and blueprint-style drawings all over the place.

“Hey Thad. It’s been okay, I suppose; I got something in my office that you might find interesting,” I said meekly, even though I had just recently slept over 12 hours; I was still barely dragging along.

“Sure,” replied Thad as he promptly got up from his desk and joined me in walking into my office. I closed the door behind us as to anyone else what I had was just a piece of metal that I found in my yard, but for all I knew, I was in possession of some secret technology. So, I only wanted a few people to know.

“I found this in my yard on Saturday,” I said as I pulled the mysterious black piece of metal out of my backpack and placed it in Thad’s hands.

“Wow, looks almost like a piece of aluminum sheet metal that’s been painted, almost like it came off a car. You said you found this just lying in your yard?” asked Thad as he looked over at me, appearing to be genuinely interested.

“Yeah, I was cleaning up after fireworks, and it was lying back over in my front yard. I’ve been just about obsessed with the thing since I’ve found it,” I replied.

“Obsessed? What do you mean? Just looks like a piece of metal,” asked Thad, which forced me to gauge how much I really knew Thad and whether I was going to tell him about the whispering I heard.

“So, I’m going to tell you something a little freaky. Is that okay?” I asked Thad.

“Uh, sure,” replied Thad said with a bit of nervous laughter.

“So, I had no idea what this thing was and thought it looked interesting so after finding it I just put it under my bed and had mostly forgotten about it until that night I woke up at like 3 something in the morning because I thought someone was in the house. I looked around the whole place because I heard someone whispering,” I said.

“Whispering, like was someone talking to you? What were they saying?” asked Thad quickly.

“I think they were talking to me, but the whispering wasn’t very loud, and I couldn’t tell what language it was. At the time it almost sounded like a YouTube video had started playing on my phone at a low volume but eventually I stopped hearing it and I looked under my bed and there was the piece of metal which I had put under there from earlier in the day. I didn’t hear sounds coming from it then, but I just knew that there was something wrong with it. It was glowing on top of all of that,” I said.

“What do you mean, though? It doesn’t really look all that strange to me other than these two lines going through it. They look kinda like wires actually,” asked Thad as he gave me a bemused look.

“Right after that, I tried a whole host of things to figure out just what might be going on with this thing. I put it in my bathtub and it didn’t sink to the bottom like basically any other piece of metal shaped this way would. I tried to light it on fire, but just like with the water, it seemed to be water and fireproof. Then I put the welding machine on full blast right at this thing and it didn’t do anything to it. I mean, we’re talking about a melting point of at the very least 6,000 degrees. That seems impossible. In fact, it melted my table saw instead of it. Then I just about went crazy and tried to hit it with a sledgehammer, but the thing probably hurt me more than I hurt it,” I said in a frenzy.

“I can see that, sorry to tell you, man, but you don’t look the greatest right now. Almost looks like you’ve been on a three-day bender,” said Thad as he continued to look over the piece of metal repeatedly and running his fingers along the side of the wires.

“Yeah, I noticed that a bit. Not sure why though cause I about slept half the day yesterday. But regardless of that, what do you think? Like what could this thing be?” I asked, wondering if I was starting to sound crazy and maybe I was making too big of a deal about all of this.

“You know, I’m not really sure. Could be anything really. I’ve heard of things that have a lot of these same properties, but the melting point thing is definitely a little odd. There’s one thing that I doubt you’ve tried yet, though,” said Thad as he trailed off.

“And what might that be?” I asked, thinking that surely I’d tried everything there was.

“Have you tried running an electrical current through it?” asked Thad.

“No, like what do you mean?” I asked, as I wasn’t sure what he was about to suggest that I do to this piece of metal.

“I meant like running power through it. What I’d do if I was you is just take a 9V battery and a little copper wire and put it right on the metal. Most metals are conductors of electricity, so the current should just go through it and maybe just heat it up. But there could be some different properties about this thing depending on how it reacts to electricity,” said Thad.

“That’s actually not a bad idea. What would you consider a different property though?” I asked.

“That’ll be for you to figure out, I guess, but just see if it does anything other than sit there and heat up. Cool stuff though, let me know what you find. But time to get back to work,” said Thad as he gave me back the piece of metal and left my office and I thanked him and went back to my day trying my hardest not to think about the metal even going as far as taking it back to my car so I could concentrate on work.

The rest of the day dragged by. That piece of metal, and what might happen if I put a charge into it, was really the only thing that I could think of. As soon as I got off, I took off straight for Walmart to get batteries. I already had the extra stuff that it would take to make the charge from the battery to the piece of metal.

I got home and without even walking into the house, I went straight to the shed, unlocking it and putting the piece of metal on my wood workbench. I figured that might not be the best option if this thing were to catch on fire, but I had a good feeling that that wasn’t about to happen.

I got a wire coil set up and attached it to the top of my 9V battery with a copper wire. With a glove on, I pushed the wire down on top of the piece of metal. At first nothing happened, as I half expected. But what happened after about 30 seconds was far from what I believed might have even been possible.

I had to continually hold the copper wire down to make sure it stayed touching the metal since it was bendy, but the piece of metal started to move. I thought I was hallucinating at first, or maybe the metal was doing what most metals do with electricity running through and maybe it was just getting hot and expanding slightly or resettling itself, but that was not the case. This mysterious sheet of metal started lifting off the table. It was slow, but it was now a whole two inches off the wood table.

I wasn’t sure what to do but just stare in amazement as this basic-looking piece of metal was hovering in the air. I thought that it might just continue to rise off the table until it got to the ceiling, but after it made it about a foot over the table, it stopped rising and started hovering over the table like a helicopter. I couldn’t understand it, but I stopped the current by disconnecting the 9V from the wire, and the piece of metal continued to hover for another five seconds before softly laying back down on the table.

I walked back to my carport where my phone was still in my car, and I pulled it out before walking back to the shed and taking several videos and photos of the piece of metal hovering in the air. I did that for what must have seemed like a couple of hours before I decided to take the metal back inside.

I knew now that at the very least this was like nothing anybody I knew would have ever heard of, possibly even anything anybody on earth had ever heard of. As I sat on my bed, I held the piece of metal and continued to stare at it. I realized that I needed to find out what this thing was, but I wasn’t sure what the best way to do that might be. Should I tell the military? How would I even do that, though? Take it to a college professor, maybe? Maybe Thad would know what to do with it. Whatever it was to do with it though, I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to lose this thing. As weird as it was to say, I had become fond of this piece of metal. It was an amazing piece of material, and I felt like it could serve a purpose in my life at some point. Though I didn’t necessarily have any evidence to support that.

I figured that my first step would be to tell Thad about it in the morning, but suddenly the only thing that I felt the desire to do was to lie down and go to bed. It was barely 6 PM. It made sense to me, so I quickly did my nightly routine before returning to bed, making sure the piece of metal was still under the bed.

Sleep came easily once again, even though I had gone to bed so early until I was jolted awake by something. I looked over at the window to the right of me that had dark blue curtains over it, but I could see a bright light over the top of the curtains which made me wonder how long I could have possibly slept that it was already daylight outside. I turned back around to my alarm clock to see that it was only 11 PM. I quickly realized that that light must be the porch lights going on, which were motion-detected.

That motion light wasn’t that sensitive, so it had to have been more than just a wasp or something flying by it that would have triggered that light to have gone off. Worried that someone might be out on the porch, I quickly got up and walked to the window to the side of my bed and opened the curtains to see what was on the porch. The porch light was on, but there was nothing out there. I thought that maybe a dog or cat or something had triggered the light to go off so I closed the curtains back and turned around to get back in bed when I saw the back side of what looked like a person walking down my hallway away from me.

My house was a square, with one half of the house being just the living room and kitchen. A hallway separated the house, with my bedroom being the first room off the living room, followed by the bathroom and another bedroom at the end of the hallway. It was the last bedroom that I could see this person slowly walking towards, a person that I could now tell was a woman wearing all white with long, straight black hair that fell past the shoulders.

I bolted upright on the other side of my bed as I saw the person walk out of sight into the dark bedroom. I wasn’t sure what to do; I had never seen anything like this happen before, and I’m not sure if I had even heard of something happening like this either. Someone had clearly broken into my house, but to do what? It looked like this woman was just walking around my house in the dark; my heart sank just thinking about the fact that she might have been here for hours for all I knew.

For a long second, my mind was in such disbelief at what I had seen that I figured I would just chalk it all up as a hallucination. It certainly could have been, given that it was nearly pitch black. I continued to hear no sound at all as I stayed still, standing next to my bed in the darkness. For a whole three minutes or so, I just stood there waiting for something to happen. But it hadn’t, and I felt like I could just go back to bed and forget about it.

The problem with that was that what if a person had really walked right into my spare bedroom? I couldn’t really see anyone in there from the doorway, but I knew that I couldn’t chance there being a person in my house. I walked to the corner of my bedroom and got my 12-gauge shotgun and loaded it chambering a shot which broke the silence of the entire house with a loud gun cocking sound which I immediately realized might not have been the smoothest thing to do given the situation.

I slowly walked down my hallway towards my spare bedroom with my shotgun in hand, ready to aim at a moment’s notice. I took a deep breath as a got to the doorway of the spare bedroom. I could see nothing but the dark room that was very lightly illuminated by moonlight shining through the couple of windows on both sides of the room. I walked in the room and looked forward and saw nothing but then scanned to my left to the side of the room with the bed and almost dropped my gun at the sight of that same woman standing next to the bed looking right at me as I stood in the doorway.

I stared back at her because at first I wasn’t sure what to do. The more I looked at the face of this woman, whom I could barely see the details of in the poorly lit room, the more she seemed familiar to me. I reached my hand behind me to turn on the light switch, all the while keeping my gaze on this mysterious woman that was in fact real and not just a hallucination as I had hoped.

“Julia, is that you?” I asked the woman as I could now see her face clearly.

“Hello Paul, I’m sorry if I scared you,” replied the woman. This was the first time in over six months that I had seen or even heard from my wife, but here she was; right in front of me in my spare bedroom.

“Hey, not sure if I’ve ever been so surprised by anything in my life. What are you doing here?” I replied. I had never previously had anyone break into my house before. I always figured if it ever did happen, I would be brave and aggressive to do whatever it took to get whoever broke into my house out. I suppose that still would have been true, but with the person that broke in being my ex-wife; I wasn’t necessarily sure what my next move should be.

“I’m sorry about that Paul. I still had my key, and I wanted to see you. I see now that I should have come over maybe in the day instead,” said Julia as she stepped away from the wall closer to me.

“Well, it’s okay, I suppose. Why did you walk in here though? Why not just wake me up or knock on the door?” I asked, as I perhaps had five hours’ worth of questions to ask her, but I figured that I could be satisfied with these for the moment.

“I thought that I might be able to surprise you in the morning. Are you mad at me?” Julia asked me, she was unusually calm in a way that was almost making me feel uncomfortable or at least even more uncomfortable than I already was.

 It had been six months since Julia had left me without a trace, and most of those first three months after she left, I spent mostly in shock and denial. I had almost gotten to the point where I had eliminated any mention or evidence in my life of her existence or our relationship. I had gotten to the point where I had almost convinced myself that she never existed at all. When my parents mentioned Julia or someone else would make a passing comment about her, I would either say nothing or just act like I didn’t know what they were even talking about.

For the three months since then, honestly, all I could think about was what I would do and say at this very moment. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever see or talk to Julia again, given the way she had left me. Yet here she was standing in my house right in front of me.

“So why did you come back now though, are you okay? Was it because you needed a place to stay?” I asked, as I was proud of my composure at the moment. If Julia had walked into my house like this three months ago, I probably would have called the police on her and pointed my shotgun at her. But now I was simply just happy to see her again, even under the bizarre circumstances.

“I decided that it was time to go home. I’m so sorry for what I did, Paul. Please forgive me,” she said flatly. She said it with such little emotion that I thought at first that maybe she was being sarcastic, but then I realized that she was being serious as she continued to cast her gaze on me. She was waiting for my response with a very faint smile.

“Well, I guess if you’re truly serious about being sorry then I suppose that I can eventually learn to forgive you, but it’ll take some time,” I replied as I angled myself back towards the door still weary of what Julia’s motivation truly might have been. Before she left me, I had trusted Julia, and she had never had either drug or alcohol problems that I knew of, at least. Despite this, I worried that maybe something was wrong with this sudden appearance from her, I wasn’t sure if it was from seeing her again or the fact that she just showed up at my house in the middle of the night but there certainly was a sense of paranoia present in me. Almost as if I wouldn’t have thought it completely crazy if Julia had a team of men that would bust through the door and rob me at gunpoint as soon as I let my guard down.

“Thank you, Paul. I know that it will take time, but I still love you,” said Julia as she continued to stand in that same spot next to the bed in the spare bedroom. I felt like surely this had to be a dream. Even in my wildest imagination, Julia would come back to me someday, but not to reconcile this easily. It didn’t seem real, and Julia’s abrupt agreeableness to the situation had caught me off guard, nearly leaving me with much simpler responses than I felt like I should have had in the situation. I felt like I’d have a million things to say in this moment, but right now I was folding.

“I’m glad you feel that way, Julia,” I said. I took a couple of steps closer towards Julia as she met me in the middle of the room as we kissed. It was a short kiss, and one that made me shiver; her lips were cold as ice. It left my lips wet and almost slimy. I felt for sure in that moment that Julia had to have had some type of drug problem that was plaguing her life. I wasn’t sure what cold and slimy lips could have been a symptom of, but it certainly felt far from a romantic moment. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be in a relationship with Julia again even before this night but at the moment the biggest thing on my mind was concern for her well-being, I hadn’t seen her in half a year and for all I knew she could have been a strung-out drug addict by now. “So, what now?” I asked.

“Honestly, I’m really tired. Can we sleep?” Julia asked as I followed behind her out of the spare bedroom into the hallway walking back towards my bedroom. I had now leaned my still loaded shotgun against the wall in the hallway.

“I suppose that’s fine; we’ll work out everything in the morning,” I said as I went towards my bedroom closet and started pulling down blankets and a spare pillow.

“Thank you, Paul, but I was thinking that maybe we could both sleep here if you don’t mind. Just like old times,” said Julia as she smiled at me with that same grin that reminded me of how she used to look at me but something about it now almost seemed forced. Also, I was hoping that she at least remembered that we never lived in this particular house while we were married, only when we were dating.

“I guess that’s ok but right to sleep though, I’ve got work tomorrow. I’ve been tired myself lately,” I replied thinking that I was about to mention the mysterious piece of metal, but I figured that maybe I’d keep that secret for a little while longer even though it was under my bed.

“That’s all right, Paul. Goodnight. Thank you for taking me in tonight,” she said as we both got under the covers of my queen-size bed.

I went to sleep without really even noticing Julia too much. I slept on my side so I closed my eyes and turned away from her. I said goodnight to her and could feel her in bed with me as the covers tugged in her direction. Other than that, I tried to get to sleep and forget about what was going on for now, at least.

I felt as though I had been blindsided by what happened tonight to the point that my guard had been let down by all of this. I, of course, no longer felt like Julia was going to rob me or had some friend outside waiting to kill me or anything, but who knows what all of this meant. What if Julia is planning to just move back in with me? What if she wants to be married again? How would I explain all of this to my family? I feel like I had spent the last couple of months figuring out what I’d do in this very situation thinking that it would be possible that I’d see her again but the circumstances that I saw her today were just too surprising to act rationally under.

I fell asleep eventually after about 15 minutes of lying there restlessly, trying my hardest not to make any sound and at least make it seem like I was asleep. I still felt Julia’s presence beside me, even though I now felt almost no movement from her.

I woke up in a rush as I heard a loud scraping across my cement floor. I sat up straight from my side immediately as I looked around the nearly pitch-black bedroom. I could see nothing around the room or in the hallway other than the general haze of moonlight shining in from the living room. I was ready to chalk it up to something that wasn’t serious enough for me to waste my time with, but I saw what startled me; the absence of Julia beside me.

I got up hoping that maybe she had just gone to the bathroom or to sit in the living room or something. I slowly walked to the edge of my bedroom doorway to see where Julia might have gone. I was hoping that it wasn’t too far or, heaven forbid, that she had just left me again. Or adding more insult to injury, robbed my house. I walked out of my bedroom doorway to see something walking by the doorway that led from the hallway into the living room. I sensed it more than I saw it, but I was able to see a surprisingly thin and grey arm go by in that split second that was holding none other than the mysterious black sheet of metal that I had recently grown an attachment to.

I was startled, but I found myself once again in fight-or-flight mode as I forced myself into the living room. I saw the dark grey figure now with its back to me moving towards the front door to my right. Whatever it was, it did look human from what I could see. At the same time, I wasn’t sure how it could have been. In the couple of seconds that I watched the figure, it walked like a human and it was just a little shorter than me, but its arms and body were almost grossly skinny. Its arms and legs couldn’t have been more than a couple of inches wide, but its torso also seemed to be no more than a foot wide. I still couldn’t see the figure really well, but even so, I could see that its skin was a dark grey, but also appeared to be hairless and almost scaly. I felt as if I had grabbed this figure by the arm, then its skin would have felt even slimier to the touch.

“Hey! What’re you doing?” I yelled out towards the figure, which caused it to briefly turn in my direction, even though it was still too dark to see its face in any type of detail of its round and hairless head. After a couple of seconds, it opened my door with a quick and efficient motion as I ran and dove towards the figure, or really more of a creature as I got closer to it. I dove to try to catch the sheet of metal that was still in the figure’s right hand. This was unsuccessful as I landed on the ground. I looked up to see that the figure had already left and closed the door.

I scrambled to my feet to throw open the door myself and was met with a bright glowing white light ahead of me that was bright enough to completely shock my eyeballs as they had gone from seeing nearly complete darkness to seeing a bright white blob in front of me. As I took a couple more steps further onto my front porch, my eyes started to adjust, and I could see a small vehicle in the middle of the front yard area that was between my house and driveway. The vehicle was shaped like a disk, except the top of it seemed to be raised from the sides. There looked to be some type of spherical window in the center of the top side of the vehicle.

As my eyes continued to adjust to the light coming from the vehicle, I was able to see where the light was coming from. The entire bottom side of this disc-shaped vehicle was bright with white light, but it didn’t necessarily look like fire like you might expect to see coming out the back of a rocket or something. The light almost appeared to be emanating from what looked like it came from a bulb. The vehicle then started to hover above the ground and continued to float there all the while being almost completely quiet other than a barely audible hum.

After a couple of moments, the vehicle shot straight up into the air all in one motion as it went from just a few feet off the ground to thousands of feet into the air in what had to have only been one whole second at the most. If I had blinked, I would have missed it completely. I continued to stare up at the clear black abyss of the mid-summer sky, straining my eyes to try to see where the vehicle disappeared to in the sky, while I could no longer see it anymore. It was now either too high in the sky or no longer emitting any source of light. I figured that it was likely a bit of both things.

I looked around and saw the darkness of my yard, which had a line of trees on both sides of my front yard that were still flapping back and forth from the force of the vehicle taking off suddenly. The sound of the branches in the trees and debris flying across the yard was really the only sound that resulted from the vehicle as it took off. I stood there in silence as I continued to look up into the sky looking to see if I could see something up there, but I never did. I truly hoped that I never would see that again if I had ever really seen it to begin with.

Whether what I just witnessed was real or not; my attention was now on where Julia was at. I turned back towards the house, halfway expecting Julia to be wondering what was going on. I figured she might be standing behind me watching the same thing that I just was, but I didn’t see her anywhere, just my open front door. I entered my house, all the while turning the living room light on, and I didn’t see her there.

“Julia! Julia! Did you just see that?” I yelled as I frantically ran through all the rooms of the house, while turning on all the lights in the house to no avail. Julia was nowhere to be found. It quickly came to my mind that maybe she had taken off into the woods or down my road or something in all the commotion of the last five minutes or so, even though that seemed unlikely. But nothing about this night had been exactly likely.

I ran back outside looking for Julia when I nearly tripped on something as I was running off my porch; it was a dress lying crumpled up on the edge of the porch directly in front of my door. I looked down at it, aided by faint moonlight. As I picked it up, and it was that same white and faded cotton dress that Julia had been wearing just before.

With the dress still in my hand I ran out into the yard next to the woods and yelled Julia’s name maybe five times before thinking about driving over to my neighbor’s house or even driving to my parents’ house but that didn’t make any sense either. I knew what might be the case. I didn’t know how I could explain what happened tonight, mostly because I wasn’t even sure if it really had happened to me after all. Whether Julia was real or that thing that ran out of my front door was real. I don’t know if I ever could’ve been for sure. One thing I’ll always know for sure was real; and that was that small, rectangular, indestructible piece of metal.

It was just past eight o’clock when we walked into the hotel. We had our little brown box with us, officially wrapped and taped with bright green interference-prevention tape, which naturally we showed to the concierge, as he was obligated to ask but preferred not being made to.

“Thank you,” he said.

He gave us our keycard and showed us to our room.

I was thirty-nine and Helen was thirty-nine-and-three-quarters, so we were within the acceptable age range. Of course, we had our passports with us, in case the concierge asked to see them. He didn't have to, as the judge had already signed off on the documents when issuing them, but some did. This one didn't. “Good luck,” he said.

He was in his late twenties so probably didn't remember how things were before.

The room itself was nice enough, clean, with freshly laundered sheets on the bed, navy curtains covering the windows, behind which was a view of a brick wall, and a bathroom containing a shower, steel toilet and plastic sink.

Our documents didn't come into effect until eight thirty, so we had some time to kill.

Helen sat on the bed.

I paced around and checked the drawers in the bedside tables: empty, save for a pair of laminated QR codes linking to the Regulations.

At eight twenty-five, we carefully opened the little brown box with a non-concealable, government-issued “dullsafe” water-soluble cutting mechanism, then, per instructions, dissolved it in a glass of water so it could not be used for unauthorized purposes.

Inside the box were: copies of our documents, i.e. two notarized consent form applications; three signed guarantor forms from three unrelated, duly employed individuals agreeing to provide costs of care for any offspring resulting, or likely resulting, from our approved sexual encounter, in case both Helen and I should, for whatever reason, become unalive and thus unable to provide such costs ourselves; medical forms attesting to our medically appropriate use of birth control; a judicially approved sexual encounter license; two black-bound rulebooks; and a small, biodegradable cardboard timer with a display and two big red buttons.

I put the timer on one of the bedside tables.

“Should we?” Helen asked.

It was eight twenty-nine.

I nodded, and we both took off our clothes—separately; at a distance of at at least two metres from each other—before sitting on the bed.

It was a firm mattress. There was hardly any bounce to it.

At eight thirty, I asked if she was ready.

“Yes,” she said.

“Me too.”

We each leaned over and pressed one of the red buttons on the cardboard timer, whose display flashed 10:00 and then began counting down: 9:59… 9:58…

I was nervous. My body was trembling.

Helen touched my thigh.

I kissed her lips.

At 9:45, the cardboard timer asked, in a sexless mechanical voice, if we both still gave consent.

We pressed the two red buttons concurrently to indicate we did.

We kissed again, more passionately this time. I touched her body. She touched mine.

At 9:30, we indicated our continued consent.

At 9:15, we indicated our continued consent.

At 9:00, we indicated our continued consent.

“What's first, after foreplay?” she whispered in my ear as we embraced.

But I couldn't remember.

She didn't either.

At 8:45, we indicated our continued consent and checked the sexual encounter license, which contained a list of acts to which we both consented and an order in which they could legally be performed.

“Relax,” said Helen.

“I'm trying,” I replied, leafing through the paperwork. I couldn't find what I was looking for. “I think we're missing that page. Yes, we're missing pages eleven-through-thirteen.”

We glanced at the timer, indicated our continued consent and Helen suggested I call the Registrar, which I did. After waiting on the line for over a minute—punctuated by four indications of continued consent—somebody finally said, “Hello, how may I help you?”

“Hello,” I said and explained the problem.

“One second.”

Again, we waited. Helen moved her hand to rest on mine, but instinctively I drew mine back. “Let's wait until we know that hand-holding is an approved act,” I said.

“I'm sure it is,” she said softly.

I kept my hand away.

“Hello?” said a voice on the line, a different voice. “I have all your documentation here, with all pages intact. If you could put me on speaker, I can guide you through it.”

I did as instructed.

“May we hold hands?” I asked.

“Let me check,” said the voice through the speaker. “Yes—yes, you may.”

The timer asked if we both still gave consent, but before we could reach over and press the red buttons, the voice on the line said: “I can take your continuing consent over the phone. Simply answer yes.”

“Yes,” I said.

“Yes,” said Helen.

“OK. Now, the license says that the next act is—looks like you've checked off… cunnilingus and/or fellatio… followed by coitus, in two of the following positions…”

“Yes,” I said.

“Yes,” said Helen.

“I'm sorry,” said the voice. “Is that: yes, you understand what I've said or: yes, you're engaging in the act or: yes, you're indicating continuing consent?” The timer was down to 4:13. I lifted my face and was about to explain, when there came a thudding knock on the door—the line went dead—the timer flashed 00:00 and begin emitting a terrible, high-pitched whine—and the hotel room door fell open and several police officers entered, weapons drawn.

“Halt!”

Helen and I disentagled, frozen.

The police arrested us both on suspicion of rape.

Later, my lawyer explained that while our sexual encounter license did list “cunnilingus and/or fellatio,” we had not received judicial approval for cunnilingus-and-fellatio (simultaneously) which the law treats as a separate act.

Helen was publicly executed.

I was rehabilitated.

She had refused to see the danger of my ways. I saw perfectly the danger of hers—and signed duly a statement to that effect.

The birds knew it; spring was here. Their frivolous song rose over the beats of a bongo band, and the screeching of playing children on Pier 18 in Brooklyn Bridge Park.

What they didn’t know, was that this spring day would be different than any other. Today would be the day that the people of The Known Systems would welcome the pilgrims of the Chuntian back to the galactic stage.

---

“Are we going to see the fireworks tonight, Dad?”

Alexandre broke his gaze and turned toward his youngest son. “Of course, Emile, but only if ehm... if your homework for school is done.”

The 6-year-old smirked, lost interest, and chased his sister who’d stolen his ball.

“You are the one who’s going to explain the concept of severe emotional trauma to him at the fireworks party.”

“What?”

“How do you think they’ll react when everyone on that rust bucket inevitably realizes what happened?”

“Come on, Estelle, it’s the biggest celebr...”

“Celebration? Those early missions were a waste of resources, nothing more.”

“Where is your sense of adventure?”

“Adventure? Let’s hope those pilgrims appreciate your sense of adventure when their useless... what did they use to call it?”

“Dollars.”

“Right, dollars for the Chuntian. When their dollars are rejected at the food market.”

“What’s a Chun-tee-yan, Mom?”

“Oh, baby, didn’t see you there. Dad, do you want to tell him the story?”

---

About 4.24 light-years from Brooklyn Bridge Park and after 141 years of cruising the galactic void, the Chuntian completed its deceleration maneuver exactly as planned and entered a stable high orbit around Proxima Centauri b.

---

Nestor opened his eyes. It took a few minutes before his eyes adjusted and the blurry haze thinned to reveal a white sterile room.

The touch of his feet landing softly on the cold floor brought him a little closer to awake. He ever so slowly pushed off and floated toward the viewport. Proxima Centauri’s rise over the port bow filled the room with a dim red hue.

A smile painted across Nestor’s face and he chuckled… "We made it. Victory, victory for human ingenuity and resili…”

“Welcome back!”

The voice was unexpected; he was supposed to be the first to awaken. The panic came soon, delayed by the cryofluid in his veins. Nestor looked at his fingers, there was no restraint sleeve, nor wires or tubes, no cryopod at all. He remembered the launch deck, the hymn, his cousin pressing two fingers to the glass before the frost took her face away, but getting out of the pod was a blurry haze.

“What happened? Did the launch fail?”

“No, you made it. Congratulations. You are the first of the pilgrims to wake up after the long trip.”

“But… why… who are you?” Nestor grabbed his forehead.

“Lay back down, Nestor. Those old cryopods cause a nasty hang…”

“Old?” Nestor grunted.

The voice did not answer immediately, then said “Please remain calm. Disorientation is expected.” It seemed to come from everywhere at once; soft, but bodiless.

A shadow moved across the floor behind him, or maybe it was only the red light shifting through the viewport. Nestor frowned and turned his head too quickly. Pain pulsed behind his eyes.

Nestor reached for the rail along the wall and pulled himself toward the door. His fingers trembled around the metal, but the movement helped him focus. The door opened automatically with a hiss. There were no warning tones, no arrival hymn, not any Chuntian signal he remembered. Just music, faint, and cheerful, humming through the hallway.

“Hmmpf.” He held his head and clenched his teeth until the worst of the ache passed. Then he pulled himself forward, hand over hand along the rail, toward the first handle, then the next, then to the right, following the melody.

As he inched closer to a hatch marked with a symbol he didn’t remember, his heart began to thump harder. The hatch did not open automatically, but a yellow button glowed beside it.

“One, two, three,” Nestor whispered before pressing the button.

The magnetic locks released, and the hatch turned outward.

Nestor’s pupils dilated at the scene in front of him. This was not an empty Chuntian. In fact, it wasn’t the Chuntian at all.

Beyond the hatch stretched the churning rotunda of a massive space station. Nurses moved carts across the curved floor. Orderlies steered beds between bright signs and waiting families. A child sat on a bench with a book, swinging her feet like this was an ordinary morning.

Nestor blinked and rubbed his temples. “Hallucinations,” he thought, “hallucinations were a possible side effect.”

“Think. Calm down. Think.” But neither the hustle, the bustle, nor the melodic sound ebbed. Instead, a hand touched his shoulder.

“There you are,” a voice said gently. “Don’t worry, friend. We have a brand new world for you.”

---

“Pfft.” Nestor scoffed. “Why didn’t you rescue us?”

A female doctor leaned forward. “We respected your sovereignty. Your right to arrive as yourselves.”

“Ha! How humane.” Nestor leaned back. “Let us be honest. You left us in a tomb.”

The man next to the female doctor hesitated but leaned in. “I’m going to be frank with you, Nestor. We didn’t see a reason to. You were pilgrims. Why take that away from anyone?”

Nestor stared. The moment stretched just long enough to become uncomfortable. The doctor’s companion breathed in to continue, but Nestor spoke first. “…and now you want me to celebrate my failure on a stage… with fireworks?”

“Of course not. You and the other pilgrims took a leap of faith. That is worth celebrating.”

Nestor’s stare had gone blank, fixed on nothing as he asked, “Can you take me back home? My old home.”

---

In the following days, Nestor shook the hands of people who, he felt, had no sense of fashion. He learned of Mining Unions blasting planetoids for ore, of Guild disputes over trade corridors, and of new settlements with names he did not recognize, though The Collegium was somehow still around.

Nestor finally experienced Ring travel, but instead of the awe it usually inspired in first-timers, it made him feel small and sad. The distance the Chuntian had crossed in 141 years could now be bridged in less than three days.

The first time he smiled again was when he sat on Pier 18 in Brooklyn Bridge Park, his feet touching the grass, breathing air that was pure and rich with the scent of exotic flowers, and green trees.

“Perhaps…” he whispered to himself.

“You're not leaving! I told you, you're going to die here. I’m sorry you can’t see them again but you need to get with the program! You might have already ended our world. You're lucky I haven't authorized a vivisection.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?! I told you I had a fucking stroke! I need help! I need a brain scan or an MRI or surgery! I need…”

“Walk me through the events again.”

“I already told you! I fell on the job and hit my head and…”

“Again! In order! In exact detail! Tell me EVERYTHING. Now!”

“Ok. Shit. Shit, I’m just a fucking painter. I work for Jackson & Co. We got a big painting job for this old manor in Druid Hills. Old guy. Didn't want us to move the furniture, just tarp over it. I was up too high on the ladder trying to roll the ceiling, lost my balance and landed on some old, decorative mirror. I don't know how it didn't break but I hit my head then…”

“No...”

“What?”

“Continue.”

“The crew ran over and helped me up but everyone looked… weird. I threw up. My boss freaked out and told me to take the rest of the day off. I felt nauseous and they called me an uber home.”

“Then?”

“I thought the food in my fridge was spoiled or something. My orange juice smelled like turpentine, the cheese smelled bitter, bread smelled like spearmint. All… wrong and… I don't know. I couldn't read anything and I freaked out! My daughter called 911 and an ambulance took me to the hospital.”

“Yes. That's all you remember?”

“The doctor took some blood and said he was going to send me to get scanned. Then he got a call and started acting all nervous. He told me not to leave the room. An hour later people in hazmat suits came and gave me some pills and an inhaler. They put me in another ambulance and brought me here. What the fuck is going on?!”

“It's impossible… but I have no other explanation. Your lab results definitively show chirality.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?!”

“Molecular organic life evolved over time into left and right handed shapes. Asymmetrical. Like little locks and keys. The proteins in your blood are mirrored.”

“So… you mean… I can't read because my blood is backwards? Am I sick? My brain is screwed up and I'm gonna have to carry around a mirror all day from now on?!”

“No. Words aren't the problem. Everything is backwards. Everything. You're lucky oxygen and water aren't chiral, but most biologically relevant molecules are: proteins, sugars, acids, fats… “

“I don't understand! What does that mean?!”

“It means you’re effectively alien life. Your molecules and cells can't interact with ours. You can eat but you can't process anything. You can't get sick. Most of biology won't interact with you anymore at the molecular level.”

“What? How?! Is… is.. That’s a good thing then! I can't get sick anymore!”

“Our bacteria can still grow on and in you, they just won't interact with you. We have you on high dose antibiotics so you don't drown in the short term but in a few weeks you'll die from starvation and vitamin deficiency.”

“I’m… I…”

“Chiral bacteria have no natural predators, no chiral antibiotics. Their only limiting factors are the nutrients and space available.”

“But you said you gave me antibiotics?”

“Yes for OUR bacteria. We have no chiral antibiotics for YOUR chiral bacteria. It’s going to spread unchecked until it runs out of space. Nothing in nature can stop it.”

“Oh God…”

“I've ordered a quarantine for the surrounding region but we have nothing to actually prevent it from spreading to wildlife, people, physical objects. We can't disinfect everything.”

“So I am sick… Can I see my family again? Is there anything you can…”

“Ah here it is. Yes, bring it over here! Quickly! I had a team obtain the mirror you mentioned. Let's hope we can find a way to transport matter or information or… anything.”

“I look… everything looks normal...”

“We can't be sure if your world now has a chiral version of yourself, in the reflection. If it is true, you’re still in the CDC and your world faces the same extinction event.”

“I just want to go back. I don't wanna die here! You promise this will work and I can see my real family again? Those men in the mirror will take me to them?”

“Yes, but I need you to take this vial. It’s crucial for the production of chiral antibiotics, lifesaving. If you’re able to pass back through, your mirror self will bring the mirrored version. I'm praying this swap works.”

“I just… reach out… and I'll pass through myself?”

“Go ahead and try.”

The mirror shatters.