Deep Magic. Fourth Collection

5,500 Words

THE WATER BOILED. Esther poured it from the flask over the tea bag waiting in the cup. Four and a half minutes. That was the time stored in her memory.

Esther clasped her hands in her lap and waited. She gave the bag the expected swirl and threw it away. The trash can incinerated the tea bag with a blue flash. A hole opened up in the trash can to send the ashes to recycling, and the energy from the burn was stored in the spaceship’s battery. Nothing wasted.

Esther measured the honey, stirred it in, and then sipped.

“Too sweet.”

“It’s how you like it,” Dr. Tiberius said.

The black doctor squinted at Esther’s health diagnostics. Then he backed up and squinted again. Time for another laser eye correction for the old man.

“The tea’s how she liked it,” Esther said.

“You have the same DNA and the same tongue.”

“She liked it sweeter because her grandmother made it that way, not because of the taste.”

Her only good memories were with her grandmother.

“Her grandmother is your grandmother,” Tiberius said. “You are she.”

Esther was grown from her host’s DNA and implanted with her memories. She should feel the same about the same things and have the same take on the same issues. At least that was the expectation on her. The hair on the back of Esther’s neck bristled at those expectations. That was exactly how her host would have reacted.

But this tea didn’t play by those rules. No matter how precisely she measured, the honey was too much. But Esther had a part to play, whether she hated it or not.

She sipped the tea and didn’t break character. Her lips pinched the way her host’s would have, her face stayed expressionless. That, at least, felt natural. The faux porcelain cup clinked on its dish when the secret door to the hospital opened. Her stomach soured against the sickly sweetness inside it.

Esther didn’t turn to face the uniformed man, but instead cut her eyes at his reflection in her vanity mirror.

“Has she died . . . or do I?”

Perhaps it was cowardly. If she was to be executed, a part of her wanted to glare down the face of her executioner. But Esther wouldn’t meet Webb’s eyes.

“We’re docking with the Taara Makaan spaceport now, Admiral.”

The host was dead. Esther Levin rose, no longer clone but admiral.

“Wait for me outside.”

Webb sucked in his breath. Was he surprised by the sharpness in her voice? It’s how the original Esther Levin would have spoken to him to hide their affair.

He bowed, left her plasma pistol on the desk, and exited back through the hidden door.

Webb had plotted this clone deception in case the original Esther died from the virus. He’d called Tiberius and snuck him and his equipment onto the ship.

But Webb could also expose her secret. Esther would keep him close.

Before that, though, she had more urgent matters.

“Destroy the nanobots, Doctor,” Esther said and stepped onto the scanner plate next to his desk.

“I knew we wouldn’t need them.”

Easy for him to say. He wasn’t carrying assassin bots inside his bloodstream. Tiberius pressed a button on his desk.

A flash of light.

All the nanobots inside Esther deactivated. Her body would naturally break them down and remove them now. She stood tall to give off the illusion of calm, but the tightness around her chest had loosened. For the first time in her life, she could breathe freely.

Those nanobots had been installed on the off chance the original Esther survived the shakes virus. There can’t be two Admiral Esther Levins. If her host had lived, Tiberius would have hit a button, and Esther would have died. After only a month—though her memories stretched for forty-seven years—she would have ceased.

But her host had died, and her planet needed a living Admiral Levin. Esther was that living admiral now.

She donned her military cap, strapped on her pistol, and exited the room. Webb waited in the hallway. His hand faltered in his salute. His face couldn’t make that dashing smile her host had loved.

“You best eliminate that hesitation, Lieutenant Commander. Others will detect it and suspect.”

Her eyes darted to his face before she turned down the hall. His eyes were flared red, and he’d rubbed his nose raw.

Esther’s boot steps echoed down the empty metal corridor as Webb marched in time behind her. She had never walked this hallway; yet she knew it perfectly. But the smell—tea tree oil and bleach—burned her nose. Why didn’t she have that memory?

A drone zipped by to deliver a package. No one walked the sterile halls or made personal contact. A spaceship was a trapped petri dish, a playground for the shakes virus to spread.

Esther entered the debriefing room, a closet with cameras lining the walls. She stepped to its center. The cameras uploaded her 3-D image and transmitted it to every room across her ship, Olive Branch.

“The report of my death was greatly exaggerated,” she said and allowed a tight smile. “Those were the words of our Earth ancestor Mark Twain, and they’re my words today.”

She paused. Her host would have paused here, commanded the speech. It felt like breathing. Perhaps Dr. Tiberius was right. They were one and the same.

“There were also rumors that I had the shakes virus. I assure you, I did not.” Another pause. “Unfortunately, the shakes isn’t the only disease that infects humans. The stomach flu still exists, and I won’t go into any further details.”

Some would snicker here. That would relieve the tension.

“Now, we have docked with Taara Makaan spaceport, and their doctors have the antivirus we need. Gird your loins everyone, this is our hour.”

And this is why I was created.

The transmission ended. Esther allowed her smile to spread. She’d fooled them all. She spun with relish, only for her stomach to lurch.

Webb stood behind her with an ashen face. Had his face been broadcast that way? If Webb gave her away, it would take years to repair the damage and renegotiate.

Esther snapped her fingers under Webb’s nose. His eyes flinched. She strode down the hall into a private conference room, and he followed.

When the door closed, Esther whirled on him.

“If you betray me, you doom thousands of our people to death.”

“What are you talking about? I didn’t say anything.”

But his lips had gone from pink to pale. He needed to breathe. Esther grabbed a handheld projector from the small table in the center of the room. Her crew had used these to project her miniature 3-D image all over the ship. Now she shoved its reflective surface within centimeters of Webb’s nose.

“Look at yourself!”

He focused on his reflection and blanched.

“I know you just lost someone you love,” Esther said.

“You aren’t her.”

“I know that. You know that. And I don’t expect you to love me—”

“Do you love me?”

Esther faltered. Did she? No, of course not. But she should, shouldn’t she? If she was truly identical to her host, she should. But there was no time for this.

Webb inched back from her like a caged animal.

“What the two of you had,” Esther said, “is between you two. I am not here to live her intimate life. I’m here to save our people.”

Webb swallowed.

“Can you join me in that?” Esther extended her hand.

Webb stared at it for a second. He pressed his back against the wall and shook his head.

“I can’t. I’d planned . . . but I can’t—”

“Brandon!”

Esther used his common name and her sternest voice. It’s what her host would have done, and it jolted Webb. He held his stomach as if he’d been punched.

“Remember what she always told you,” she said.

Webb’s ice-blue eyes flashed. “‘Finish what you start.’”

“Then let’s finish this.”

The fog lifted from his face. Webb nodded, determined now. He extended his hand. When his hand touched hers, a tingling ran from her fingertips to her spine. Was that the flutter of attraction? Esther had never touched another person with any kind of tenderness before.

But the handshake ended, and the feeling passed. All that remained was a businesslike exchange. Esther dismissed the feeling and left the room. Webb followed her lead.

It was time to get that antivirus.

Captain Jack Fletcher stomped around the air lock connecting Olive Branch with Taara Makaan’s spaceport. His breath huffed from his flared nose. On a necklace hung his late wife’s wedding ring, and his pocket held a picture drawn by his late grandson. Its edges were yellowed by Fletcher’s fingerprints.

Everyone had lost someone.

“Nice speech,” he said as Esther entered. “How much of it was a lie?”

“All of it, as usual.”

It was what her host would have said, but it tasted like chalk. Esther stared forward and didn’t give Fletcher another look.

“Let’s just get this antivirus,” Fletcher said.

“For the next hour appear to respect me.”

“I can act as well as you can.”

Her cruelty was acid on Esther’s stomach. Fletcher was crotchety, yes, but he’d lost so much. Didn’t that merit him some compassion? Esther hid her thoughts behind her mask.

The air-lock door opened, and seven doctors in hazmat suits greeted them.

“Step onto the scanner, please.” The lead doctor swept his hand toward the round platform.

Esther took a breath and stepped on. If any discrepancy existed between her and her host, she would be exposed. The scanner beeped.

“Carries the latent virus, but not actively infected,” the scanner said in a mechanical voice. “You may proceed forward. Stay with your escorts at all times. Do not enter quarantined areas of Taara Makaan spaceport.”

She’d passed the test. Esther stepped forward into the spaceport’s air lock. The floor, a plastoform substance that repelled germs, sprang beneath her feet. It gave off a warm rubber scent with a hint of lavender. Again, her host left no memory of the smell, even though she’d been here before. Fletcher and Webb followed, each with the same announcement.

Latent virus . . . Not actively infected . . . Stay with your escorts.

The doctors turned on their heels and led the way out of the air lock into a hallway. The end was barred, and only one room stood off to the right. She followed the doctors into the room. When the door closed behind everyone, it sealed with a whirr and a click.

Alarms wailed.

“We’re purging the air,” the lead doctor said.

They’d opened the air lock and hallway to the vacuum of space.

“I’m Doctor Arya.” He bowed instead of shaking their hands. “We’ve taken the liberty of writing up our contract per the agreements.”

Dr. Arya put a projector on the table, and a contract glowed to life above it. Esther scrolled down the document, her finger flicking the air in front of the projection. Her eyes scanned quickly for violations. There.

“We did not agree to surrender the city of Mayapuri.”

The hazmatted figures shifted. Had they hoped she wouldn’t find this? That it would be buried too deeply?

“It’s of religious significance to our people,” Arya said.

“Your people haven’t visited in thirty years,” Esther said. “Whatever religious significance it once held is lost.”

“We haven’t visited because of the virus!” A different doctor said, stepping in front of her superior. “But the city has lost no meaning to us. Our people have mourned and prayed for Mayapuri. Many of our own were stranded there and have since died.”

Dr. Arya held up his hand. She bowed her head and backed behind him.

“This disease has not infected our planet,” he said. “The only reason we researched it was to once again take our pilgrimage of faith. The only reason I and my colleagues expose ourselves to you today is to recover our loss.”

Terraform XII had fought many wars over the prosperous Mayapuri. Now that the virus had given it to them, the chancellor wasn’t willing to give it back.

“It resides on our planet,” Esther said. “Once the virus is eradicated, you may visit again, but it will be owned by us.”

“I see.”

The contract flickered off, and Dr. Arya reached for the projector.

“For Pete’s sake, Admiral Levin!” Fletcher burst out. “Our people are dying! Can’t we spare one city!”

“I have my orders.”

“You don’t have dead family!”

His spit flew. Gross man! In a germ-paranoid culture, no one violated breathing space without permission.

“Not here,” she whispered.

This was disgraceful. His face flushed a splotched red, and his mustache bristled, but Fletcher swallowed his words. Esther could smell his sweat.

Her right hand began to shake, the first symptom of the shakes virus. With repose she clasped it in her left. Her stomach turned over, but she didn’t betray her feelings on her face.

“So, I take it we have not come to an agreement?” she said to Dr. Arya, her voice ice.

“You are correct.”

“I will speak with my chancellor and get back to you.”

“Remember, only those with the latent form of the virus are allowed here.” Arya paused. “I hope you live long enough for us to meet again.”

He opened the door, and the six other doctors fell in step behind him. They lined the hallway guarding the entrance to their spaceport. Esther turned her back on them and walked to her ship’s air lock. Webb marched behind her, and Fletcher swung his fists wide as he stomped.

The air lock closed.

“What was that! We need that antivirus!”

Esther’s right hand began to shake violently. She clutched it harder with her left, but Webb noticed the movement. His face paled.

“I had my orders.”

“Orders given by a chancellor protected and quarantined. Orders given by a woman who hasn’t lost what I’ve lost!”

Fletcher’s fist flew. Esther blocked his hand with her arm, her military training kicking in. Fletcher startled at her quickness and stepped back. She hid her shaking hand behind her back.

“Should I call guards to escort you back to your quarters?”

Her host would have. She would have locked him in his quarters, then plotted his character assassination.

But Esther wasn’t her host.

“I’m captain of this ship and can go where I please,” he said.

“You will no longer join me on Taara Makaan.”

“Not that it matters.” The door to the air lock swished open, and Fletcher stormed away. “You won’t sign that treaty anyway!”

Fletcher turned the corner out of sight.

“Esther would’ve handled it differently,” Webb said, his voice trembling.

“I can’t afford a mutiny,” Esther said. “Arresting the captain—”

“Is what she would have done.”

She was wrong.

But out loud, Esther said, “I have to call the chancellor.”

She marched as quickly as dignity would allow back to her room.

“Tiberius!” Esther stepped up to his chair, her feet toe-to-toe with his. “How do you explain this?”

She held her hand, violently shaking, before his crooked nose.

“Not possible,” he whispered.

He pressed her hand firmly between both of his and closed his eyes. His warmth reassured her, though she couldn’t explain why. She was nothing more than a successful experiment to him, the next step on his path to scientific fame.

“The DNA I used was preserved from a time before her virus was active. It should have been latent,” he said. “I checked and rechecked. No.” He released Esther’s hand and spun in his chair. “This is something else; it must be.”

He pointed his gnarled finger at the scanner, and Esther stood on its pad. His fingers danced a reggae over the glowing controls. A light flashed, and Esther blinked the spots from her eyes.

“Still latent,” he said and fell back in his chair.

“Still latent? Then how do you explain this?”

Both her hands were shaking now, signs that the virus was spreading.

“I can’t. The scan shows the latent virus.” His thickset eyelids narrowed. “Are you nervous for any reason?”

“Nervous? You think this is in my head? Don’t be preposterous.”

“It’s a logical explanation.”

Knock, knock, knock.

Esther turned to the door. “In a moment.” To Tiberius. “You’ve missed something.”

The doctor shook his bald head and shuffled into the hospital through the hidden door. Esther pushed a button on her desk. The floor swallowed the scanner pad, and the doctor’s controls sank into her desk. No visitor would know her secret.

Esther sat straight-backed in her cedar chair and clasped her shaking hands in her lap.

“Enter.”

Her host’s daughter, Naomi, barged in.

“You didn’t sign the treaty?”

“Fletcher told you. How convenient.”

“It doesn’t matter who told me.” Naomi threw her hands out. “Our lives depend on that antivirus. Don’t you care about your planet? Your own daughter?”

Her features weren’t as Esther remembered them, or more precisely, as her host had. In her host’s memory, Naomi had a larger nose, rounder face, crooked teeth. The nose was an exaggeration of Naomi’s father’s. Probably because her host hated the ex-husband for daring to leave. But the rounder face and crooked teeth were from the daughter’s past when she was thirteen.

No thirteen-year-old stood before Esther now. Naomi had grown into a twenty-four-year-old young woman, angry and stunning, and her host had missed it completely.

“Take a seat.” Esther motioned to the chair and a half. “We need to talk.”

Naomi half turned toward the door then back to Esther. Her lips mouthed Esther’s words. She walked to the chair and studied Esther’s face.

“You want me to stay?”

“Obviously.”

“How sick were you?”

“I had time to think; that’s all you need to know.”

Naomi perched on the edge of the cushion. Esther caught even more changes. Naomi’s hips strained her pants. Her hair grew thicker and more lustrous than before. And her style had changed. Instead of a fitted button-down top, she wore a peasant-style shirt that flowed around her curves and didn’t hug her slender waist.

Esther wasn’t the only one with secrets.

“The chancellor insists that Mayapuri is not to be surrendered as part of the deal,” Esther said.

Naomi cocked her head at Esther. She was trying to guess Esther’s next move. Her host wouldn’t have let the conversation go this far.

“She’s willing to let more of her own citizens die to keep Mayapuri?”

Naomi inched back on her seat to get comfortable. For some reason, Esther still wanted this conversation to continue.

“Yes,” she said, studying the woman before her.

“But you’re the one signing the treaty.”

“To defy my superiors would be suicide, literally.”

Naomi’s face hardened in much the way Esther’s would have. Why didn’t Esther’s host have any memory of her daughter’s resemblance to herself? Had she pushed her that far out of her mind?

“Our superiors still answer to the people,” Naomi said. “They still have a vote.”

Excellent point.

“And the people want the treaty more than they want Mayapuri,” Esther said.

“So, give them what they want; they’ll protect you.”

Esther laughed at that. It startled both Naomi and herself. Try as she might, Esther couldn’t remember what her own laugh had sounded like.

“The people won’t protect me,” Esther said. “They’ll celebrate me for a few weeks, maybe a year, then move on with their new lives. But the chancellor, she has a long memory.”

Naomi leaned forward, fully invested in their little game now. “Then don’t let the chancellor see your hand in it.”

“But I sign the treaty.” Esther leaned in too.

Her hands started to shake, and Naomi’s eyes flicked down. She leapt from her chair.

“You’re still sick.”

“Not from the virus.”

“Then what?”

Naomi fled to the door. Her right hand covered her stomach while her left touched the door, her escape.

“I haven’t figured it out.”

“An assassination attempt? You’ve made a lot of enemies.”

“Assassination . . .”

Assassin bots! The doctor didn’t deactivate them all!

It fit. The only ones who could have infected Esther in her short life were Tiberius, Webb, and Fletcher. It would have been easiest for the doctor. Simply leave some assassin bots active. He could even program them to imitate the shakes virus.

Naomi opened her mouth to say something, but her gaze stayed locked on Esther’s hands.

“I can’t stay.”

“Go.”

Naomi stepped into the hallway, then turned back. “Whatever you decide—”

“I’ll let you know.”

The door closed.

Esther narrowed her eyes at the hidden door and considered the wrinkled old man behind it. Her host would have killed the doctor first, then called the chancellor.

But Tiberius wasn’t going anywhere, and for some reason Esther couldn’t explain, she needed to save Naomi. She pulled out the desk chair and sat with shoulders lowered and chin high. She hid her shaking hands under the desk.

“Computer, record a statement.”

“Of course, Admiral.”

“Great news, people of Terra Twelve! The treaty is signed, the antivirus is ours.” Esther allowed a smile. “In just a few hours, your labs will have all they need to replicate it and save us all. The doctors only asked for Mayapuri and, considering all they’ve given us, the chancellor agreed. Thanks be to our chancellor. Our families are finally safe.”

Esther stared ahead for three seconds.

“End transmission.”

The computer beeped. “What should I do with the statement?”

“Release fifty copies into the public database. News channels with low reliability ratings. Vary some of the words. Make the transmission low quality.”

That should spread the rumors quickly.

“Done.”

“Now, erase your memory of this conversation.”

“Done.”

It didn’t take a minute for a call to come in from the chancellor. She appeared floating above Esther’s desk, her white hair pulled back in a soft bun, and her aged face sad. She had that look that said, Just tell me what the problem is, and I’ll make it all better. Her comforting façade won elections by landslide victories.

For Esther’s host, the chancellor’s approval felt like her grandmother’s ginger cookies. No wonder she followed the chancellor’s orders, even if it meant death for others.

“Esther, what have you done?” the chancellor asked with heavy disappointment.

“I refused the treaty, as ordered.”

The chancellor turned to something on her side. “Not according to the news.”

“News?”

The chancellor’s eyes hardened. The look of a predator crossed her face, then vanished in a flash. A young officer stumbled into the holograph and bowed. Judging from his insignia, he handled public affairs.

“Your Excellency.”

He showed her the announcement going out. Her lips pinched.

“I saw.”

But the chancellor’s face flushed underneath her makeup, lava welling up under the surface.

“I am not surrendering Mayapuri. Retract your announcement.”

“Umm . . .” The officer twitched.

“Yes?”

“Crowds will riot when they learn we don’t have the antivirus. Especially if they find out it was your decision.”

The chancellor refocused on Esther’s face, reading her, dissecting her. Esther mirrored the feeling of fury and betrayal the chancellor was expressing. If anyone could see her as the imposter she was, it was the chancellor.

“I will track down who sent this,” Esther said. “They will pay.”

She imagined killing the assassin who had infected her. It gave her voice that extra edge it needed.

“It’s too late for that,” the chancellor said.

She dismissed the officer with a wave, and he bolted out of the transmission like a rabbit escaping a wolf.

“Hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost to wars over Mayapuri, and this virus finally brought an end to those. As soon as the public forgets the virus—and it will—the wars begin again.”

“Your approval ratings will be untouchable after getting the antivirus,” Esther said. “Use your popularity to negotiate trade with Mayapuri in your favor.”

“Hmm,” the chancellor said it like she was tasting a strange new food. “I could. Many laws could be swayed with high public favor.”

She leaned back and considered Esther’s proposal for a minute and then another. Occasionally her eyes cut back to Esther, studying her. Esther kept her eyes downcast and waited. Finally the chancellor broke the silence.

“Congratulations on signing the treaty, Admiral.”

The chancellor’s smile softened. She ended the transmission, and Esther made a mental note to retire as soon as her boots hit the epoxycrete back on Terraform XII.

She spun her chair to face the hospital door.

“Doctor!”

It took several seconds. Esther could almost see him limping along. The hidden door opened, and the doctor stood silhouetted. Esther left her desk, and Tiberius shuffled to it.

“That was longer than I expected,” he said. “You normally dismiss your daughter quickly.”

Esther drew her plasma handgun and pointed it at the doctor. It shook violently.

“What?” He stumbled back. “Tying up loose ends, are we? Is Webb next?”

“You left extra nanobots inside me. Clever making them imitate the virus symptoms.”

“I?” The doctor startled. “Why would I destroy you? You’re my greatest success yet! All the clones I’ve created in the past rejected their host’s memories.” Tiberius’s eyes glazed over. “The mind. It’s trickier than I expected.”

He said that last part to himself, not Esther. His eyes refocused and stared down the barrel back at her.

“You have nanobots in you?”

“You tell me.”

“But I scanned you myself. I should have found them. Unless . . .”

He held his finger to his lips. Esther lowered her weapon, but he didn’t notice. His eyes flicked back and forth like he was playing a game of chess.

“Unless they were programmed to hide. Makes sense. They were programmed to imitate the virus symptoms. Why not program them to hide from scanners as well?”

“Where could they hide from scanners?”

Tiberius swiped his hand in Esther’s direction like the answer was a waste of his time.

“Your socks if they’re sweaty enough. Well, what are we waiting for?”

He shooed her to where the scanner lay hidden under the floor. Her host would have been insulted. Esther followed his directions without a fuss. He ran his fingers along the edge of the desk, and his controls lit up. The scanner rose from the floor, and she stood on it again. His fingers whipped across the lights.

“You were right,” he said.

A flash of light, and her hands stopped shaking. Tiberius leaned back, and his body fell limp.

“But how did someone get assassin bots back in you? I killed them. Every last one.”

“Fletcher tried to slap me. I blocked him.”

“That could do it,” Tiberius said. “If there was skin contact. But then he would have nanobots that remained in his system. They would kill him too.”

“Computer?” Esther said to the ceiling.

“Yes, Admiral,” the computer’s alto voice answered.

“Where is Fletcher, and is he healthy?”

“Captain Jack Fletcher is sitting in his room, telling a picture that he will ‘Fix this, I promise.’ His blood pressure is high, but all other vital signs are normal.”

Esther cocked her head at Tiberius. So much for that theory. He clucked his tongue.

“Fletcher could have killed his nanobots as soon as he left you.”

That explained it.

“Computer,” Esther said. “Lock Fletcher in his quarters and call Webb to come here.”

“Lieutenant Commander Brandon Webb is sick, Admiral,” the computer answered.

Esther and Tiberius locked eyes. She could tell from his face, they had the same thought.

“What are his symptoms?” Esther asked.

“Shaking violently on the floor. I called paramedics while you were transmitting to the chancellor. Webb will be delivered to the hospital soon.”

“Did he touch you?” Tiberius asked.

“We shook hands.”

“He’s the one.” He shook his head and mumbled. “But it doesn’t make sense; Webb called me. He set up the whole scheme for your creation.”

Tiberius didn’t know that Webb had been her host’s lover. Esther imagined Webb, sitting at his lover’s deathbed. He held her host’s hand as she withered, but just on the other side of the hospital wall, Esther grew healthy in her host’s old bedroom. Drank her tea. Slept in her bed.

Finish what you start.

That’s what Esther had said to Webb. No wonder he looked so determined when he shook her hand. He probably didn’t even consider it murder. After all, is a clone really a person?

“It’s one thing to plan something, Doctor,” Esther said. “It’s quite another to live with the consequences.” To the computer: “Unlock Fletcher’s door.”

“Yes, Admiral. Anything else?”

“Tell Fletcher to meet me at the air lock. It’s time to sign a treaty.”

Esther signed the treaty, and Fletcher served as witness. The deed was done.

Fletcher and Esther stood side by side on his ship, Olive Branch. The air lock behind them released its seal as it separated from Taara Makaan spaceport. Paramedics took the vial of antivirus to the hospital for study and multiplication.

“You did good back there,” Fletcher said.

“Thank you,” Esther said, and stepped forward.

“Wait.”

Esther pivoted and faced Fletcher.

“You’ve changed,” he said.

“Have I?”

She looked sidelong at him. Fletcher stuffed his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels.

“Hmm.” The sound echoed down his deep chest. “The chancellor accepted the treaty?”

“She has.”

“We have the antivirus?”

“We do.”

“And no more of my family will die?”

“Not from the virus.”

“Good day, Admiral.”

Fletcher stepped lightly down the hallway, a heavy load lifted from his shoulders.

“Admiral . . .” the computer said from the ceiling.

“Yes?”

“Lieutenant Commander Brandon Webb has passed away. His body is in the hospital.”

“I’ll be right there.”

Tiberius and Esther put her host’s body and Webb’s in the same space coffin. They had been together in life. They belonged together in death.

Normally bodies were deposited in the recycling system on a spaceship. Nothing wasted. But no one complained when Esther requested a ceremonial burial for Webb. The crew had kept her host’s affair quiet, but many had suspected.

A funeral procession led the coffin to the air lock and launched it out. The ship fired on the coffin. The contents exploded in a bright burst and extinguished. Only dust remained. All evidence of Esther’s host was destroyed.

She was finally free.

“He was so close to being saved,” Naomi said. “I’ve heard of the virus killing quickly but never knew anyone that happened to. The victims normally suffer so long.”

“At least no one else need die.”

Esther wanted to clasp Naomi’s hand and give it a motherly squeeze. She couldn’t explain her sudden attachment, but then, could any mother?

But she wouldn’t be that forward. Not yet.

“Go to the hospital, get the antivirus.”

“I can’t cut in line because I’m the admiral’s daughter.”

“Children, elderly, and . . . pregnant women—”

Naomi blushed.

“Are given top priority. Now go.”

Naomi nodded and walked to the lift. Her gait already had a slight waddle.

Esther’s feet marched to her quarters. What would her grandchild call her? Grandmother? Too stiff. Gammie? No, that wasn’t right. And would it be a grandson or granddaughter? Who was the lucky young man? Esther had her guess.

She entered her quarters. Tiberius sat in the cushioned chair instead of behind the desk. Blues played lightly in the background, and he swirled iced tea in his glass.

“You really should have something stronger on hand.”

Esther poured herself some tea. She sweetened it with only a drop of honey instead of a tablespoon.

“I thought I’d perfected the memory transfer,” he said and sighed.

Esther sat at her chair and took a sip. Not too sweet.

“We’ll dock in three hours at the Aurora spaceport. You’ll slip out using my private air lock just as when you came on board.”

“Of course. And any research I publish won’t mention your specific name. Case study only.”

He raised his glass in celebration—not of the antivirus or salvation of his planet—but in toast of Esther, his finest creation yet.

“And we cannot see each other again,” Esther said.

“Pity. I’d grown rather fond of you.”

“I’m flattered.”

Even though sarcasm laced her voice, Esther was pleased. Their relationship was twisted, but she’d grown fond of him too. She sipped her tea.

“Oh, and I’ve been meaning to tell you.” She held her tea in her lap. Her hands didn’t shake. “Smells are missing from my memories.”

“Smells?” Tiberius sat up, his eyes sparkling.

“Thought you’d want to know.”

He began mumbling to himself about the olfactory parts of the brain, and Esther allowed herself the luxury of a smile. Her life may have been unorthodox from the very beginning, but she’d made the most of it. And had a grandchild to look forward to.

Esther took another sip of her tea. Perfect.

Marjorie King

Marjorie King is an engineer turned mom turned author. She loves space, tech, and strategy, and has written a space heist adventure, Maverick Gambit, available online. On her website, www.EngineerStoryteller.com, she reviews her favorite SciFi/Fantasy books and posts pics of them on #bookstagram. Occasionally she posts recipes on her blog too. Why not? She can sometimes be spotted in the wild... literally, since she loves hiking in National Parks in the US.

Website: www.EngineerStoryteller.com

Facebook: MarjorieKingAuthor

Instagram: marjoriekingwrites

Email: marjorie@engineerstoryteller.com

4,600 Words

IT’S NOT ONLY the living who shiver when someone treads on their grave.

It happens often enough, throughout the years, no matter how quiet and secluded the place one is buried in. The whiskered old groundskeeper who used to tread so lightly, careful to give a wide berth to each headstone, has long since claimed his own place beneath the turf. In his place, younger men have forged their own paths, ones that crisscross and weave in and out among the stones, heedless of those beneath.

In my day, this place was far from town, surrounded for miles by nothing but the wandering feet of cattle. In my day, only outcasts and traitors were buried here.

Now, the newest groundskeeper lumbers through this tucked-away block, his wheelbarrow bouncing along the uneven ground and rattling his ancient shears and rakes and a bright orange Weedwacker—a brutal machine whose name I somehow, through his memories, know.

When he walks here, I notice him as much as he notices me. That is to say, hardly at all.

Oh, he might glimpse the worn, rounded marker from the corner of his eye, briefly stirring my consciousness. His gaze might pass over it as he tends to his duties, bringing me brief awareness. But it never lingers. Never comes to rest fully on the crumbled letters etched in the stone. His footfalls, his whistling, even the peculiar-sounding chimes of the phone tucked into his back pocket have become white noise: Ambient. Soothing. Forgotten.

That’s how I know it’s not him when I’m suddenly jolted from my rest. The soft, quiet bed of darkness where I’ve been left—forgotten and forgetting—falls away as abruptly as being doused by a pitcher of water, as painfully as the hot iron of a brand.

It’s a woman who notices me again.

She’s tall and somber and wears a bright blouse and pants with striped suspenders. She carries a small tablet and stylus, and a bag that bears the initials “J.L.” is draped across her chest. From the gray hairs just beginning to jut out from her widow’s peak, I can tell she’s older than I ever was, but she still holds herself with the confidence of youth. The curiosity of youth as well.

J.L.—or Jael, as it sounds in my thoughts—tilts her head, and I try to pull back and shrink away, to retreat deep into that veiled place of quiet numbness, but it’s useless. That’s not how it works. Not in places like this.

She continues to frown at the stone, and I try not to resent her, for it’s been so long; there’s no way she could know that each moment she does so is excruciating for me. Not physically, of course, for the worms have taken care of that so long ago, and what little remains of my body is now dry and unfeeling. But being noticed has awakened something in me—an awareness I’d tucked away. Memories that, in being forgotten, I myself could forget. They’re fuzzy, indistinct, and smell of the burning forge, but they nag at me with such intensity that I know, without really knowing, that I’ve done something terrible. Something I don’t want anyone—even myself—to remember.

“Who are you?” Jael crouches before me, and even if I wanted to, I couldn’t tell her. I’m nothing but a prickle on her spine, a breath of a whisper on the back of her neck that, if she was paying attention to it (and if she was the superstitious sort) might cause her to shiver, pick up her belongings, and walk away, leaving me alone again to be forgotten.

But instead, she pushes away the overgrown weeds and squints at my pockmarked stone, and I feel myself awaken more as she does. Please, stop. Just let me be forgotten.

Back when I was stronger, when the scandal of it all ensured I was well remembered by the living, I’d pulled and twisted and teased the vines, shaping them to cover the words of the stone. Drops of dew that slipped from them would run across the letters, ruining them beyond legibility. I’ve always been good with plants, able to bend them gently to my will, and my work must have paid off, for now, the woman can only squint at the marker, her lips moving as she tries to decipher the lines.

“Hmm. This whole section is missing from the online records. I’m going to have to ask Hugh about you,” she mutters, making note of the location on her tablet. Then she holds up the device, and it lets out a click. Understanding travels to me along that impossible thread of consciousness through which she’s awakened my existence: it’s a photograph. “Maybe he’ll let me dig through the physical records, see if I can figure out who you were.”

Please don’t. And this time, as I’m more firmly solidified in her mind, I can almost hear myself say it. I can almost feel my lips move in protest.

Jael packs her tablet into her bag and rises to her feet, releasing bent-up stalks, which no longer shield me as well as I’d like.

Hugh must be the newest groundskeeper, for Jael isn’t gone long before I sense my self-awareness increase. Two people now, rather than one, are thinking of me, speaking of me, wondering about me. Perhaps they’ve already discovered my name. Perhaps it still means something around here.

Why me? Why not one of the others around me in this desolate place? I can sense them now, sleeping peacefully beneath the soil, undisturbed by undesired memories. I envy them.

The shame and the loss are more pronounced now, more sharp edged, and a single word echoes in my consciousness: betrayer.

Days pass, and I know I remain on Jael’s mind, because I still can find no rest. I’m unable to wander far from the lonely stone in the shade-darkened copse, but I’m more aware of those around me. Elsewhere within our iron-fenced boundaries, others roam.

There’s a general from the war buried on the property’s northern edge who has been kept vibrant and active by his notoriety and by the iron placard that stands before his elaborate tomb. Years ago, he used to ride through the grounds by night on a stallion, his presence made brilliant white—nearly corporeal—by the strength of his former enemies’ nightmares. But they are gone now, taking with them the memories that gave him such strength. Now it’s their stories, passed down in books and letters and the lectures of historians, that hold him here.

The eastern acres are the newest, the overturned soil the freshest. Throughout the seasons, the living will come, bearing their gifts of forget-me-nots and candles, of stuffed bears and helium-filled balloons. The recipients welcome them with gentle breezes that make the hot sun seem less harsh on their heads and comforts whispered directly into their loved ones’ hearts. They want to be remembered; for them it’s a joy. I watch from a distance in envy.

Jael visits again, and this time she speaks my name.

“Good morning, Eliza.”

Beyond time and place, I hear the echo of all those who have spoken that name before. I wish I had hands and ears so that I might block them out somehow, but they come full force, each with another measure of pain.

Father, his voice as strong as his hands—which built his house, his farm, his fences—speaking my name in anger. Mother, quiet and yet just as fearsome. Brother . . .

Brother.

My brother, the blacksmith whose shadow darkened his hot, smoke-filled shop. Whose voice, even now, is a red-hot poker. His name is out of reach, yet when he speaks mine, it’s with such sharp accusation, such disappointment and hurt, that I know he’s the one I’ve betrayed.

Please, stop. I can’t bear to remember. I’m so sorry, for whatever I did.

Jael freezes, and I wonder if she’s heard me, but she shakes her head and goes on. “Eliza Forsythe. 1865 to 1885. So young. But why are you buried here—alone? You know, there’s a vault across town with the same surname on it. It’s a big, elaborate thing from around that same era. But if they were your family, why weren’t you buried with them? What happened to you, Eliza?”

Please. I don’t want to know what I’ve done.

Jael sighs, lowers herself to the ground, and takes out her tablet, fiddling with the stylus for a few moments before speaking again. “I sometimes wish I’d lived back then, back when this part of the country was still so wild. You read about the close, tight-knit families from those times, with fathers training up sons in their trades and mothers teaching their daughters how to cook and sew, and everyone sitting together for big Sunday dinners. Nowadays, what do we have?” She holds up the tablet, as if I know what it is, what it does, what it means. And yet somehow, I do.

On the screen is an email from someone named Tyson. I linger over her shoulder, reading the message as she continues speaking.

“My brother. He’s a mess. Has been since our parents died, though that’s no excuse. Claims he needs a thousand dollars by next week so he can buy a suit for an interview with some big company. Except I called the place and— surprise—they claim they don’t have any open positions right now and definitely aren’t interviewing. I don’t know if he wants the cash for drugs or one of his other vices, but he’s family. I’m getting paid enough to restore these old cemeteries, so he knows I’m good for it, so . . . I mean, I’d just hate to think what he’d do if he was really desperate.” She tucks the tablet away and rises to her feet, brushing off her jeans. “But never mind all that. We gotta figure out what happened to you, Eliza. I think I’ll swing by the library on my way to the apartment.”

I try to follow, to tell her to stop. If I were stronger, I could manifest myself like the haunts in old stories, to frighten her away from this place and this quest.

The thought sends a shudder through me. I don’t want to frighten her, just to rest.

As it is, I can only flow, like an errant breeze, around her. When my attempts at tugging her hair go unnoticed, I slip into her bag with the tablet, and by siphoning from its power source, I can follow her to the cemetery’s main path. Follow, but nothing more. The battery dies at the wide iron gate, and when she reaches into her bag to search for her keys—the mystery of my forgotten existence pushed briefly from her mind—her fingers meet a key fob that holds an icy chill, but nothing more.

Gustaf.

I know precisely when she finds his name, because that’s when I do too. It burns like a stoked fire through me, churning up sparks of guilt and self-loathing. Stirring up smoke that chokes me out, and a voice within it, crying:

“How could you, Eliza? You ruined me!”

And though the details are still lost, and I beg for them to remain so, I know—as surely as my name—that it is true.

Even though she’s miles away, I know Jael is reading old newspaper articles from the time before all the trouble began, for I can see Gustaf’s blacksmith forge as if it’s before me, can feel the whoosh of the bellows and sense the heat around me. I can hear the town’s accolades for his fine workmanship, their praise for the young man who shows so much promise. And I see something she doesn’t see, something I was never meant to find: in the corner, the metal box with a false bottom, and in that hidden compartment, the short-handled running irons favored by cattle rustlers.

Then I picture the family vault across town and know, when she does, that Gustaf is not buried there either. I know, with frightful certainty, that they never recovered enough remains to put to rest.

And Father’s words echo around me: “Today, I’ve lost both my children.”

This time when Jael visits, it’s drizzling, and the sky is as clouded and dark as my thoughts. She’s wearing an orange poncho and rainboots that come halfway up her calves. She carries a rake with bamboo tines and a garbage bag that’s already half-full of debris.

“I found your family,” she says as she approaches, and her memory of them stirs a whirlwind of emotions through me: love, pain, sorrow, regret. “Your parents and grandparents are across town in that vault, as I’d suspected, but you and your brother aren’t. You know why?”

She waits, listening, as if I might answer.

Even if I could, I don’t want to. I may not remember the details, but I remember enough. Enough to know that I ruined his reputation. I ruined our family’s good name. And what’s more, from the gnawing ache of guilt that won’t go away, I’m beginning to suspect I may have done something worse.

“I asked the librarian,” Jael said, putting the rake to the ground and carefully tugging at the snarls of dead leaves and tangled weeds. “She thought she remembered reading some old records in the archives about the family once. Some big scandal that turned the town upside down, back when there were more cattle out here than people. She said I ought to head to the main branch, that they’d have more reels of microfiche there with newspapers from that era. Maybe I can find out what happened.”

The heat of terror flows through me. A leaf catches in Jael’s hair—coincidence? Or a sign that her curiosity is catching, making me stronger? Besides Hugh and the librarian, whom else has she talked to about me?

I wish I could tell her that I don’t want to be remembered. I wish I could force her to give up this pursuit. I try to scream it as loud as I can, and maybe a bit of it gets through.

“It’s part of why I do what I do,” she says almost apologetically, gesturing to her tools. “It just doesn’t seem right, that just because you lived long ago . . . just because you didn’t have any children or grandchildren of your own, that you should be forgotten.”

But some of us want to be forgotten.

She sets about her work, humming a melancholy tune as she goes, and I follow at her heels like a calf trailing its mother, able to hold on more tightly this time because her mind is so full of my story. When the sun begins to creep down toward the golden treetops, she tucks the rake away in the groundskeeper’s shed, and this time when she reaches into her bag to grab her keys, she shivers, and my name is on the tip of her tongue. She says it aloud, though she doesn’t know why.

I leech off the power of her tablet until we reach her car—an enclosed, silver thing that only resembles the carriages of my day in that it has four wheels and seats. She turns the key, and the engine roars to life, along with a battery far stronger than that of her little tablet. Between her musings on my life and the electrical energy in this rumbling machine, I’m able to sit beside her and be carried away, farther each minute from the place where my body was laid to rest.

Jael listens to music as she drives, the same melancholy tunes that she’d hummed as she worked, only now I hear the lyrics too. They’re words of frustration and angst and loss, and I wonder what they mean to her, why she sings with such conviction.

Outside, the empty prairie of my day is gone, and I finally see the city that, thus far, I’d only vaguely sensed. It’s easy to see why so few from my corner of the cemetery are remembered; there’s no trace of my era on this city. The buildings our hands constructed have crumbled. The places that bore our names are gone. Highways bisect the farms that families passed from generation to generation.

It is as if we never existed.

And yet, beside me is a woman who wants to resurrect old things: old names, old stories, old pains, old wrongs. What right does she have? What good will it do?

“Whoa,” Jael says, frowning at the dashboard, which has started blinking in agitation. Yellow lights. Orange lights. Red lights. The car sputters, threatening to die, and another vehicle whizzes past, its horn blaring. That’s what it takes to make me realize what I’ve done, and I pull back, immediately regretful. The engine turns over, humming steadily again.

“What was that all about?” Jael mutters to herself. I can hear her heart beat faster and feel the adrenaline fluttering through her veins. It makes me feel stronger, more powerful, and yet at the same time, it frightens me. The world is full of stories of spirits who feed on fears, who revel in their notoriety and use that power to manifest themselves, keeping their memory alive long after those who would remember them are gone. Is that what Jael is turning me into? Is that what I’m destined to become?

I sink back into the seat, distancing myself from the dashboard and the engine.

When Jael’s phone rings, I fear I’ve caused that as well, but when she answers it with a sigh, it’s a real, living person she’s talking to.

“Hey, Tyson.” She loops a Bluetooth device over her ear, and though I could tuck myself away inside its tiny bits of metal to hear both sides of the conversation, I choose to listen only to her words, a tiny gesture of humanity that makes me feel less like a haunt.

“No, I didn’t send money yet. Why?” She sighs again. “Look, where did you say you were interviewing? Right. Uh-huh. No, I believe you. Yes, I know we’re family.”

“How could you, Eliza? We’re family.” The car speakers sputter, static filling the air where Jael’s music had just been, and within it, behind it, from somewhere deep beyond, comes my father’s voice. “I don’t care what he’d been making or for whom—even if it was for the devil himself. Family doesn’t betray family. Mark my word, that sheriff’s gone to get his deputy, and the two of them are going to cart your brother away before the night is through. All his hard work, gone. Our good family name, besmirched. And that’s on your shoulders. Nobody’s but your own.”

And then Mother’s. “Where’s Gustaf?”

The scent of fire overwhelms me.

“Look, I gotta go,” Jael says. “I’m in traffic, and my car’s acting up. Smells like something’s overheating. I’ll call you back later. Yeah. Bye.”

She tosses the phone onto the seat beside her and urges the car like I used to do with the horses pulling the wagon up the big hill at the edge of town. “C’mon, girl. We’re almost to the library. Just a few more blocks, and I’ll call the mechanic. Just hang in there a few more blocks.”

It hangs in there. She props the hood and calls the mechanic from the parking lot. I know that when he arrives, he won’t find anything wrong with it. Mechanically, it’s always been fine, and I no longer care to possess it.

I need to follow Jael inside the somber, stone building. I need to put her search to rest. I remember enough on my own now, beginning with the sheriff’s unexpected visit and his even more unexpected line of questioning, and ending weeks later when, alone and destitute, I succumbed to a cough that had torn through my lungs since the night of that fire. The night that Gustaf died.

Jael must have caught at least some of what was said on the radio, because as she climbs the steps, her curiosity is so strong that I don’t even need to leech power from her electronics. I cling, instead, to each question running through her mind, the pieces of the puzzle she refuses to forget.

“Can I help you?” the young man at the reference desk asks. “What are you looking for today?”

“Just some information about a bit of local history. Something that happened back in the 1880s to a woman named Eliza Forsythe.”

“Why don’t we just check the computer here?”

What will they do, when they find out the truth? With how many people will they share my greatest secret? Will they engrave a placard for me, to match the war general’s? One with words like traitor and murderess etched too deeply for rain to wear away?

My panic rises. The lights flicker. The computer screen goes blank.

“Well, that’s not good,” the librarian says, frowning and pressing the power button. “I’ll have to have the IT department see if they can fix it. For now, looks like we’ll have to go low-tech. We’ve got the old card catalog right here, and the microfiche over there. You know how to use them?”

Jael nods, already passing her fingers over the cards. I read over her shoulder, skimming through the subjects, relieved at each card and film roll that does not bear my name. Minutes and hours pass like lifetimes, and as false hopes dissolve and leads dead-end, I begin to fade away. I’m pulled by the tedium and forgetfulness back toward the rest of my quiet, forgotten plot.

And then she finds something.

On faded newspaper, in black and white, they lay my story bare.

“A fire occurred last evening at the Forsythe ranch, resulting in one death,” Jael reads aloud, and I smell the smoke, the coal, the flames. “The fire began in the blacksmith shop, where twenty-five-year-old Gustaf Forsythe was working. Sheriff Ruesman reports that he had stopped by the ranch earlier that day to investigate a claim that the blacksmith was aiding rustlers in altering the brands of stolen cattle with the use of running irons. The man’s younger sister, Elizabeth Forsythe, had attested to the fact that her brother was in possession of the tools in question, and the sheriff was in the process of procuring a warrant when the alarm went up. Despite rescue attempts, the young man perished in the fire.”

The paper passes over the anger on Father’s face, the horror found on Mother’s as I stumbled, coughing, from the too-hot building after yelling my throat raw, trying to find Gustaf in the smoke. It misses their words that cut at my heart, telling me I’m no longer their daughter, no longer welcome in their home. There’s no indication, either, of my final weeks that followed, relying on the charity of strangers as my cough worsened and my body gave up.

Jael’s eyes are fixed to the page, and mine are fixed on her. I want to scream. I want to cry. I want to throw the books from the shelves and upend the table, and my memory is so fresh in her mind, so vivid to her, that I’m certain I could if I tried, but what good would it do now? She already knows. So I wait.

She taps her stylus on her tablet, her eyes flicking to the most recent messages there. And then, without another word, she rewinds the microfiche, tucks the film into its dust-coated box, packs up her belongings, and leaves.

This time I don’t follow. I allow myself to float away.

The next time I see her, she’s not alone.

“Tyson, this is Eliza. Eliza, my brother Tyson.”

The family resemblance is strong, though he’s taller, and his brow is creased with wariness while hers is smooth with determination.

“I don’t get it, Sis. What’d you bring me to this dump for?”

“It’s not a dump,” Jael says. “I need to tell you her story.”

I whip a wind of protest around them. Tyson’s eyes go wide.

“Please, Eliza,” Jael whispers. “Trust me. He needs to hear this. I’m sorry you couldn’t save your brother, but maybe your story can help me save mine.”

I fall silent and listen as she tells my story. Not my brother’s story of his meddling younger sibling who ruined his prospects and made his life not worth living. Not my father’s story of a hard-earned reputation, which he’d spent years trying to polish and preserve, coming to an end in a pile of ash. Not my mother’s story of a family torn apart by the secrets and lies.

Mine.

And perhaps it’s because she’s the first person to take notice of me in so many years, but the story she tells is true. Truer and more accurate than even I had remembered.

It’s the story of a woman who’d seen proof of the path her brother had chosen, who’d approached him to convince him to stop, but who—when presented with the choice between becoming complicit and doing what was right—followed her conscience, even knowing what it would mean. She’d refused to let him make her life a lie.

And I remember it now: standing with his heavy anvil between us as I tell him what I know.

“What of it?” He stokes the fire, sending sparks flying.

“I’m not stupid, Gustaf. I know what running irons are used for, and what’s more, I know who uses them. Those cowboys you met with late the other night? I know they aren’t from around here. And I know they aren’t the first.”

He chuckles. “Do you also know how well they pay? How many of your precious seed packets that work has bought for you? How many heads of cattle for Father?”

“Father says the sheriff’s on his way. Says he wants to ask about some men who might have been through here lately.”

“Let them ask. It’s only you and me who know, and I know you’ll tell a convincing tale.”

“No, Gustaf. I won’t,” I say, backing out of the shop. “You’ll tell them about those rustlers, or I will. I can’t be complicit in this.”

“And I can’t either,” Jael says quietly. “I know the interview is a sham, Tyson. You need help. And when you’re ready to accept that help, I’m here for you, but I won’t let your lies become my own.”

She leaves then, but I know she’ll be back. She’ll be back, not with a placard to set before my stone, but with stories and friendship and maybe someday flowers: tiny, blue forget-me-nots that won’t obscure my name. And I find myself, though aching for rest, looking forward to her visits and feeling . . . hopeful.

Hopeful for the man still standing before me, frowning down at the weather-worn headstone. His hands are strong and shoulders broad, like Gustaf’s, and I use this opportunity, this last bit of strength before he moves on, to whisper in his ear:

“Remember.”

Wendy Nikel

Wendy Nikel is a speculative fiction author with a degree in elementary education, a fondness for road trips, and a terrible habit of forgetting where she's left her cup of tea. Her short fiction has been published by Analog, Nature: Futures , Podcastle , and elsewhere. Her time travel novella series, beginning with The Continuum , is available from World Weaver Press.

Website: wendynikel.com/

Twitter: @wendynikel

5,400 Words

LAURA CHECKED THE front of the chamber, reading down the columns of flashing blues and greens and reds, then entered the reading for each one into the computerised log pad.

With a deep sigh, Laura stepped back from the metal doorway. The chamber’s soft humming was immediately lost under the sound of the shrieking wind. Up here on the fifteenth floor, you could actually feel the building rocking softly to and fro under the onslaught of the summer storm. Laura strolled back to her desk, glancing through the windows at the surrounding skyscrapers—shivering towers of steel rising from the glowing, fog-shrouded sprawl of London far below her.

The display on her digibracelet said it was nearly twenty past three. She had to boost herself soon, or she would start feeling drowsy. Her stomach tightened as she rolled up the right leg of her overalls, took the prepared syringe from her handbag, then braced herself, gritting her teeth as she slid the needle into her thigh. She shivered at the pain. The thigh was probably the most painful place to inject herself, but it had the most immediate effect. She ran her fingers over the needle-scarred skin of her slightly flabby leg, imagining the solution racing through her veins, revitalising her blood, making it healthy.

A bright green light flashed on the front of the chamber. There was a loud click, then the massive metal doorway swung inwards on its pressurised hinges. A figure dressed from head to foot in shining black stood inside the flashing archway. The figure reached up to its head, pulling off its black helmet, revealing the thin, bony face of a middle-aged man.

“Hello there, misery guts,” the man said.

Laura forced a smile as she took his helmet. “Hi, Ben. Good trip?”

“Very exhausting.” Ben looked tired as he stepped out of the chamber. He was tall and almost painfully thin, with a heavily lined face, the occasional tuft of grey showing in his otherwise black hair. Laura knew the location and purpose of every experiment was always a secret, known only to the time operative involved, but she still felt a pang of almost childish disappointment at Ben’s tight-lipped response.

“What’s the matter, sweetheart?” Ben touched her shoulder. “You look as sad as a little girl who’s been banned from eating strawberry jam.”

Laura smiled. She ran her hands through her curly blond hair. “What’s the point of me, Ben?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Why am I here?” Laura gestured around the huge almost empty room.

“You know why you’re here.” Ben sat down on the recuperation bench. “Someone has to monitor the chamber while one of the operatives is inside.”

“But that’s just it,” Laura said. “There’s no real need for anyone to be out here at all. In over one thousand experiments, there has never, ever been a repeat of ‘the event.’ The safety measures we have now are so damned strict that nothing ever could go wrong.”

“I know what you’re saying,” said Ben. “But what if, somehow, it did happen again? Never forget how dangerous what we do is, Laura. Outside of the operatives themselves, you are the only person who understands how the chamber works. You’re the best safety measure we could ever have. We need you, kid. You’re essential.”

Laura forced another smile.

He’s right, she thought. They picked me out of a thousand applicants, just so I could sit up here and be the world’s most expensive guard dog. So I could spend every day of my life sitting in here, watching this . . .

She looked into the open doorway of the metal chamber.

. . . this machine . . .

The wind screamed against the windows as déjà vu tugged at her mind. It had been on a day just like today, five long years ago, that she had sat in the interview room on the ground floor, her hands clasped tightly in her lap, her heart pounding so hard in her chest she could barely speak as the pale-faced woman in charge of personnel studied the data screen between them.

They’ll never give the internship to me, she had thought. Not to someone with my condition.

“So you were born with the infection in your blood?” The pale-faced woman’s hair was fluffed around her head in a stylish Afro.

“Yes, miss.” The rain pounding against the windows almost drowned out Laura’s tiny voice.

“But it’s a common enough disease. Can’t a cure be grown?”

“No, miss.” Laura’s face flushed. Speak up, she yelled at herself. For god’s sake, Ashcroft, make yourself heard!

“The bacterial cure has to be grown from a sample of blood from someone who’s almost genetically identical.”

The woman pulled her spectacles down, gazing at Laura over the lenses. “I see,” she said. “You’re an orphan.”

“Yes, miss. My father died before I was born. He was killed in the war.”

“And your mother?”

“She died giving birth to me.”

The woman’s eyes were icy cold staring over their glass shields. “That’s very sad.” She looked back at the data screen. “It says here you’re a Cambridge graduate. Top two percent of all your classes.”

“Yes, miss.”

“And now you want to work for Ministry D?”

“Yes, miss. I want it very much.”

The woman didn’t blink as she asked her next question. “Why?”

“Because . . .” Laura’s pounding heart strangled her voice. She knew her next words would decide the entire course of her life.

“Because, miss, I want my life to mean something.”

Two hours later she was on the fifteenth floor.

Dr. Stuart Marcus, head of the research unit for Project T, stroked his greying beard as he regarded the newest addition to his team with his keen dark eyes.

“Laura,” he said. “Tell us what you know about terahertz radiation.”

Laura stood, meeting each pair of eyes around the steel table.

“Terahertz waves are like the ghosts of the subatomic world.” Her heart pounded as she spoke. “They can pass straight through any other form of matter, but they can also be focused as light beams. Until very recently it’s been heavily debated whether they even truly exist. A device that receives and transmits terahertz waves could, theoretically at least, allow people to see straight through solid objects. Be it a brick wall, or a mountain.”

Dr. Marcus placed his hands in his lap. “Excellent, Laura. You’ve just perfectly described the very purpose of Project T.” He gestured around the table. “We six people are going to design and build the world’s first ever T-ray imager.”

Two years later, Laura stood inside the prototype of the quasi-optic chamber, staring with puzzlement at the giant screen before her.

“Dr. Marcus, it’s happened again.”

The headless red figure floated before her, its shining arms and legs splayed outwards, suspended like a phantom in front of the brick wall. She looked from the screen to the outer room where the wall actually stood, seeing the top of a flashing metal cone peeking over the bricks.

“It’s showing the radiation suit we put behind the wall two days ago.” She looked back at the screen, her stomach clenching with anger. “We’ve taken the damn thing to bits and rebuilt it a hundred times! How can it keep on happening? How can it show an image from the past?”

“Because the past is what it sees.” Dr. Marcus stood behind her. “When we point the imager at the wall, it shows us, not what’s behind it, but what was behind it a day ago, or a week ago.” He looked down at Laura. “Because terahertz waves are not light waves at all, but echoes of light.”

He smiled.

“Laura, our wonderful machine is detecting echoes of time.”

Another year later. Time operative Laura Ashcroft sat in the Project T operations room, her heart pounding with excitement as she rolled up her trouser leg to inject herself with the special steroid solution that kept her blood healthy. The painful prick of the needle barely registered through her euphoria. It was her turn next! In her mind she was already inside the now fully functioning imaging chamber, standing on top of Mount Everest, or watching the takeoff of the first manned mission to Mars from Cape Canaveral seven years ago.

Last week the operatives had gone back in time nine years.

Today they were trying ten.

The lights on the front of the chamber suddenly flashed in unison.

“What the hell!” Dr. Marcus stepped towards the chamber door. “What’s Ben doing? He’s stopped his trip early.”

The steel door whooshed open. Ben stood inside.

“They saw me,” he said. “The people in the time echo. They saw me.”

“What?” Marcus roared. “Ben, that’s not possible! The time echo is just a synthetic re-creation of a past moment . . .”

Ben held out his hand.

“I picked this up,” he said. “Look, Dr. Marcus. I picked this thing up. Inside the echo. I brought it back with me.”

Marcus stared. Clutched in Ben’s hand was a mini mainframe computer, twice the size of a human hand. Mainframes as large as this no longer existed.

They hadn’t existed for ten years.

“It’s not just an image,” said Ben. “Dr. Marcus, the chamber is warping the barrier of space-time. If we warp it enough, if we go back far enough, we don’t just see the echo, we can touch it.”

The Project T meeting room, one week later.

“The quasi-optic chamber is the most powerful espionage device possessed by anyone on earth,” Dr. Marcus said as he stood at the head of the table. “It must be used for the defence of the country, but only ever for that purpose. No trip must ever go back far enough in time to allow the slightest risk of time altering, except in the most urgent of circumstances. The missions must be performed only by time operatives who are so professional, so perfectly trained, that they will sacrifice their own lives rather than commit any act that might alter the past in any way.”

Dr. Marcus’s gaze finally fell on Laura.

“All time operatives must be in perfect health.”

“Penny for them.”

Ben’s black-suited form slowly materialised from the swirling fog of Laura’s memories.

“Just thinking,” she said.

“You do far too much of that,” he replied. “And we, Miss Ashcroft, are now both off duty. I could do with a drink. Want to go to the canteen?”

Laura gazed at him. “No,” she said. “I have stuff to finish in my office.”

She clicked the steel bolts on the operations room door, then walked along the corridor to the small partitioned room where she had spent most of her life over the past five years. A long desk stood in the corner, a large screen was mounted on the main wall. The office also contained a small but very comfortable fold-up bed. In the early days, when she was working on the design of the quasi-optic chamber, Laura had frequently spent the night here on the small bed, instead of wasting time making the trip across London to her apartment.

Laura sat at her desk and immediately tuned her digibracelet to the World Web. A picture of a large house appeared on the screen, a grand old country manor, surrounded by thick woodland. Laura had found the picture in the World Web archive. It was a photograph of Ashcroft House, taken in the late nineteen nineties. Laura’s family had lived in the house for generations, until just thirty years ago when the Ashcrofts had finally been forced to sell it to land developers. The beautiful house had been destroyed, and in just two decades, the whole section of Cornish countryside where it had once stood had disappeared, replaced by a complex of skyscrapers. Laura often liked to look at the house, fantasising about what it would have been like to have spent her childhood there. She would sometimes lose herself for hours, yearning for a past she had never known.

She pressed a button on her digibracelet, and the house was replaced by a series of photographs, men and women dressed in increasing degrees of antiquated clothing. The oldest picture was of a mustached, middle-aged man wearing the uniform of the British Army during the First World War. The most recent was of Laura’s father. Laura drank in the faces of her ancestors, watching the distinctive features, with their high cheekbones, repeating themselves backwards through time. Her family, her blood relatives, separated from her only by the thin glass of the screen, and by the impenetrable gulf of time.

I wish I could just reach out and touch you, she thought.

She stayed in her office until the sounds of voices and passing feet had ceased. Long after she should have gone home for the evening, Laura walked by herself to a corridor adjacent to the time chamber. At the end of the corridor was the door to a vault. Laura typed in the security code, and the door slid open. She stood for several minutes, staring at the mini mainframe that Ben had brought back with him during the last ever “official” time experiment. It was kept here in the vault, hidden from the eyes of the world. It was a space-time anomaly, a piece of unreality.

And has there ever been any consequence? thought Laura. Was an alternative timeline created? Did the entire space-time continuum crumble to pieces? Did a gigantic black hole open up and consume the whole of existence? No. And if the damn thing is really so dangerous, why didn’t the ministry destroy the chamber? Why is it okay for them to still use it, as long as they just hide this thing away and pretend it doesn’t exist?

One single object, brought forwards through time. A tiny, insignificant lump of matter that had no consequence on existence whatsoever.

Just like blood. A tiny amount of blood, taken from a human body. The body it was taken from wouldn’t even notice. How could there be any consequence to such a tiny act? The answer was that there could not. Not for the past. Not for the person she took it from. But a massive consequence for her, here, in the present. Because one single drop of blood is all that she would need to cure her of her illness for the rest of her life.

One tiny drop of blood. And then no more injections. No more pain. The ability to live a full and active life.

Laura resealed the vault. She went back to her office and pretended to debate with herself for the thousandth time whether she was really prepared to go through with it. But deep down she knew. Deep down she had decided a long time ago.

It was nearly midnight when Laura returned to the Project T operations room.

When the computer log records were checked tomorrow, they would know what she had done. The ministry would have no choice but to sack her. She didn’t care. She had made her choice. The blood would give her life. Real life.

Laura opened the door to the chamber.

She stripped out of her overalls and put on the smallest of the black suits hanging on the wall. The suits were just one of the many precautions the time operatives had to take. If their presence were ever detected by the occupants of a time echo, they would be observed as a formless black figure. In the dark they probably would not be seen at all. Whenever possible, every time experiment took place at night.

On one side of the metal-walled room, the quasi-optic laser was housed inside its plastic casing. Laura stood at the terminal, her fingers shaking so much she could barely type in the coordinates.

She had thought this out a thousand times, agonising over every detail, every possibility, and she knew that in order to give herself the surest chance of success she had to go back thirty-two years. This was almost certainly farther back than anyone had ever gone before. Laura’s father had lived at Ashcroft House until he was nineteen years old, when Laura’s grandfather had finally been forced to sell the house to property developers. That had been thirty-two years ago. If she focused the T-ray imager on the site where Ashcroft House had once stood and projected herself back thirty-two years, there would be at least three of her direct ancestors living in the house: her father, her grandfather, and her grandmother.

She knew that when going this far back, the imager could not pinpoint an exact day, but it could almost certainly take her back to a precise year. If she had to, she could make several attempts, until she was inside the house at night. Then all she would have to do was approach a sleeping person and take a drop of their blood. She had rehearsed this on herself countless times, and she knew she could do it so gently that a soundly sleeping person would never wake up. Laura would be nothing more than a shadow, completely invisible in the dark.

Laura finally picked up the tiny syringe she had brought with her, still sealed inside its plastic wrapping. She put it into a pouch in the suit, then she checked, and rechecked, the map coordinates. Finally she entered the destination year.

2026.

Laura stepped into the middle of the room, the helmet gripped in her hands. Her heart was racing. As she stood trembling, the walls seemed to shiver. A wave of weakness swept over her.

No. Please no.

She clenched her fists, and the feeling passed. It was just excitement. She had boosted herself less than twelve hours ago; she should be fine for hours yet. She looked down at the helmet, hesitating once more as she glimpsed her own face, a pale, trembling reflection in the plastic visor.

There had been over one thousand time experiments. Nothing had ever gone wrong. If there was the slightest problem, she would immediately abort.

Laura put on the helmet.

“Activate,” she said into the tiny microphone by her mouth.

Even from inside the helmet, she could hear the hum of the quasi-optic laser as it fed its rays along the pathways leading up to the top of the building, creating an invisible wave that shot into space, bounced off a satellite, and sped back downwards to a spot more than three hundred kilometers away, in Cornwall. The four walls of the chamber began to flash, her surroundings disappearing, then reforming into a new three-dimensional image. She saw the banisters of a staircase, leading along a long hallway. A carpeted floor marked with bright patches of sunlight.

It was daytime!

“Abort,” she said instantly, her heart pounding.

The metal walls of the chamber reappeared. Laura waited several seconds.

“Activate,” she said again. The chamber melted away, replaced by the same surroundings as before, only now the banisters were drenched in shadow, moonlight glinting brightly off the polished wood.

It was night.

Laura looked breathlessly around her, the visibility device contained in the visor of her helmet helping her to see in the darkness. She saw the long hallway stretching out on both sides of her, the outlines of closed doors etched in the wall opposite the banisters. Slowly, she reached out a trembling gloved hand and pressed it against the wall.

It was solid! She could feel it! Oh god, god, she was actually here!

She was upstairs, where the bedrooms were. Exactly where she wanted to be.

She saw no movement on the landing, or downstairs below the banisters. It was clearly late at night. Everybody must be asleep. She turned around, studying the closed doorways. Her father might actually be here. He might be lying asleep in one of these very rooms. Could she see him? Just for a moment, could she watch the sleeping face of the father she had never known? Could she touch him?

Laura began to walk along the landing, passing each of the closed doors. In one sense of reality, she was still standing in the middle of the quasi-optic chamber, her feet moving over the conveyer panel, the T-ray imager automatically adjusting the three-dimensional image around her as she moved. The illusion worked, as long as she walked slowly and made no sudden movements. She reached the end of the banister. Here the landing opened outwards into a square, with walls on all four sides. In the wall before her, there was a large window with the curtains drawn back. Moonlight shone through the glass. A long patch of sheer white light created a shining slit on the carpet, glinting off the wood of another doorway behind her.

Laura turned slowly around. So far she had only walked in a straight line. Now she moved sideways, remembering how to accomplish the movement from the time trips she had taken years ago. As she moved, a peculiar thing happened. The image of the doorway in front of her expanded, then divided itself in two. Laura stared. There were now two identical doorways, next to each other. There was something wrong with the time image.

No.

Laura trembled. Jesus Christ, no! The imager never went wrong! It had never happened, not in over one thousand experiments! Tears stung Laura’s eyes as she blinked. The image around her seemed perfectly solid, except for the one anomaly. Two identical doors.

Then Laura looked again, and her breath caught in her throat.

They were not identical. Not quite. The door on the right was closed, but the door on the left was partially open. Laura’s heart beat furiously. She knew the door had not been open before.

Abort. I have to abort this now!

She stepped forward. The image of the open door remained solid. She stepped forward again. Now she could see through into the room. The curtains in here were also open. A double bed was against the wall on Laura’s right. A figure lay asleep in the bed. Because of the moonlight, and the visibility aid in her helmet, Laura could see the figure’s face very clearly. A youngish to middle-aged man with a thick moustache. Laura had spent countless hours studying the photographs of her ancestors, and she knew the man in the bed was not her father, or her grandfather. It was Captain Rideon Ashcroft, who had fought in the First World War.

Laura stood for at least a minute, her blood turning cold as she watched the peacefully sleeping man. It was supposed to be two thousand and twenty-six, but this man had died in nineteen thirty-six. With a gasp of fear, Laura stepped back into the hallway.

How could this be?

Now she saw other anomalies around her. Another doorway had divided in two, one version partly superimposed upon the other. There were now two images of the stair banisters, standing a meter or so apart. Laura moved again, and a section of the dark landing was suddenly flooded by sunlight. She saw a woman walking along with two little blond-haired children holding each of her hands. The woman was fairly young and wore a long dress in the fashion of the early twenty-first century. Laura gasped as she realised the woman was Madeleine Ashcroft, her great-aunt.

No.

The entire landing suddenly split into two, then divided again into four, then into six. The time echo was disintegrating, fragmenting into a kaleidoscope of different moments in time, all superimposed over each other. Laura screamed. In one echo, she saw a door opening and a portly, red-faced man stepping out onto the landing. She recognised Roger Ashcroft, the man who had taken control of the family business in the nineteen fifties. In an image below her, she saw two thin young men, one of whom was Michael Ashcroft, whose son had nearly been killed in a car accident in nineteen eighty-five.

What the hell was happening?

It’s because I’ve gone back so far. Two years, and the echo is just an echo that can’t be touched. Ten years, and the echo can be touched and felt. Thirty years, and the echo can’t hold itself together. It’s too far back in time.

Crying out again, Laura gripped the edge of the doorway. She gasped, realising how solid the wood felt under her gloved hands. Despite the accordion-like effect of time opening out around her, somehow the moment of time she was standing in was still solid. She had to abort now! One second before she was about to yell the word into her helmet, she caught a glimpse of movement inside the doorway. She looked and saw the figure of Captain Rideon Ashcroft struggling with his bedclothes. His hands were stretched out towards her. His eyes were huge in his face, his mouth gaping silently.

He can see me!

Her screams had awoken him. He had opened his eyes to see a phantom black figure standing in the doorway, and now he was clutching at his chest, his eyes bulging.

Heart condition! He was discharged from the army because he developed a heart condition!

Something rippled across Laura’s vision. A shadow was reaching across the kaleidoscope of time, making it bulge and distort. Suddenly she couldn’t focus on the images, the time echoes had become blurred. Or at least parts of them had.

The figures of the Ashcroft family.

He’s dying! Laura understood with absolute horror. He’s going to die now, before he marries, before his children even exist.

Oh god!

Laura stumbled towards the dying man. She could feel him! He was solid flesh and blood under her hands. She leapt onto the bed, then threw Rideon back and hammered her fist on his chest. Again. Again. The man’s breath hitched several times, then he began to breathe. Laura watched him, her heart in her mouth, as the colour slowly returned to the man’s face.

He’s all right! He’s going to live!

“What are you?” Rideon screamed at her. “Oh my god, what are you?”

Laura backed away from him. She turned to look beyond him, to the spiraling echoes of time. The shadowy distortion was fading away, dissolving, yet even as it disappeared she saw that some of the figures it had been hanging over had already faded beyond recognition.

“No!” Laura screamed.

The portly figure of Roger Ashcroft had become a ghost, no longer a human being, as if he had been partly erased from reality. What remained of him was standing on the landing, his hand clutched to his chest.

“No!” Laura ran towards him. “Don’t die! Don’t die!” She leapt through time, into the echo that Roger occupied, her hands reaching for him just as he collapsed, dead, onto the floor. Screaming, Laura looked around her at the madly spinning carousel of time. She saw the young Michael Ashcroft clutching at his throat, lurching into the banisters at the edge of the landing.

“Michael!”

Laura sprinted at him, her hands outstretched. He was falling . . . falling over the top . . . she wasn’t close enough to stop him. Her hands seized on empty air as Michael fell headlong over the banisters, a hideous scream floating up from his tumbling body before it snapped like a twig over the banisters at the foot of the staircase.

Laura screamed with terror. In another echo, she saw the fresh young figure of Madeleine Ashcroft walk to the top of the staircase, bending down to pick up a tiny blond-haired little boy. The fading remains of a wobbling distortion was still eating into the air above them. As Laura watched, the figures of both the woman and the child began to blur.

“Madeleine!” Laura charged towards the echo. “Get away from it! Get away!” Laura ran, crying and screaming, knowing that this time she had to get there in time, this time she had to save them, because the beautiful blond-haired little boy that Madeleine held in her arms was Laura’s father.

“Go on, Madeleine. Tell the story.”

Madeleine Ashcroft put down her glass of wine. She looked across the dining table at her brother, Alfred, holding his gaze for several seconds.

“Are you sure Mary really wants to hear it?”

“Is this the story of the Ashcroft curse?” Mary Ashcroft’s long eyelashes fluttered as she touched her husband’s arm. “I’ve heard people say things about it, but . . . it isn’t true, surely.”

“Go on, Mad,” said Alfred. “You tell it so much better than I do.”

Madeleine sighed.

“They say that Rideon Ashcroft, our great-grandfather, was stationed in India during the First World War. They say that he and his friends invented dares to try each other’s courage, and Rideon was dared to go into a graveyard at night and dig up the most recent grave. The grave was supposed to be that of a very wealthy Indian man, who had been buried with all his jewels. Rideon had to come back with one of the jewels, to prove that he’d completed the dare.

“Rideon was halfway through digging up the grave when something came out of the darkness and attacked him. He was found in the morning, almost dead. He was sent back home and was never truly well again. One night, when he was lying in his bed, he had a heart attack and almost died. He always claimed that, on that night, he had awoken to see the creature from the Indian graveyard standing in his bedroom, and that it had tried to kill him again.”

Madeleine took a sip of her wine. “That’s the old family legend. I imagine that part’s totally made up. Graveyards.”

“But there’s more to it than that?” said Mary.

“Yes,” said Alfred. “They say that the creature, whatever it is, has haunted this house ever since. They say that in every generation, one of the Ashcroft family just drops dead in the prime of life, for no apparent reason. And the doctors can never say what killed them.”

Madeleine laughed. “And if you really believe the stories, every time one of these mysterious deaths occurs, the victim sees a shadowy, supernatural figure rushing towards them just before they die.”

Mary looked from Madeleine to her husband. “But there have been a lot of mysterious deaths, haven’t there?”

“There are always deaths in any family,” said Madeleine.

“Roger Ashcroft,” said Alfred. “They say he just dropped dead one day when he was on the landing. He’d never been ill a day in his life before. The doctor swore he could find no reason for his death.”

“So they say,” said Madeleine.

“And Michael,” said Mary. “The one who fell over the banister. You two must have been here when that happened.”

Madeleine pulled her cardigan around herself, shivering at a sudden chill in the room. “I was just tiny then,” she said. “I remember . . . it was horrible.”

“Why did he fall?” said Mary.

“No one knows,” said Alfred.

Madeleine decided she’d had enough of this. “I’m going to see where dessert is.”

At the bottom of the staircase, she heard a voice calling down to her.

“Aunt Mad. Aunt Mad.”

Madeleine trotted up the stairs, her heart rising at the sound of her nephew’s voice. The little boy was rushing along the landing. As she reached the top step, Madeleine bent and gathered him into her arms.

“You’re supposed to be in bed, young man.”

“I had a nightmare, Aunt Mad.”

Madeleine shivered again. That strange chill was even worse up here.

Madeleine . . .

What was that? Just now, it had almost sounded as if someone had called her name.

Get away from it . . . Get away . . .

Madeleine looked up, squinting as she saw the shimmering black shape break out from the semidarkness on the landing and come running towards her.

Jeremy Essex

Jeremy Essex is the author of the sci-fi/horror novella ‘The Sound Of Time’, as well as multiple short stories which have appeared in Kzine, Tales From The Canyons Of The Damned, Acidic Fiction and 9 Tales Told In The Dark. He lives in Suffolk in the U.K. where he spends a lot of time in Indian restaurants.

Website: www.jeremyessex.co.uk

Twitter: @byatis1

7,200 Words

THROUGH THE COLD and glistening blue, the Spanish galleon El Pez Volador groaned with her heavy load of bullion under a bright Caribbean sun. Captain Don Capricho Delgado y Cervantes stood amidships, fists to hips, his coppery, shoulder-length hair whipping about his head like pennants in the wind. He was what Spaniards dubbed a rojo, his red hair and fairer skin considered regal, a unique contrast to the dark olive of his men. He stared over the gunwale and scowled at the horizon. His ship maestre, Salvador, stood to his right, and a grizzled sailor named Sanchez crouched beside him, dipping a ladle into the scuttlebutt.

“There it is again.” Capricho pointed at a surreal column that plumed in the distance. It transformed from peaceful blue into wicked flickers of scarlet. He shielded his eyes with a hand, squinted. “Have you ever witnessed its like?”

The burly Salvador hissed when he spotted it. “No. Never.”

The column continued shimmering on the horizon in bizarre shades of arterial red.

“Lightning perhaps?”

“No lightning does such things.”

“Waterspout?”

“A twister glowing with blood light?”

Capricho lowered his gaze, turned to the old sailor. “You, Sanchez? You have traveled this sea longer than any of us.”

Sanchez brought the dented dipper to his lips and drained it. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, sighed, and squinted a rheumy eye at Capricho with suspicion. “Thought you didn’t want me tellin’ my stories.”

Capricho frowned. “I said hold your tongue because the men are twitchy from yesterday’s squall. They are a superstitious lot.”

“By all the saints, they should be after seeing that beast of a storm slice our flotilla apart.” Sanchez waved the dipper. “You want to hear about my watch last night?”

Salvador grunted a quick “No” but Capricho held up a hand. “Does it have bearing on this phenomenon?”

“Course it does!”

“Make it brief.”

Sanchez hitched his tattered britches up his skinny hips and tightened the rope around the waist. “‘Twas on the forecastle, third watch, when the ocean goes flat as a bedsheet. I’m telling you, Captain, the way that water reflected the stars, we could have been sailing on a mirror . . .”

A distant memory washed over Capricho, of a river that had looked like that, sweet memories that brought pain. Capricho shoved them away and listened.

“So you can imagine my surprise when, dead center in the moon's reflection, this sirena bobs up, hair floating behind her like kelp in a current. Well, she turned her lustful gaze upon me and my—”

“Stop.” Capricho pointed to the flickering column. “What does this have to do with that?”

“Just getting to it, Captain. This sirena, she raised her voice in a dirge that could have curdled blood.” He thumped his chest. “But I stood fast, I did, though lesser men would have run. She sang in a strange tongue, but I understood it like it was my mother's own voice. She sang that the Wind Howlers had marked us. Said they were hunting us.”

“Wind Howlers?”

“Sí. Local spirits, methinks.”

Salvador chuffed. “Bah. The only spirits here are the ones you get from a jug.”

Sanchez jabbed him with the dipper. “Ten cuidado! Do not taunt the gods. This New World is full of old life. Conquistadors are brutal to the natives. You think the locals don’t have gods just like we do? We robbed their temples! You think there won’t be payback?”

Salvador groaned, turned to Capricho. “I’m going. We need to get a man up the main to watch for lost ships.”

“Might as well stop looking for them,” Sanchez said.

Salvador’s jaw twitched. “And why is that?”

“The sirena’s dirge.” Sanchez crossed himself. “Said the Howlers sunk every ship.”

Salvador clenched his fists. “And the waterspout?”

“Well, those Howlers?” He stabbed the ladle to the horizon. “That’s their marker. They’ve tagged us. They're coming back to finish the job.”

Salvador’s face flushed dark red. Capricho slapped Salvador lightheartedly on the back. “Easy, cousin. What else would you expect from Sanchez? Come. Whatever it is, it’s not bothering us.”

At that moment, the distant pillar shifted from crimson to sapphire, then sunk back into the sea. Capricho took it as a good omen. They walked alongside the gunwale, both silent.

Sanchez got the last word. “La sirena . . . she also sang about you, Captain.”

Capricho shuddered, the scent of the tarred deck sharp in his nostrils. He touched the spot where a silver cross hung under his shirt.

He did not look back.

Within the captain’s cabin, the approach of evening brought welcome relief from the day’s sweltering heat. Mullioned windowpanes ran the length of the stern, propped at an angle to partake of cool breezes. Shafts of setting sunlight passed across the narrow gallery outside and glittered through the panes, gilding the cabin’s mahogany bulkheads and richly set table in warm amber hues.

Beeswax candles set in the table's silver candlesticks flickered in the breeze—extravagant, but the rancid scent from smoky tallow candles spoiled good meals in Capricho's opinion. Besides, this was a special dinner. There would be no dining with the other officers tonight—Capricho needed to consult with Salvador alone, and there was nothing better to soften the hard man's disposition than good fellowship under the glow of a warm meal. And wine. Lots of wine.

Capricho took a careful sip of the red from Rioja, his precious private stock. He savored the black cherry flavors that swirled over his palate before swallowing. “I am not saying I believe Sanchez's wild story, but I tell you, Salvador, that storm is stalking us.”

Salvador hoisted a chalice to his lips, drained half the bowl without a thought. “And I say again, this talk is loco. We should turn back! It is dangerous to travel alone, crazy storm or not.”

“No, Salvador.” Capricho jabbed his fork in accent to his words. “She—is—stalking—us! This gale hunts us like a predator. She is behind us. I feel it in my bones.”

Salvador grunted, stabbed his fork into a steaming piece of turtle meat drenched in olive oil.

“We sail on to Havana,” Capricho said.

Salvador said nothing, wolfed away at his meal.

“You still aren’t in agreement?”

Salvador grabbed the pitcher, refilled his chalice. “You still aren't listening?"

Capricho scowled, waved a hand to continue.

Salvador gulped more wine. "Dangerous, sailing alone to Havana.”

“We have no choice.”

“We could turn back to Cartagena, join another flotilla.”

“But we’re halfway to Havana! The fleet gathers there.”

“Better wind going south.”

It would be safer turning back. It just irked Capricho to tuck tail and come about. Batten down and hold fast, that was his motto, and he drilled it into his men. Stubborn pride, some called it. Capricho called it tenacity, but he knew both terms were close cousins. Like the line in points of sail between “close-hauled” and “in irons.” With the difference of a few degrees, any ship could slip from swift forward momentum of close-hauled trim into the dead stall of being shackled in irons.

Human nature was no different. Capricho knew that by the variation of a few degrees, any man’s strength could become his weakness.

Hmm. A different tack might make Salvador come about. “Cousin. When we make Havana, we join the armada to head for Spain, for home.”

“Don’t,” Salvador said.

“Remember the feeling when we spill treasures on the quay before King Philip’s courtiers? Philip jigs for joy when he hears of our arrival.”

“Stop.”

Capricho twisted his mustache. “The clip-clop of hooves as chargers prance those cobbles. The smell of suckling pig roasting in fat vendors’ stalls. And cooing women everywhere, hungry for rugged men of the sea, like your Angela.”

“How I miss home!” Salvador cried. “Stop! You torture me, you beast!”

Capricho smiled wickedly. “Good.” He stood. “One moment. I live for this.”

Turning to the windows, Capricho looked at the ocean beyond, drawing the fresh sea air deep into his lungs. He watched the crest of the sun descend. Almost there, almost there . . . ahhh.

An emerald flash. The last bit of molten orb slipped beneath the ocean. Capricho sighed, returned to his meal.

Salvador stared into his cup as if seeing visions in the reflection. “Por favor, Capricho, forgive my rant. I just miss Angela. I want to make it home alive.”

“Returning to the bosom of your lady, that I can understand.”

Relief flooded Salvador’s face. He looked up. “Why not take a bride, Capricho? More than one man would feel better knowing you’ve got a lady to return home to.”

Pain lanced Capricho. “I will never love again.”

Salvador cleared his throat, entered dangerous waters. “You have to let her go, Capricho. Her memory suffocates you.”

Capricho carefully set down his fork and drew bead on Salvador. His voice rang like steel, cold, deadly. “Diedre’s memory is all I have.”

Salvador lifted his hands as if to say unarmed. “I am first to say she was the wind in your sails. But she clings to your heart now like an anchor.”

“Enough.”

“No, it’s not enough!” Salvador leaned forward, pleading. “Open that door, Capricho. Let it out. Deal wi—”

Capricho slapped his hand on the table. “Enough!” He took a deep breath. If he lost his temper now, he’d lose the whole objective of this meal. He forced a smile. “Not tonight, por favor. Enough tension for one day.”

Salvador stared Capricho down, finally shrugged, sat back with a grunt. “As you wish.”

Capricho nodded, reached out, hoisted the pitcher. “More wine, cousin?”

“Always.”

He filled Salvador’s glass to the brim, set the pitcher aside. Awkward silence hung in the air; Capricho tugged at the ruffled sleeve protruding under the cuff of his waistcoat. “Well then, it has been decided.”

“What has been decided?”

“We do not turn back to Cartagena. San Mateo and the Espírito Santo were blown off course, and will no doubt make their way to Havana. We will wait for them there, where the convoy gathers. I pray the squall does not double back, but I fear this prayer will fall on deaf ears.” Capricho slapped his left knee. “Bones do not lie.”

Salvador softened a biscuit in his wine, popped it in his mouth, took a long time chewing it. He washed it down with a swig of more wine before looking up. “You’re the captain. Do you wish to meet with the other officers?”

Capricho leaned back, elbow resting on the padded arm of the chair, fingers twisting an end of his mustache as he studied Salvador’s eyes. “Trust me on this one, cousin. We’ve circled back and come round again—we should have spied their masts. We’ve waited too long already. We set course for Havana. Tonight.”

Salvador rubbed a finger under the broad tip of his nose, the perspiration glistening in the lamplight. He straightened in his chair and nodded. “You’ve steered us true so far. I’m behind you. I’ll see to it the men are as well.”

Relief flowed out Capricho’s lips in a sigh. “Bueno. The sooner we reach Havana, the sooner we set sail for the bosom of your Angela and Mother Spain. Gather the officers and convey my orders.”

Salvador emptied his chalice with a gulp. He slid his chair back, rose, gave a short bow. “Gracias for the fine meal and for sharing your wine,” he said.

Capricho remained seated and nodded. “De nada.”

“I will see to the men.” Salvador turned and strode toward the door.

“Oh, Salvador?”

The broad shouldered Spaniard turned, eyes capturing the lamplight’s flame. “Que más?”

“We reach Jamaica by morning, God willing.” Capricho spoke his standard Caribbean command. “Tell Juan Carlos to keep her in the blue. There are hungry shoals and reefs out there, with teeth as sharp as daggers. See to it they don’t feed on our hull.”

Salvador winked, the crow’s feet deepening at the edge of his eye. “We stay out of the green! I’ll send Emilio up the foremast at dawn—his young eyes are the keenest. Buenas noches.”

“Hasta mañana.”

As the door latched shut, Capricho closed his eyes, exhaled a deep breath, and squeezed the bridge of his nose. His emotions rose up like a ship caught in high seas, sweet churning with the bitter, and he fought to batten down the hatches. Tears welled. A few escaped, coursing down his cheeks, falling to his waistcoat, spattering upon the gold-filigreed buttons studded with conch pearls. Blast that infernal Salvador. Why couldn’t he just give up and let him be?

Capricho turned his right hand, bared the palm to lamplight. A pale scar was there, an old one, cut across his lifeline. He stared at it for a moment, then turned down the lamp and cradled his forehead in the palm.

As the ship moaned in the roll of a large swell, memories spilled from his deepest holds. He saw the hazy outlines of a summer morn, tender sunlight gracing the emerald banks of a meandering river. The swirling arms of a willow brushed against Capricho’s back, their secret willow, and he remembered the quivering passion of youth, how her touch as she rested beside him stirred his fire.

Diedre of Clan McLochlan. He could still feel the warm curve of her hip, the pleasant pressure of her head cradled soft to his shoulder. He could see the sapphire river as it gurgled past in timeless melody, sunlight skipping the waves in bright sparkles. He smelled her lavender fragrance, smiled as the long tresses of her copper strands lifted in gossamer wisps across his face. Her feminine warmth was the charm of a cottage hearth, her breath the pure whisper of the sea.

The candlelight flickered. Capricho’s lips quivered and soft words slipped forth, fragments of a poem written on his darkest night.

Capricho heaved a sigh. “Weep no more for the willow.”

With an angered swipe of his hand, he raked back the hair that had fallen over his eyes. “I need air.”

He rose, unfastened his sword belt, rested rapier and dagger upon the table. He shrugged out of his waistcoat, threw it over the chair, then stepped up a riser and slipped through the door onto the stern gallery.

The ocean’s cool breeze skipped across the damp back of his shirt, made him shudder. He stood at the rail, his mane of copper flowing in the wind as he caressed the polished teak with his palms, still warm from the day’s sun.

He stared over the expanse, dark waters dappled in silver by the rising moon’s brushstrokes. The ship groaned as swells flowed along it and lapped its barnacle-encrusted sides. Capricho exhaled the stale air of the cabin, replaced it with the sweet breath of the sea. He stood motionless, the ocean his hourglass, the waves its falling sands.

“You are my mistress,” he whispered to the sea.

With a gentle bow, he returned to the cabin.

His berth was in a corner; dark shadows beneath the bunk tugged at him like the force that turned the needle on a compass. He tried to resist, but desire pulled. He dragged a chest from under the berth, worked a key, popped the lid. The crisp cedar-scent rushed around him as he fished through the contents and pulled out a scarlet scarf spun from rarest silk. Lifting it to his nose, Capricho inhaled deeply, and, in the grip of his need, believed he could still smell pressed lavender oil resting within its folds.

He carried the scarf to the table, sat in his chair, wove the fabric through his fingers. He tugged it through them ever so slowly, remembering how good it felt whenever Diedre had coyly done it to him.

Pain seared him again. He grabbed the pitcher, filled his chalice to the brim, blew out the lamp.

It was a long wait for sunrise.

Daybreak. The sea boiled. The ship bucked her head like a mare in heat, shaking a mane of white froth over the bow.

Capricho rushed up the sterncastle ladder, stood upon the high quarterdeck, spied the oncoming storm. Salvador hunched over the hood of the helm, giving orders to the helmsman who worked the whipstaff that steered the ship. The purple mountains of Jamaica reared starboard, but as Capricho faced fore, his stomach lurched. Bruised clouds and funnels burgeoned ahead, thrashing the heights like angry sea serpents.

“Mother of God,” Capricho shouted. He turned back to Salvador. “The squall comes for us!”

Salvador’s look was dark. “We have been heading straight for her gullet all night! What is your call?”

A blast cuffed Capricho. His heart hammered. Decisions made in the splits of seconds would determine whether men lived or died.

“Sound the bell. All hands! We bring her about. Douse the topsails, reef the rest. Tell helm to set course for the leeward side of the island.”

Rain pelted the deck as rigging screeled. Capricho stood at the rail, looked down at his men.

“Ready to come about!”

As the bell rang and orders barked, decks and rigging swarmed with grim men. Tackle squealed as they reined in the bucking ship, changing the angle of spars and rudder.

They came about. Slack sails filled in a thunderous clap; the hull heeled to the wind. The galleon groaned, lumbered forward. Capricho scanned sails from bow to stern, gauged trim against gusts.

“Too much sail!” he shouted to the sail master. “Reef the main! Ándale!”

Cold rain strafed the deck. Capricho looked back. Congealing thunderheads bounded toward the galleon. He blinked. Blinked again.

Jaguars?

The clouds had boiled into shapes of mottled leonine creatures, their eyes spheres of ball lightning. As black maws opened, snarls of thunder struck the ship.

Capricho’s mind defaulted to something he understood: barking orders. “Salvador! You call this heading leeward? Tiller hard to starboard! We get around that point, the mountains cut the wind!”

Salvador slammed his fist against the helm’s hutch. “Felipe can’t work the whipstaff! Too rough!”

“Disconnect it! Get two below to crank the tiller tackle. Ándale!”

As Salvador bounded off, Capricho faced amidships, gripped the rail. The sail master stood below by lashed longboats, illuminated in the greenish glow from the sky.

“Pedro! Pedro!” Capricho got his attention. “Get the mizzen—”

Pedro pointed up the main, and Capricho turned to look. Men scattered across ratlines faster than a fleeing school of fish.

A serpent of brume twined around the mainmast. Battered wings quivered against its body. The sea serpent reared its horned head over a yardarm, scanned the decks. A shaft of rippling air swept with its gaze, parting the sheets of rain.

The swath struck Capricho, trapped him in its lidless fury. His muscles froze. The creature hissed; breath fled Capricho’s lungs. He strained against unseen bindings, could not breathe.

The bow swung, punched by a wave. The mainsail spilled its wind, luffing violently.

The serpent jerked away, tracking the sound. Fangs that looked of cloudy ivory slashed the sailcloth to ribbons.

Freed, Capricho gasped, able to breathe again. What kind of devilry was this?

Wind Howlers.

He swung onto the ladder, descended to amidships where he could climb the mainmast. Somehow, the apparition must be stopped. He’d be damned if he’d let any spawn of heaven or hell tear his ship apart.

The galleon groaned against a broadside. Water lunged over the gunwale. Capricho hooked an arm around the ladder as the wave surged, flooding the deck. Not a wave. A liquid jade jaguar rumbled over longboats, bounded forward, swiped a paw against Capricho’s legs.

Capricho flew from the ladder, thumped on the deck, tumbled in the beast’s swirling grasp. They slammed against the gunwale. Capricho rolled into the curve of the planks, caught a grip on the rail and held fast, while the jaguar’s momentum and semifluid form sloshed it over the rail. A snarl lashed out as it hurtled into the sea.

Thunder clapped. Capricho jumped up, spun toward the sound. In the center of the ship hopped a one legged apparition, a liquid giant bearing a feathered Mayan headdress. It hoisted a crackling staff, sighted on Capricho.

“Dios mío! Not again!” Capricho jerked the chain that hung around his neck. As the giant’s staff rippled white-hot, Capricho thrust his crucifix forward.

The apparition roared, averting its eyes. The strike veered, struck the bulwark, exploded. Splinters blasted the air. Capricho hurtled up, up, up as the world spun end over end.

He sailed overboard into the churning maelstrom.

“Salvador!”

Chill water engulfed him, booming like cannon volley. A wave slammed his chest, swallowed him whole.

Capricho descended through the cold and glistening blue, his body shuddering, thrashing, kicking . . . then surrendering to the silent peace of the depths. This realm, just a fading tunnel of murky light, closing, closing, closing . . .

A silver flash.

The face of a goddess.

Así que este es el paraíso. So this is heaven.

Capricho moaned. Had his head been used for cannon shot? His eardrums ached. He cracked open his eyes. He was on his back on a tiny island staring at a cavern dome. A cenote, for the limestone peak had cracked, admitting shafts of light that dappled slick stalactites, igniting water droplets that collected at the tips. The air was cool, refreshing, scented with notes of brine and algae.

He slid his palms on the stone he was sprawled upon. It was slick, covered in succulent seaweed. Something slid him up a bit; he felt the warmth of flesh press against his bare back. He blinked, squinted, stared up into a Mayan maiden’s face. She cradled his head to her chest.

It was her, the goddess. Her hair fanned the air, strands of black and indigo. Her eyes were more enchanting than a moonlit sea.

“Rest now, captain. You are safe.” The woman’s voice winged in husky harmonics through the cavern.

“Where am I?”

Her lips touched his forehead. “Home. I rescued you from the Wind Howlers.”

“Howlers?” Capricho tried to sit up. His head whirled. He fell back. “Who are you?”

She flourished her hand, stretched delicate fingers. Soft webbing curved between each.

“Surely you know me, sailor. I have many names. You would call me a sirena.”

“I must be dreaming,” he said. “The visions of death.”

She lifted a nacreous shell to his lips. "These grow here, in my cave. They are very old, and are sacred. They condense the aura I radiate. Drink."

The shell was as smooth and flawless as Castilian steel. Capricho lifted his head, let her spill the cool, briny dewdrops over his tongue. He swallowed.

Quicksilver flashed through him.

She gently tilted his head back against her. “You see? Not death. Life. Daughters of the sea take pride in saving sailors.”

“Why sailors?” His vision crackled with clarity.

“Your mortal hearts sing with love for the sea, and when you touch water, it’s like a stone tossed into a pond. Ripples fan out, brush our realm, and if the song entices, we are drawn.” She smiled, teeth as lustrous as pearls. “Your song, captain, is especially strong.”

“Thought it was the other way around. Sirena sing to us. You twist my dream.”

Quizzical light swirled in her eyes. “If you think we’d sing without first being aroused, you are much mistaken.”

She tilted back her head.

A heartbeat throbbed in the veins of her throat.

And she sang.

Her voice sprang as from the heart of the sea. It rolled like frothing surf against the cavern walls, a brilliant liquid tremolo wrought from the emerald flash of the sun as it sinks into the sea. Capricho’s breath caught in his throat. One note, held quivering upon the air. One molten note was desire, was the burning, was the pleasure, was the epiphany, was th—

She clamped her mouth shut, severed the melodic umbilical. The death of the note made him gasp. His blood thundered.

“Madre de Dios,” he sighed when he could speak again. “If a man must die, that . . .” He shook his head. There were no words.

She looked down. “I told you. Not death. Life.”

Capricho did not know what to believe.

The sirena arched a brow. “Questions?”

“What of my ship? My men? Are they safe?”

She eased his head into her lap, looped a fingertip down his breastbone. “Your ship escaped the Howlers. Not without help.”

That blasted name again! Capricho shuddered. “Who are these Howlers?”

She dragged her fingertips through the curls of his chest hair. “The Ruarchan. Demigods of wind and water. As a sailor, surely you believe?”

“I did not believe. Now? Here with you? I confess I am not certain.”

“Tell me, which Howlers attacked your ship?”

Why couldn’t his dream just leave them be? And if she was a mermaid, how did she speak his tongue so fluently? Proof this was a dream! Unless ... he wasn’t her first?

Her tone compelled. “Speak. Howlers. It is important.”

“Alright. The first was a flying snake.”

“Koosh. That would be Kukulcan.”

“Never heard of him.”

“That’s what the Maya call him, the people of my waters. Your Cortez knew him by another name, assumed his identity to deceive Aztec worshippers.”

“Quetzalcoatl. The feathered serpent.”

“Correct.” She traced the chain that draped his chest. “Any reason Kukulcan might feel the need to destroy Spanish galleons?”

Capricho grimaced. Curse the conquistadors and their relentless bloodlust! “I see your point.”

“This god is trouble, but not so strong, as Cortez himself proved. What else did you see?”

“Jaguar, wrought of water.”

“Koosh-koosh. Balam. The jaguar god assumes many forms, but he is a protector and won’t travel far from his worshippers. Was that all?”

“No. There was another. A giant, with a lightning staff.”

She frowned. “One leg, or two?”

“One.”

“Kooooosh. Bad. That is Hurakan, the Ruarchan that controls the wind. Very powerful. Others might give up chase, but Hurakan will track your ships to Spain and beyond. Your people have roused a great enemy.”

Could such a wind god exist? If so, what might happen if it tailed them "to Spain and beyond"?

“Bad timing,” Capricho said. “Spain prepares her Invencible, a great fleet for war with England, the size of which the world has never seen. There is no way those heretics could defeat us. Unless . . .” Capricho shuddered as he remembered the ferocity in Hurakan. “Sails require wind’s blessing. If Hurakan stalked us up the English Channel, it would be disastrous.”

"Of this there is no question." The mermaid dropped the cross from her fingers. “Vengeance is mine, saith the lords.”

“Vengeance? Not against my ship. My men did no harm to his worshippers.”

“Did you not? Whose blood is on the gold in the belly of your galleon? You think Hurakan cares whether you did it with your own hands?” She flicked the cross. “You bear the mark of the god that destroys Hurakan’s people. You flaunt your god’s emblem on towering sails as you move through Hurakan’s waters. Your arrogance is boundless. How could you believe you would not draw his wrath?”

Capricho had no answer. Word by word she left him naked and exposed.

“Did they kill others among my men? Salvador, did you recover one by that name?”

“Your ship and men are safe—I am not without my own power in these waters. But I found you breathing brine without gills," she raised a scaled brow, "unhealthy for your kind. So I gave you the mist-kiss, and now you are mine.”

“Yours? Because you found me? Señorita, I am not some bit of salvage for you to claim for your trove! I am Captain Don Capricho Delgado y Cervantes, appointed by his Majesty King Philip II of the glorious realm of Spain!”

Slits underneath her jaw flared a moment, exposing red gills. “You would steam like this? When you are more corpse than captain? You should thank me for saving you, instead of filling your chest like a puffer fish.” She paused. “And it’s Silganna.”

"Qué?"

"My name. It is Silganna."

Capricho winced. “Por favor, Silganna. Forgive me. Death has cramped my manners.”

Silganna chuckled. “Forgiven. And you are right.” She brushed a fingertip over his lips. “I cannot claim your love. I must earn it.”

“Love? Who said anything about love?”

“Why do you think I saved you? Did my mist-kiss mean nothing?”

Capricho vaguely recalled the caress of lips, a static charge, then darkness. “I am certain it was wonderful, but as to my heart, you cannot have what was lost.”

“Tell me.”

“No.”

“If this is death, then there are no secrets.”

“And if, by chance, it’s not?”

“Then I can help you. Tell me.”

Capricho felt his pain unraveling, a knot coming undone under the fingers of her tone.

“Diedre was my betrothed.”

“Tell me.”

“She was from another realm. Scotland.”

“Tell me.”

“This was ten years ago. I first met her on the Guadalquivir Quay—the docks where the gold from these lands gets unloaded.”

“A long way from her realm, it would seem.”

“Scots come to Spain for education and alliances against our mutual enemy, the Protestant English. The day I saw her is branded on my mind. Diedre was the fairest of the señoritas who swarmed the quay when we were unloading the treasure fleet. Skin like cream, hair of bright burnished copper—Diedre was an emerald among stones.”

“Koosh.”

“I had months before next passage, and I spent it all with her. I invited her to my family’s estate, walked with her through our vineyard, picnicked beside the big willow on the river that borders our property. My madre was not pleased.”

“No?”

“To her, if you aren’t of Spanish blood, you’re as good as a heretic. But love transcends all borders. Before I returned to sea, I asked her hand in marriage.”

Capricho tried to batten the hatch against his emotions like he had so many times, but the air tingled, compelling him, and he could not stop the flow. “I thought of nothing else at sea. My bread was the dream of our future. Her wedding gift was to be a hacienda on the Spanish Main.”

His chest tightened, the pain pushing against Silganna’s enchantment. The power of the curse of his broken heart. Even in death it refused to release. And yet, here he was, about to confess to a strange being his greatest shame. He fought against it, but it was no use. Whether by enchantment or by catharsis, he had to speak this.

“When I returned, another hand had claimed her.” He breathed deep, exhaled. “She died of influenza while I was off chasing dreams.”

Silganna’s eyes glistened. The cavern kept time by the plink of water droplets. Finally, she spoke. “You could not have helped this.”

“Qué? How do you know? Had I been by her side, my presence might have given her the strength to survive.”

“You do not know this. You afflict your soul to no purpose, Capricho.”

The pain coiled. “It is my soul to afflict. Not yours. Mine.” The spell broke. He pushed her hand away. “If I am alive, return me to my ship.”

Silganna searched his eyes. “I wonder how sure you’d be if the wound no longer burned.”

“Just as sure. I can love no other.”

The music of falling droplets. The rise and fall of Silganna’s chest became the endless waves of the sea.

“Very well.”

Blackness consumed him.

Within a horseshoe-shaped cove, the gibbous moon illuminated lush hillsides, hunched like weary giants before a white sand beach. Surf spilled into the bay, surging in silvered froth as it rolled across the shallows and broke upon the shoreline. The galleon El Pez Volador rocked with each wave, anchored securely in the center. Her roughly furled sails glowed in the moonlight, ghostly arms of torn canvas lifting forlornly in the breeze.

Flames flickered in the firebox, splashing crimson and amber across the forecastle bulkhead. A few men on the late guardia de modorra watch huddled around the fire—sodden, slumped, and silent. The rest were below, gunners in hammocks strung between cannons, sailors stacked in orlop bunks, officers in berths at the stern. And within the once empty berth of the great cabin, their captain now tossed in fitful sleep.

Capricho moaned and rolled to his side, shivered as mists spilled through his dreams.

He was aloft in enchantment, sailing a skiff across an ensorcelled sea. Off the bow loomed a cracked and weathered monolith, dark as blood, standing fast against the timeless pummel of waves. He sheeted in, drew the sail tight, set course for the crag. As he approached, he caught sight of a jagged snag atop it. Mottled brown and black roots rambled from its stump, draping the rock in gnarled and twisted tendrils. He knew this tree in his heart of hearts.

It had once been a willow.

Capricho doused sail and, coasting alongside, leaped from the skiff. He grabbed hold of a dangling root, climbed it like a rope. Fire lanced his grip—the root burned his palms like acid. He swung a leg over the ledge, released the cursed thing, and stood. The root snaked away, wormed down into the cracks again.

He approached the jagged stump. Its roots constricted in response; rubble tumbled into the water. The thing was tree no more. It clutched and cracked and choked the rock in violation of what once had been a glorious tree with arching green branches that swayed gently to the tempo of the wind. Now, it was as brown and blackened as a bloodthirsty leech refusing to release its hold. Capricho's chest constricted tight. How could the thing of his fondest memories have become so hideous over time? How could he have let it twist and defile itself into such a monstrosity?

Capricho pulled his sword from its scabbard, the sound of steel ringing out. In response, the stump snapped a root at Capricho like a whip. It struck his cheek, drawing blood, and the pain shocked him. The living tree was gone, and yet it had no desire to yield or to die—it just sought to crush and destroy, rooted in its place.

The root lashed again. Capricho dodged, gripped his rapier with with both hands, brought it down with a chop. The air filled with the shriek of red hot steel being quenched; the severed root writhed upon the stone, scoring it with acidic, black-blood sap. Capricho kicked it over the ledge, turned in time to see another root scrabble from a crack and wrap itself around his boot. He jerked his leg, stretched the root tight, and sliced again. The severed root slapped wildly across the rock.

Acrid smoke rose, burning his nostrils. Bitter air entered his lungs. His head ached. Capricho had fought the Caribs, he knew poison. The stump was poisoning the life out of him. Had been for a very long time. And if he didn't fight back now, right now with all his might, it would smother him in brume once again . . . and this time, he would never break free.

The stump snarled, raising blackened oily appendages like a kraken rising from angry depths. Capricho entered the swordsman's detached state of battle, his mind dividing the area into planes of attack. He danced swift among the roots, met each as it lashed out with a deft stroke of his blade. Smoke billowed from the stump; splattered ichor burned his hands. Capricho lunged, slammed a shoulder against the gnarled snag. He lunged again, and again, heard a crack. The taproot snapped. Heartened, he shoved with all his might and the stump broke loose. He pushed the hulk to the ledge, shoved it over. It plummeted to the sea.

It bobbed upon the surface, sprouting a vision of a glorious willow, green branches swaying over two lovers, resting against its smooth trunk. Then it sunk slowly under, ending in a flash of green.

Capricho sighed and whispered a line of verse:

A gurgling surge. Capricho whirled. From the stump’s hole in the rock, a glittering fountain sprang up. Myriads of pear-shaped diamonds hovered midair in the moonlight, then descended, washing down the scored sides of the monolith.

Capricho stepped close to the fountain’s pillar. A woman’s face shimmered in the column, blossomed from the surface. He leaned in.

“Diedre?”

She smiled with lips so inviting. He pressed his to hers. A cool liquid tongue pushed over the white shoals of his teeth. Capricho gulped again and again as her refreshing waters flowed into him.

The Spaniard’s eyes flashed open; the vision evaporated. He gripped a wool blanket, found it dripping with moisture. He jumped to his feet, got a fix on his bearings. Thin beams of moonlight entered through the shutter slats.

His ship. His cabin. His berth.

Capricho raked his hair back. “Qué? Was I dreaming?”

He stared at his map table, hissed. In the center rested a crystalline statue of a mermaid. She sat atop a stone, waves of hair looped over her shoulders, but it was spilling down her form in streams of silver waters.

“Que diablos?”

As he spoke, the statue’s head turned. Its eyes stared brilliantly into his, radiant as morning stars.

The shutters blasted open. Brisk air rushed in. The breeze moaned, swirling round and round the whorls of Capricho’s ears. Faint liquid chuckles chimed.

“La sirena! You were real.”

The shutters slapped again and again. Capricho rushed through the doorway, stood upon the gallery. An aura of green swept away from the ship.

How sure would you be if the wound no longer burned?

Capricho recalled his days with Diedre. Her memory flowed within him. But now, the gnawing pain had fled, no longer choking his heart. A wound healed so well, he could not find the scar.

The green wisp swirled to the mouth of the cove.

Capricho thumped his chest with his fist as he tracked the sphere of light. “I had forgotten how good it feels to be alive!”

It hovered at the entrance, pulsing softly on the surface of the water.

“Silganna.” He recalled the power of her kiss. How long had he been with Silganna? Just long enough to taste her sweet spirit. As it had been with Diedre.

The light began to sink.

He thought of his men, he thought of his ship, he thought of his country, he thought of his king. Could he abandon them at such an hour? Silganna had said at least one Howler would track them all the way to Spain, creating certain disaster. But who said that had to be the only outcome? That history had not yet been written. With Silganna, could he discover some way to turn the tides?

And then he thought of Diedre.

I lost love before. Do I lose it again?

The light waned.

Your sails are luffing, man! Choose now!

The emerald flash, sinking into darkness.

“No!” he cried.

Capricho jumped over the banister and plunged into the unknown depths, casting his waves across the glistening sea.

Gilded in morning sunlight, Salvador swung from the ratlines and landed firmly on the fighting deck—a circular platform halfway up the mainmast. The high platform rocked as the anchored ship was buffeted by stiff winds. Salvador widened his stance and looked out over the cove, heart heavy. The ceremony with the men was over, but he had another to perform in private.

Facing the wind, Salvador’s voice was low. “Farewell, cousin. You were like a brother to me.”

The wind blew erratically this day; Salvador waited for it to shift. They were tied to it somehow, of that he was now certain. It galled him to admit it, but old Sanchez had been right about the Wind Howlers and their marker. When the stern swiveled like a compass needle from the emerald green of the shallows toward the cobalt blue of the depths, Salvador shuddered. He could sense the spirits out there somewhere, searching for the tethers to their ship.

But if he was powerless to set the ship free, he could at least free something else. He spit and cursed the Howlers. Then he unfurled a red silk scarf, one he had found in Capricho's trunk. It undulated in the stiff breeze. He let its softness slide through his rough grasp, then watched it sail like a fluttering parrot out over the ocean.

Salvador fought tears. “May you find peace in the arms of your beloved, Capricho. Vaya con Dios.”

The scarf touched the water. Vanished. The air around Salvador twanged like a snapped stay on a mast. The wind died instantly. Calm settled, not just over the cove and the ship, but over Salvador himself. The feeling of death and trepidation? No more. In its place . . . absolute peace.

In his heart of hearts, Salvador knew their luck had just changed.

He raised his beaming face to the powder-blue sky, cheered, and crossed himself with vigor. "Gracias, Lord! Gracias, Capricho!"

Then he looked to the northeast. Toward another that had touched his heart. He whispered, “Angela, mi rosa. How I wish you were here with me now.”

A voice shouted from below. It was the pilot, Juan Carlos, his words rising on the air like a squawking gull. “Salvador! Which way do we head? I need to chart our course!”

Salvador sighed at the interruption. So this is what it’s like to be captain. Gripping a shroud, he leaned out from the fighting deck and scowled. “Did you not get my orders? We set sail for Havana!”

Juan Carlos thrust his fist in the air. “Havana and home!” The crew that bustled about the deck echoed his words like a battle cry.

Salvador’s courage soared in the strength of the crew’s enthusiasm. Home. They were heading home.

As the pilot moved to leave, Salvador called him back. “Juan Carlos?” Salvador stabbed a finger toward him. “You keep her in the blue. There are hungry shoals and reefs out there, with teeth as sharp as daggers. See to it they don’t feed on our hull.”

Juan Carlos stared up at him; the men fell silent. There was a long, uncertain pause. Then, glittering white flashed upon his face in a broad smile. “Sí, mi capitán.”

The sailors tilted their heads, weighing the sound of the title against the man so addressed. Grizzled Sanchez drained a dipper of water, looked at the men, nodded. With their own nods of approval, they murmured, "Capitán."

A warm glow of pride flushed Salvador as the sailors returned to their duties. With a last look to the northeast, he swung into the ratlines and climbed down to the deck and his men.

There’d be time for mourning later, and for healing, in his Angela’s arms.

Wulf Moon

Wulf Moon is an Olympic Peninsula writer. He believes in born storytellers. You must also serve seven cats—every successful writer knows that—but allow only ONE in your office.

Moon wrote his first science fiction story when he was fifteen. It won the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards and became his first professional sale at Science World. Since then, his work has appeared in Third Flatiron anthologies, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds II, Future Science Fiction Digest, and Writers of the Future, Vol. 35.

Moon has won many national and international writing awards. Most recently, his story "War Dog" won Critters Annual Readers’ Poll, where it was awarded Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Story of 2018. Moon also won the international Writers of the Future Contest with his story "Super-Duper Moongirl and the Amazing Moon Dawdler."

Moon has created numerous podcast episodes for Gallery of Curiosities and Third Flatiron. He is podcast director for Future Science Fiction Digest.

Donald Maass of the Donald Maass Literary Agency has represented Moon on one novel and is awaiting his current work in progress.

Website: driftweave.com

Facebook: wulf.moon.94

Amazon Author Page: wulfmoon

The following stories were written by the Board members of Deep Magic magazine in response to prompts submitted by the magazine's readers.

GRAVE SECRETS By Charlie N. Holmberg

2,200 Words

Prompt: Bagpipes on fire.

THE CREATURE IN the basement was moving again.

Layne cringed with the shifting of the chains, the subtle press of weight on the floorboards. The boards had been set right over the concrete, without any cushioning in between. Several of them were cracked. Probably more, now.

She held her breath, hands submerged in the half-full kitchen sink, listening. Too late she noticed the water pouring from the faucet was scalding hot. She ripped her hands from the dirty dishes, staring at her fingers like they weren’t her own. The skin was red, and she could see her pulse in the fat tissue at the top of her palm. Coming to herself, she turned the handle of the faucet until the water ran cool, then held her hands beneath it until the sting lessened. She scraped her lunch, not even half eaten, into the trash and added the plate to the water. She didn’t have much of an appetite anymore. Layne washed the dishes despite the burns, her skin feeling too tight for her hands. There wasn’t much to clean, besides. Not since Henry’s passing.

She dried her hands on the threadbare dish towel left over from her wedding; the rooster on it was barely discernable, and there was a hole where its comb should be. Then she paused, and the house sat quiet, more still than the ice hanging from the eaves outside the cracked kitchen window. Layne waited a moment, listening. The silence continued, not even punctuated by the titmice.

She walked carefully, having memorized where to step to avoid her own creaks, to avoid stirring the thing in the basement. Her small bedroom was safe, its floor mounted on solid earth, with no room for anything to stir below. The full-sized bed took up almost the entire space, the mattress lumpy and bent from where two bodies used to fit themselves on it, pulled close together to keep from falling off the edges. She fit just fine on it, now.

Somewhere behind and below, chains rattled. Layne stepped over the pile of clean laundry at the foot of the bed, still not folded despite her having taken it off the line two days ago. There was the twenty-four-inch TV on the dresser, the remote long since lost. A little clay pot full of paper flowers rested on the windowsill, given to her on her first wedding anniversary. Henry’s guitar and Scottish pipes had been shoved into the corner, collecting dust. If she could make the trip to the library, she might be able to sell those online. Earn a few extra dollars for a new dress, or a haircut. But she couldn’t bring herself to do it. The drive wasn’t terrible, but she could still hear his fingertips on those strings, his elbow pumping air through the chanter. A silly thing, really. He’d stopped playing them years before his death. But Henry had never tried to sell them, either.

Layne pressed the base of her hand against a sudden pain in her chest. The house rattled. She sucked in a breath that seared her throat on the way down. The creature was awake, and angry. The following thud was it throwing itself against the north wall hard enough that the bedroom door opened another inch. When had it gotten large enough to do that?

She clasped her trembling hands together, moving closer to the window. She could run, if she needed to. How far she’d get, she couldn’t be certain. No neighbors for miles. And she didn’t know how fast the monster was. If it knew her scent. If it could see in the dark.

The house pulsed a third time, and this time the doorknob slammed into the wall. Chains rattled to the floor, and for a terrifying moment Layne was sure the thing had broken free. Her age-spotted hands flew to the rusted lock on the pane. Spit dried on her tongue. Tears wet her eyes.

A fourth, quieter thump sounded, followed by stillness. She waited, listening for the creaking of the stairs, the creaking of the hinges on the basement door. But the noises didn’t come, and slowly, so slowly, she pulled one finger at a time from the lock.

The monster had leapt—it must have. Leapt at the ceiling—the kitchen floor—and then fallen back to the ground. It was growing. How could it grow? Beasts like this one were supposed to shrink with time, like a pimple, or a goose egg. That’s what Oprah had said. The creature hadn’t thrashed so violently last month. Layne was sure it hadn’t.

She studied the yard outside her window, untended and shriveled with the winter. Cattle wire marked its edges, barely visible in the dim, cloud-choked light. Spikes of grass poked up through a thin layer of snow. Patches of dirt were half mud, half ice. The forest’s thick tree line carpeted the distance. Could she make it to those trees on her own? She had so little energy these days . . . if she left now, would she make it by dark?

Pressing her cheek to the cold glass, breath puffing across it, Layne saw the small, snowy mound near the corner of the house, with an unpainted cross stabbed into its head. She’d had to dig it herself. Cover it herself. Cut the wood herself, from leftover basement floorboards. Even now, she was sure it wasn’t deep enough. Was certain starving animals would come and dig him up, eat him, and carry him away in their bellies if she didn’t keep vigil.

She couldn’t leave Henry. She couldn’t leave home.

The thing below slithered up the stairs, then back down again.

“Go away,” she whispered, peeling herself from the glass. “Go away.”

The creature didn’t respond. And so Layne shut and locked her bedroom door and turned on the television using the tiny buttons beneath the screen. She only got three channels out here, and one was in Spanish, so she settled on a second-rate news show located in a city she’d only visited twice. Then she perched on the bed and began folding her laundry. She had nothing in her drawers, and she hated empty spaces. A breeze caused the leafless dogwood outside the kitchen window to scrape across the glass, making a whining sound like a hurt dog, so Layne stopped to turn the television up, then folded, folded, folded. Anything to keep her busy. Anything to stop her from thinking.

Anything to make her chest stop hurting, and distract her from the monster.

The creature below was always silent at night, so when it wasn’t, Layne woke in a cold sweat, despite the baseboard heaters being turned to high. It was only her eyelids that moved at first—her eyelids and her heart, which started thrumming in her chest like injured wasps. Her lungs followed, heaving like the bag to those Scottish pipes in the corner. She stared at her ceiling, seeing the shapes of spiders along it until her mind snapped into place and pulled the shadows from the soffits. Then she just stared, waiting, praying it was a dream.

But two heartbeats later, a thud shook the house, rattling the hinges on the bedroom door. The strings of Henry’s guitar chirped in earnest.

The monster never stirred at night. Layne always felt the safest when she slept. When she could shut her thoughts, her sorrows, and her pains off for a few hours.

But not now.

She bolted upright in bed. The kitchen floor creaked from pressure beneath it, like the whole house had turned over and struggled to hold the weight of something unbearably heavy. But worst of all was the absence of clinks—no chains. The chains didn’t drag, didn’t drop. Which meant the beast was no longer bound by them.

Gooseflesh rippled down her arms and thighs, sweat trickling down the curve of her spine. Her coat was in the hallway closet, but the thing leapt again, and this time she heard splinters. It’s coming, she realized with a sucking sensation that ran from her throat to her pelvis. It’s coming for me.

She grabbed the afghan off her bed and ran for the window, knocking over the little clay pot and its paper flowers in the process. She grabbed the lock and wrenched it, then pressed clammy hands against the pane to shift the window open. But the thing wouldn’t budge. Breaths coming sharper, Layne dug her fingers between the sash and the jamb, tugging, wrenching, snapping one fingernail, then tearing another.

“Move, move,” she pleaded.

The scent of smoke stung her nostrils, then her eyes. She blinked back tears, only to notice a spot of flame near her ankles. The paper flowers had landed on the baseboard heater and burst into flame.

Gasping, Layne jumped back, patting her pajama leg to put out any embers. The kitchen bucked as the creature slammed into the basement ceiling again, hard enough that her door opened despite the locked knob.

The flames from the flowers jumped to the cotton drapes and ate them whole, consuming them in one bite like a snake.

“Oh God, help me,” she whispered, backing away from the glow that lit the whole room orange. The heat burned away the sweat on her skin, but not the gooseflesh. The bumps grew stiffer and more plentiful as the fire first leapt left to the other curtain, then right to the Scottish pipes, which seemed to give out a soft wheeze of defeat as its Gore-Tex melted.

Turning around, Layne ran.

She couldn’t remember the last time she really ran. Even when Henry fell while installing the floorboards, it had been more of an unsure hobble. She bolted into the short hallway, and the thing jumped at her, sensing her presence. Her feet barely kept purchase. She made it to the kitchen, where the beige linoleum was splitting, before the monster attacked again, widening the split to two fingers’ width. She fell, her bad knee hitting hard as she did, but her arm flew out in front of her, saving her skull from cracking against the floor. Still, the room spun for a moment. She blinked in the dim glow of the porch light seeping through the window, smelling the smoke following her path. She spied the remote control beneath the sink and stared at it a long moment, realizing some past part of her should have been rejoicing.

The monster leapt right beneath her heart, and the kitchen floor gave, caving in right at the center, dipping between the fridge and the Lazy Susan. A weak wail climbed up Layne’s throat as she slid toward it, caught as though in a whirlpool. Beneath that crack something glowed, like the fire building behind her, but this something was dark and slick, oily and noxious.

She planted her sweaty hands against the linoleum. Got her better knee under her and slowed her descent. She had to grab onto the counter to get to her feet, then nearly fell over again as the entire house began to buckle. A gnawing cry shot up from the ever-growing crack in the floor, rattling her bones, finding purchase in them. The refrigerator door swung open, and bottles of condiments fell onto the floor, glass shattering, plastic rolling into the maw.

Gritting her teeth, Layne ran and leapt, barely clearing the break in the linoleum. She landed and fell to her knees again, crying out as pain burst through her right one. Scrambling for the back door, she barely had the thought to grab her loafers as the creature’s arm burst up into the kitchen and reached for her, cold touch licking her heel as she crawled out into the snow.

She didn’t remember putting the loafers on, but they were on, the afghan pulled tight around her shoulders. Snow crunched underfoot as she bolted across the covered lawn, the tree line in the distance nothing more than a smear of black beneath a sky nearly as dark. The only light was the east half of the house, readily consumed by fire. For a second, or a sliver of one, Layne thought maybe the blaze would kill the beast. Put her out of her misery. But as she looked back to the brilliant orange waves, she saw it crouching there atop the mound of dirt, resting against the makeshift cross, watching her with dark, liquid eyes. Its body bubbled and writhed, and when it breathed in, it took the air in her lungs with it.

Layne stopped moving. Stopped breathing. She could only watch, petrified, as the creature moved toward her, elongating with every step, its true body never leaving that grave. It had been born there, after all. Created with every shovel of dirt, each fallen tear.

If only Layne had realized then how horrible her grief would become, she might have done something differently.

But now it clawed forward, never once breaking eye contact.

And consumed her whole.

BASKET OF STRAWBERRIES By Dan Hilton & Steve R. Yeager

1,200 Words

Prompt: Basket of Strawberries, freshly picked

“I WON’T DO that!” the redheaded child said.

“Neither will I,” mumbled another child, this one with his thumb planted in the corner of his mouth.

The other children began to echo what the redhead, who was obviously the leader, had said. But then one spoke out against the crowd. “I will,” she said meekly.

“So brave, you are,” the thief-meister breathed, moving to pat the little blonde girl on the head and then separating her from the others. He gathered her to his side, squeezed her tight and smiled back at the rag-tag group of children before him.

“Sweet, children. There is nothing to fear. It is not stealing, it is simply a reacquisition of wealth we mean to distribute to those less fortunate than ourselves. And this time a special circumstance requires a slightly different approach.”

The redheaded child stepped forward. His cheeks were smeared with dirt, his hair a shocking mop of tangled strands, and while he was small, the way he led the group of children made him seem much larger for his age.

The thief-meister scratched the back of his neck and gazed at the child with a wary eye. Usually with children, he knew, once the leader was persuaded, the rest would fall into line. The job he had for them was not overly difficult or complex. But it was dangerous and something they had never done before.

“We won’t do it. Not for the meager scraps of food you provide us. Not for the rags you give us to wear. We steal for you and you gots nothing to give us for it.”

“Boy, I’ve provided a home for you children. Where else would you end up? Most of you proved worthless to your pitiless parents. You were just a burden to them. That is why they sold you to me. And I care for you all. I care a great deal. I keep you warm at night and feed you and care for you when you are sick. What more would you ask of me? Yet all I require of you are simple tasks that help provide the bread we all eat.”

“It ain’t ‘nough!” said the child. The others mumbled in agreement.

The thief-meister rubbed the head of the blonde girl and smiled down at her, then peered back at the larger group. “Ah. I see the problem now. This child is brave. Much braver than the lot of you. She is appreciative of what she has been given.” The thief-meister turned fully to confront the redheaded leader, ensuring the boy knew he was being spoken of. “Yet some of you are so scared you’re willing to risk her life because of it. If she attempts this task on her own, she might not make it back alive. Would you want that on your conscience? Would you want to be responsible for her death when you could have so easily prevented it?”

The redheaded child frowned. Then he looked at the blonde girl and shook his head. “She’s only doing it ‘cuz she don’t know no better.” He looked at her again and stared long and hard. She immediately looked at the ground and began shuffling her feet, as if willing them not to walk back to the group immediately.

The thief-meister pulled the girl closer. He could almost feel her will crumbling through his fingertips.

“Enough of this,” the man finally said. “You will do what I ask, or you will all be out on the streets fending for yourselves!”

“Fine,” said the redhead. “We’d be a whole lot better on our own if we were away from the likes of you!”

“Is that so? Do you really wish to find out? Do you want to live in such filth and squalor that most of this city represents? You hardly know how to care for yourselves.”

“We’d be all right.”

“No, dear boy, you won’t. You’ll come crawling back to me begging for mercy, or you’ll end up dead in a ditch somewhere—or worse.” He let his words sink in while shaking his head back and forth slowly.

No one breathed a word for several minutes.

“We want more,” the redheaded child said finally, followed by a chorus of “Yeahs” from the others.

“Prove to me you are worth more and you’ll have more. I’m but a poor man caring for the lot of you children. Where do you expect I get all the gold to care for you?”

“From the dark-hooded woman!” one child said.

“Aye, she pays us well for the jobs we do. A fair bit more than we deserve, likely.”

“She pays you in gold. I know she pays you’s way more than you’s share with us,” the redhaired boy said icily. “And you spend all of it on wine and clothes for you’self.”

“Boy, you are trying my patience.” He again pulled the girl close. “You wouldn’t want to see anyone hurt over such a trivial matter now, would you?”

“What’cha mean?”

“You know.”

“You touch her and we’ll all kill ya.”

The thief-meister waited in silence for some time.

“Don’t threaten me, boy. You know what happened last time you crossed me.”

The red-haired boy put a hand to his cheek and rubbed it. “Yep, I know. I can take it. I’ve had worse.”

“Oh, not like what I have planned for you this time.”

There was a collective gasp from the others. The thief-meister knew he had them now. It was all too easy. He almost wished for a stronger challenge to his authority. It had been some time since he’d let go of his anger.

The red-haired boy let out a long sigh. “Fine, we’ll do it. But we want new clothes, better food.”

The thief-meister grinned. “I make no promises. And it all depends on how well you do today for us. But I know that each and every one of you will make me proud, so perhaps I will be more generous in the future.”

“Good,” the leader said, nodding to the group to ensure they followed along.

The thief-meister released the blonde girl. She shuffled back into the pack with the others.

“Now, here is what you are going to do. You must follow my instructions perfectly or one or all of you might not make it back.” The thief-meister pulled out a wicked-looking dagger and handed it to the red-haired boy. “I trust you know where to stick this to do the most damage?”

The boy gulped visibly but took the dagger and held it before him. His fingers trembled but as he looked at his companions beside him, he steadied. “Ya, I knows.” He feigned where he would stick the blade and twisted it grotesquely.

“Good, good, good.” He then went on to explain in detail just what he wanted done. “Now be on your way. She is likely to be at the market square around noon. You’ll have to hurry if you want to make it in time.”

Without another word the children left the small cottage. The thief-meister let out a long sigh as he walked down a hallway to the kitchen area. At a table in the back sat a hooded figure.

The hooded figured looked up from the wine cup she’d been eyeing on the table.

“It is done,” the thief-meister said.

“I am pleased.” The hooded figure nodded toward the velvet bag on the table.

The thief-meister picked up the bag and tested the weight of it. He smiled.

“This is something you have never asked them to do, are you sure they will go through with it?” the hooded figure asked.

“They will do it,” said the thief-meister, his grin widening until the black on his teeth showed, “they will do it because children are like a basket of strawberries, freshly picked.”

The hooded figure nodded knowingly and lifted the cup in salute.

EL CHUPACABRA By Jeff Wheeler

3,700 Words

Prompt: Mariachi Band

ONE OF THE smallest towns in the state of Queretaro, Mexico, is the village of Tilaco. There isn’t cell service in the town, not that the locals could afford phones anyway. There is a single church, Mission Tilaco, which was built by Junipero Sera in 1762. I don’t think the plumbing has been updated since then. And even though the town is very small, there is still one albergue. An albergue isn’t an orphanage, but it’s similar. They are for the poorest of the poor, a little school for lessons, a dormitory crowded by bunk beds for sleeping in during the week, and a place where children can learn and play before returning back to stay with their parents. Albergues exist because some families can’t afford to feed their children every day.

After graduating from college in Tequisquiapan, I was assigned by the government in Queretaro to be a teacher at the albergue in Tilaco. My boyfriend didn’t want to move there. He thought he’d do better finding work in Guadalajara. So he broke up with me. And since my cellphone doesn’t work in Tilaco, we really couldn’t have kept in touch anyway. It’s a six-hour drive to my parents’ home in Tequis, and none of us own a car. The bus ride is miserable so it’s not one I like to take very often.

It was in Tilaco that I meant Monsie, one of the little girls in the dormitory I supervise.

On Monday mornings, all the students arrive at the albergue when it opens. We, as teachers, stay during the weekends too. The gate squealed as it let in the children, wearing their uniforms, and they were loud and excited to be back. They were hungry for breakfast, which was usually a little taco with rice and beans along some punch to wash it all down. There were eighteen beds in each dormitory and nearly all the beds were taken. The kids clean and scrub the floors every night. As they put their backpacks on the beds, I waved for Monsie to come to my office.

Her eyes were solemn. She didn’t joke around like the others did. She was always quiet but today she was unusually so.

“Good morning, Monsie. How is your abuelita?”

She stood by my desk while I pushed aside the lesson plans I’d been working on for that morning.

“Good morning, Maestra Carla,” she said in a small voice.

Her birth name was Monserrat, but everyone called her Monsie.

“Did you talk to your abuelita this weekend?” I asked. “About whether her son’s mariachi band will come play at the albergue for Maestra Lena’s birthday party?”

She stared at me with sad eyes.

“Did you forget, Monsie?” I asked, sighing with a little twist of frustration in my chest. I was in charge of preparing the party and had already arranged for the cake, which was a delicacy for these children. They liked to dance, even some of the young men, who had been trained by their families in the traditional dances.

She didn’t say anything.

“Monsie, it’s okay if you forgot.” I sighed. “I can go ask her today.” My day was already very busy, but I thought I could squeeze it in.

“Our goat is dead, Maestra Carla,” she whispered.

That was a tragedy. Not only did a goat provide milk to drink, but they could make cheese out of it as well.

“I’m so sorry, Monsie,” I said. Her abuelita was already destitute and sold tortillas she made by hand every day.

Monsie looked me in the eye. “The Chupacabra drank its blood,” she whispered.

What?

I looked at her seriously. “There’s no such thing as the Chupacabra, Monsie. It’s a folktale. A myth. A mad dog.”

She shook her head. “I saw it.”

I let out another sigh. “Monsie. You don’t have any light at your place. Not even candles. Just that little fire. It’s very dark on the street where your abuelita lives. It was probably just a dog. I’m sorry it killed your goat though.”

Monsie didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to. Her eyes said she didn’t believe me.

I went to the hovel where Monsie’s abuelita lived later that day. There was no sign of the old woman. There was also no goat. She lived in a ramshackle little hut with planks for the walls. The slats didn’t even cover up the entire wall. There were large gaps between each one, allowing passersby to see into the small building. She had two huge blue containers for water, which Monsie no doubt had to carry from a well in order to fill them up. Some of the boards were broken and hanging loose, letting in even more of the hot sun. The floor was dirt. A grinding bowl sat on a stone slab on cinderblocks. That’s where the corn was ground into meal for the tortillas abuelita made and sold. It was her only livelihood if the goat was dead. Two little pallets were on the floor, a thin blanket on each. Monsie’s parents were part of a mariachi band which travelled around Queretaro looking for gigs. They were gone for weeks at a time and Monsie stayed with her abuelita.

The fire was burned out, which was surprising. Normally when I’d come in the past, it was always smoldering.

“Abuelita?” I called out. The room was too small to hide in. I went outside and walked around the hovel. A few lean-tos were there, owned by other families. They were deserted as well. “Abuelita?” I called a little louder.

I heard a growl come from some nearby bushes. It startled me, and I quickly backed away. Some of the dogs which roamed the area could be vicious with strangers. So I hurried away and left, walking back to the albergue. All the food had been eaten when I returned. Instead of meat, the cook had skimped and made up some nopales instead. I spent the rest of the afternoon hungry.

By the end of the day, after all the children were playing outside, I went to Maestra Lena’s room. She was the headmistress but only ten years older than myself. But because of all she’d experienced working in the albergue, she could have been forty.

“Is something the matter, Carla?” she asked me, not looking up from the papers she quickly reviewed. They were artwork projects the children had done earlier in the day. She scribbled a few hasty words of praise on each.

“I’m still trying to get a mariachi band for the celebration,” I said glumly. “I’d hoped Monsie’s parents could do it.”

Lena stopped flipping papers. “They’ve done it before if they didn’t have work. It doesn’t have to be on my birthday.”

“I know. I just wanted to tell you I’m still working on it.”

“Thank you, Carla.” She looked back down then saw something that distressed her. Her countenance darkened.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“The pictures,” she said, sighing. “Children say so much by what they draw. Their moods. What’s happening at home. It makes me sad. But this one. What do you make of it?”

The one she handed me was Monsie’s. It was a picture of the hovel. The slats were like jail bars, except horizontal instead of vertical. A little ribbon of smoke came through the roof. But there was a something in black. Like a crayon had been dragged over that spot over and over. Even part of the crayon crumbled there, like little specks of pepper.

“I don’t know,” I said, not wanting to reveal what Monsie had told me. Chupacabras were like vampire dogs. They weren’t real. They were stories for the unexplainable. “She said her goat died.”

Luna’s eyes crinkled with sadness. “I hope they don’t starve this winter. I’m going to see if I can get donations for a bag of dried hominy for her. I wish I had more budget to help. But we barely make it month to month as it is with what the government in Queretaro gives us.” She pressed her lips. “Did you already pay for the cake?”

“Yes, it’s already paid for. Or they wouldn’t have even started on it. We’ll figure it out.”

“I hope so,” she said then shook her head again. “Poor Monsie.”

There was so much to do at the albergue in one week that I was too busy to check in on Monsie’s abuelita again. The children would spend the next week making decorations for Maestra Lena’s party and arranging for everything took so much time. I was exhausted by the time the weekend came. After inspecting the girls’ dormitory, which smelled like medicinal pine from the cleaner they used, I walked past the rows of empty beds, each with the same old bedspread. The uniforms looked the same, the beds looked the same. Even the kids’ shoes, although some were more worn than others because of soccer. After the inspection, I left the dormitory to wait by the gates in the hopes of catching abuelita when she came to pick up Monsie, but when I got there, Monsie was already gone.

Some of the boys were kicking around a ball on the cement slab that was used as both a soccer pitch and basketball court. The slab was splotched and cracking. I loved the colorful stone wall at the far end in the shade. Students from previous years had painted each mismatched stone a different color, so it was pretty and provided a place to sit on hot days.

“Jose!”

He was the nearest boy.

“Yes, Maestra Carla?” he said, turning to face me.

“Did you see Monsie leave with her abuelita?”

A ball came toward him and he kicked it away. “No. I didn’t see her go.”

Some parents came for their children after work, so we had to keep our eyes on them for a while. Finally, after they were gone, I went back to the kitchen to get something for dinner. Maestra Lena had already left, so it was just the cook and I.

“Did you see Monsie go, Mia?”

“I can’t keep track of all those kids, Carla,” she said, wiping sweat from her forehead.

“I know, I was just—”

“I cook for these kids every day. I don’t have time. And next week is the party and we have to stock up on more expensive food. I need more money.”

Mia liked to complain but I just wasn’t in the mood to listen today. Even though I was hungry, I’d come back later. “I need to go, Mia.”

“Where? Do you have a hot date or something?”

I snorted. I hadn’t dated anyone since I’d been dumped by my boyfriend. Most of the men of Tilaco were too afraid of me to speak to me. They didn’t like that I’d gone to college.

“No, Mia. I’m going to step out and talk to Monsie’s abuelita about the mariachi band. I’ve forgotten all week and the party is next week.”

“You better have that band, Carla,” she said in a scolding tone. “Maestra will be upset if the kids don’t dance on her birthday.”

“I know. I know. See you later. Save me some dinner.”

Mia muttered about always doing the dishes by herself and I left and walked down the street. When I passed the mission, I stared up at its bell tower. The front façade had been carved by wonderful craftsmen back when it was built. There were saints carved into the stones, along with palm leaves and angels. One of the saints had a shepherd’s crook and was playing a little guitar, which I thought was strange. Did they have guitars back then? There was a grassy field in front of the main doors and stone borders on each side that seemed liked grave markers, only they weren’t. The bell tower was the tallest point in the city. There was a little narrow stairwell leading up to it. The priest only had the bell rung on Saints days and holidays.

The sun had finally set behind the hills as I crossed the streets and went down the small dirt path to where abuelita lived. I thought about the dog I’d heard earlier and felt a shiver of nerves. When I got to the small shack, there was no smoke coming from the fireplace.

“Monsie? Abuelita? It’s Maestra Carla. Are you home?”

Nothing.

I tapped on the little slat door again before opening it. “Monsie?”

The dirt floor stared back at me. The fire had gone out. I saw the big sack of dried hominy was nearly empty. Then I went to the neighbor and knocked on his door. No answer. I waited for over an hour, hoping they were just gone delivering tortillas. It grew darker and darker. A chicken clucked in the trees nearby. Worry kneaded inside my stomach.

A terrible shriek filled the air and I listened in fear as the chicken was killed by a predator. There was no barking or yipping, just the snarling and growling of something. I stood up from the stump I’d been resting on and backed away, my heart hammering wildly.

Then all was quiet.

A strange yowling sound came. It wasn’t a sound I’d heard before during my time in Tilaco. It was like some weak string on a violin played by a drunken hand. Something rustled in the bushes.

I started to walk away briskly, heading back toward town. As I walked, I heard the yowling sound again. Even the crickets fell silent.

I shivered as I walked swiftly, heading back toward the church. I felt a strong need to be there. As I walked, I thought I heard paws thumping in the dirt behind me. Turning, I stared into the gloom. Nothing.

Looking ahead, I hurried to the church yard. Tilaco fell quiet around me. I couldn’t see any lights on, except in the church. No noise of engines and tires crunching gravel. No cart wheels squeaking. As I crossed beneath the gate into the church yard, I felt a little spasm of relief I’d made it that far. I hadn’t gone to church in Tequisquiapan, but something about the building drew me toward it. As I pulled on the heavy wood door, I saw candles glowing on the inside. Heads turned to face me. It seemed like half the town was there, kneeling at the pews, prayer beads in their hands. On a Friday night?

I saw worried faces. Some of the albergue children were there with their parents. Everyone was quiet. The priest stood near the altar, pacing. No mass was being performed. It was quiet. Watchful.

Fearful.

I quickly scanned the faces, looking for Monsie and her gray-haired abuelita. I didn’t see either of them. After standing there, I went back out the door and folded my arms. There were crickets chirping again. A few stars had appeared in the sky while I’d been inside. My own fear started to fade. It was that stupid myth of the Chupacabra. Now I was afraid of shadows.

I walked back to the albergue. But as I did, it felt like something was watching me. I couldn’t shake that feeling until I went inside the compound and shut the gate.

All was quiet.

We usually kept most of the lights off during the weekend to save money on electricity. Maestra Lena had a television in her room and she spent most of the weekends watching novellas. I thought the plots were pretty ridiculous, and so I usually declined joining her when she offered, but I was afraid to be alone tonight.

While we watched an episode late into the night, I thought I heard a noise coming from the dormitory.

Maestra Lena heard it too. “What was that?”

“I thought I was hearing things,” I said. “You heard it too?”

“Go see, Carla. I hope it isn’t someone trying to steal food from us again. I’d be furious. Go scold whoever it is and tell them to get out. Make sure the gate is still locked.”

“Yes, Maesta,” I said. She was my boss, so I had to obey her.

I left her room and started walking down the dark hall toward the girl’s dormitory. I knew my way, even in the dark, but felt that sickening feeling of fear again. I thought I heard something squeak.

Frowning at my own cowardice, I went to the dormitory and unlocked the door with my key. I walked in and flipped the light switch. Nothing happened. I tried the switch again.

I heard a sniffle.

“Who’s there?” I said in a loud, angry voice. My heart was racing.

“Monsie,” came a muffled reply.

I walked toward her bed across the room. Even though it was dark, there was enough light to see her on the bottom bunk. She’d been trying to stay very quiet.

“Monsie, what are you doing here?” I said, coming to kneel by the bed. “Why aren’t you with your abuelita?”

“She . . . she’s gone,” said Monsie and burst into tears.

What did that mean? I hugged her, trying to calm her fear. “Shhh, it’s okay. It’s okay. Shhh. What do you mean she’s gone?”

“She told me not to come home,” Monsie said, her throat catching with her tears. “She said she wouldn’t be there. That I needed to sleep in the albergue.”

“Were you hiding when I came earlier?” I asked, feeling worry and frustration. It was against the rules for children to spend the weekend here. There was hardly enough food for the adults who stayed.

Monsie nodded, pulling away, looking at me fearfully.

“Where did abuelita go?” I asked, stroking her hair.

Then I heard the sound of paws on the floor. The little click-clack of claws.

Monsie stiffened. “The door’s open.”

I turned around. Something lithe and black was coming down the corridor. I heard panting.

“The Chupacabra!” Monsie gasped.

I felt a mothering urge to protect Monsie. Even though I was terrified, I raced to the door to shut it. The yowling sound came, echoing in a weird, sickening noise across the floor. As I shoved the door to close it, something heavy slammed into it. Then I saw a muzzle, sharp teeth snapping as it tried to get through.

Monsie screamed in fright. I pushed harder, hoping to break the dog’s neck, but it was stronger than me. I was shoved back and fell down on the concrete floor.

It was not a dog.

Monsie’s shrill screams joined as it yowled once more. I scrambled backward, trying to get away, knowing it was going to kill me too.

And then I heard something. The monster’s lean head lifted up at the sound.

Music.

Headlights shone through the windows, sending the shadows sweeping across the floor. The monster, all muscle and ink recoiled. I saw its drool in puddles on the floor.

Trumpets, guitars, a honking of a truck. A mariachi band was playing outside. The Chupacabra fled the noise, loping down the corridor. I stared as it disappeared into the shadows and vanished.

Monsie ran from the bed, wiping tears, grinning from ear to ear. “Mama! Papa! Abuelita!”

Maestra Lena turned on the light in the hallway and suddenly the entire room was engulfed in brightness.

“What is going on here?” Lena said in confusion.

I struggled to my feet, grateful to still be alive. There was singing along with the strums from the instruments. It was festive, invigorating. And I knew it had frightened the beast away.

An old truck parked in front of the albergue’s locked gate, headlights illuminating the soccer pitch. People from the village of Tilaco were gathering, clapping, cheering. Maestra Lena unlocked the gate and everyone came inside, including four mariachi’s wearing pink shirts, black jeans, and ivory hats and belts. I recognized Monsie’s father playing the little guitar. A larger man, dressed the same, strummed a very large guitar while two younger men played violins with dazzling speed.

“You came! You came!” Monsie shouted in joy. There was her abuelita hobbling forward, gray hair bound in a bun.

“I told you, hija,” she said kindly. “I told you I’d come back.” The elderly woman looked up at me and smiled a gap-toothed smile.

The court filled with people who started dancing in the old way while the music played, the voices sang. My heart filled with happiness as I heard the songs, and then I found myself crying in relief and wiping my eyes. There was clapping and cheering from everyone. The whole village came.

After the next song finished, Monsie took one of the violinists by the hand and pulled him toward me.

“Maestra Carla,” Monsie said. “This is my uncle Hector.”

“You all played wonderfully,” I said, smiling at him, trying to dry my eyes on my sleeve. “Thank you for coming. You saved us.”

“It’s all right, Señorita,” he said, tucking his violin under his arm. “We will be here all week. We came for Maestra Lena’s celebration but also because of the Chupacabra. They cannot stand happiness. Monsie…well, she…she wanted me to meet you.” He looked abashed.

Monsie grinned. “He’s my favorite uncle,” she said, still holding his hand.

“Where do you live?” I asked him, feeling a little dazed still.

“I’m from Tilaco,” he said, bowing. “I grew up in this albergue.” He looked me in the eye. “I’m so grateful for all my teachers. This is where I learned how to play. How to dance.” He smiled. “I think it’s time I came home.”

AVOCADOPOCALYPSE By Steve R. Yeager

1,700 Words

Prompt: A worryingly small avocado.

FIRST OFF, PLEASE forgive any misspellings or bad grammar in this letter. It’s dark in here, I’m scared and probably won’t be around much longer. Spelling and grammar aren’t exactly at the top of my list of things I’m concerned about right now.

It all started with a worryingly small avocado. Who knew what they really were and what they could become? And who could have ever guessed in a million years what destruction they could have wrought?

Certainly not me.

Some scientists believed they had been dormant all along and had just been waiting to hatch. Kind of like an unfertilized chicken egg. They think some parallel universe had shifted too close to our own and somehow revived them, which caused them to mature and then hatch. I know that I never believed it to be possible. Only a crackpot would think that.

Religious scholars told us it was just God’s way of purifying the earth—like the floods, like Noah and every other pre-history apocalypse. “Creative destruction,” it is called, or so they said. And many of those same believers think that somewhere out there the pure of heart are being saved, few as those might be these days. They think the whole experiment with self-governance had been yet another mistake. Our distancing ourselves from God is what was to blame.

I’m not so sure. But it could be true. Just as the hundreds of other theories could be true. No one knows for certain.

We surely blew a lot of things. We sparked too many wars. Dug deep into the earth and polluted our land and water with toxic chemicals. And we took little heed for the impact we burdened the world at large with. Maybe it was finally time for a change. A reboot, so to speak. Ctrl-alt-delete. Did you turn it off and back on again? Ha!

But of all the things possible in heaven and on earth—why did it have to be avocados?

It started barely two years ago. That’s when the first one hatched. It was a marvel, of course. It was cute and small and different. Every news program celebrated the new species that emerged. Science believed it to be something alien, something never before seen on earth. But there were others who weren’t so sure. They had warned us, but those voices fell on deaf ears.

A few survivalist types recognized the danger for what it was right away. They headed for the hills, to their bunkers and fortresses of solitude. Maybe in the end they will be the only survivors. Maybe they are the only ones meant to live while all the city-dwellers too caught up in what flavor latte to have or which dress socks to wear in public will perish. And to think that those same fools used to enjoy such things as avocado toast! They were eating pre-hatched eggs! I guess the joke is on them, sick as that might sound. And they were certainly unprepared for what was to come. Death came for them quickly, as the cities were destroyed first.

Maybe they were the lucky ones?

Then there were those who thought the creatures were cute and had “scientific value.” Maybe if they had not been so dumb and had realized that real danger still exists in the world. True, deadly danger. The type that will kill you if you’re not careful. And that the entire order of life can change in an instant. But I guess it’s good in a way. They were fat and happy and stupid. They lacked for little in life. Sadly, they didn’t appreciate all the nice things they had. They replaced what mattered with video games and social media. Then they constantly mocked others and fought over silly things like politics and television shows.

Maybe it is better we are about to start over. Maybe we need a fresh perspective on life. I remember my father telling me once that strong men made weak men. I never understood what he truly meant by that until now. He’d say that good times were only possible through the sacrifice of those who came before us and who’d suffered to make life better for future generations. And that future generations always, always squandered the bounty they were given. Which again led to hard times and then again to hard men. And I mean men in the mankind sense. It’s just a word after all. Some even argue that using a word like that is “offensive” or “objectionable.” Silly. Just think of how luxurious that argument is now that we are facing extinction.

What a difference a year makes, am I right?

I know I’m trapped. I know I haven’t much time left on earth. I hope there is a God. And I really hope the afterlife will be more pleasant than these past few years. Eternity is a long, long time. I’m not that old now, but I can hardly imagine living forever in whatever form I end up in. I hope that wherever I go, I won’t remember what I’ve seen here. I’ve been seeking to block it. But I can’t. There have been too many horrible things I’ve witnessed. I’m loath to describe them to spare you all the gruesome details.

But I did see a lot of good things as well. We pulled together to fight the creatures as they grew in size and multiplied in number. But there were just too many to overcome. They kept hatching. More kept coming. We’d destroy entire populations of them and there were still more after that. How many avocados are there in the world? Countless. They grow on trees! Millions? Billions? Part of me thinks we over-planted them. Maybe I can blame the whole generation of Millennials for their special toast, or I can blame the Californians for their love of guacamole.

Sadly, though, I think it was the fact that we were so divided to start with. It took a disaster of this magnitude to bring us together again and fight as one species—human. It just took far too long to materialize. And now this. It’s too late for us now. Game over.

I’m bleeding still. Just checked. It probably won’t stop. Their venom does that. Once you are bitten, any punctures will refuse to clot on their own. It’s not a pleasant way to die, but it can be peaceful. And it far outweighs being eaten alive by them.

While I wanted to stay positive and say more good things about how the few survivors came together, I’m finding as I write this, I’m becoming more negative about my fellow humans. Sigh. I wish it weren’t so. But in facing one’s death there is a truth that you see clearly. Layers of lies are stripped away and what remains is real and raw and ugly. I don’t suppose death is supposed to be easy, especially knowing how close at hand it is. Do I have hours before I’m finally dead? Will it be a matter of minutes? Or will I linger like this for days, unable to run any longer?

Only time will tell.

I suspect that someone will read this letter one day. Maybe in some distant future where the creatures have all been eliminated. Perhaps a way can be found to destroy them all and save humanity in the end. I just know that I won’t be there to see it. I wish the future well. I hope they don’t make the same mistakes that we made.

But who am I kidding? Of course they will.

Please try to remember this. All life deserves our respect. All life kills other life to survive. If you eat meat or if you eat plants, you are still ending life to serve your own. Don’t delude yourself about that simple fact. It is just the way of things. Respect that. Respect the life that gives you life. Don’t take it for granted! It was respect for life that my dad taught me. Respect all living things great or small. We can all be better people by remembering that—what few of us manage to survive.

And since the times are now so hard, I suspect that when this is all over, those that emerge will be stronger for the trials they have gone through. But one day they will fall to weakness again. Try to resist that. And, as a small favor to me, for God’s sake please don’t let grown men wear cargo shorts. They look ridiculous. And button-up pastel shirts. That is not how men should look. They are something else when they dress like that. And women. While it might not be a thing again for generations, stay away from all the plastic surgery. Those fat lips, body enhancements and tucks just make you look awful. And tattoos and loops through your ears. Really? Take care of yourselves. Stay fit. Eat right. Dance in the sun once in a while—and don’t worry so much. Ah, I could go on and on but now I’m just lecturing, and no one likes that.

Yes, here I am complaining once again. I need to stop doing that. I wish I could. But I’m scared. I wish I weren’t. And now I’m just rambling. I sure wish I had someone to talk to. Someone I could say good-bye to before I go. Someone who cared about me. But there will be no one left to mourn me when I’m gone.

Bobby and Kathie had come so far with me. They were both killed trying to save me. While we’d spoken for days about what a paradise we once lived in, they didn’t have a chance to say hardly anything to me before they died. The last thing Bobby said to me was, “Run!” And I did—like the wind, not looking back. The tears I cried for them and the rest of my friends and family came later. So much so I wrung myself out completely dry. I had nothing left after that. Just a mute numbness to it all.

In a way, I think it’s a rather funny and fitting end for the human race, if it comes to that. Avocados? Who would have ever thought that was possible? Not me. Cosmic justice, I guess.

Ha, ha! The joke’s on us.

I can hear them now. They are coming for me. I guess it will all be over soon. I won’t bleed out after all. Small favors.

THE SPACE TOILET By Brendon Taylor

10,000 Words

Prompt: Space Toilet.

THE WAY REGINA Jenkins exhaled through her nose showed perhaps a little too much frustration, atypical of the clinical lead chemist. Attempting to resume her work on the latest round of enamel on aluminum bonding, and blinking shut the text window in her lower left glasses lens, she scowled in earnest. Cracks in the enamel. There were only two and they were smaller than a spider’s web, but still any cracks were too many.

Cleaner than the Pope’s language, the lab occupied the thirteenth floor of Jenkins Industries. The entire building was a megalithic structure whose bottom three floors (above ground) were made from thirty-foot high limestone columns that were wrapped in steel and glass extending fifteen stories higher into the Houston skyline. Newer buildings now dwarfed it, but the Jenkins building had been a pioneer a century earlier, and remained a national historic architectural gem in the downtown area.

“Care to share your bad news?” Colby asked, his bug-like eyes made larger by his thick, round-framed glasses.

“Two cracks—”

“Not that,” he said, his broad mouth forming an apologetic smile. It was so big that with his goggle-like eyes, he looked a bit like a toad. “You just saw a text that left a taste like an overripe durian.”

Regina tightened her mouth as their conversation drew the attention of the other two lab team members, women in their mid-forties like Regina. “My daughter came home for the weekend and is making dinner.”

Sonya Velasquez, lead biochemist on the team, made a clucking sound with her tongue. “Sounds horrible. An honest home-cooked meal? How dare she?!” She arched an eyebrow – her trademark sarcasm expression.

“Jess only makes dinner when she has big news to share.” Regina ushered them back to work. Unsuccessfully. “Last time, she changed majors, and the time before, she transferred from Princeton to the University of Texas.”

Colby’s unblinking gaze fastened on her. “At least you get to see her more.”

“That’s true, and we enjoyed having her stay with us all summer. But she’s been back at school for two weeks, so the timing is unusual.” Regina set the cardstock thin aluminum and enamel bond back on the workbench.

“Then what’s the problem?” Colby asked, finally blinking.

Sonya, who was tall with perfect skin and stunning, dark eyes, stepped close to Regina. Sonya was proof that life was not fair, having beauty and brains in spades. “Think about it, Colby. Who has been particularly uptight about the release of Phase One and also sits at the Jenkins dinner table?”

Sonya’s Columbian accent made everything she said sound exotic – even Phase One of the release of the Jenkins Space Toilet. She hated the name, Space Toilet, but it was not an issue worth fighting about with her husband, Sam Jenkins, CEO of Jenkins Industries. They were in need of a long discussion about their marriage, but it could wait until the stress of Phase One was finished.

Colby nodded knowingly.

The Board of Directors had hired two freelance professionals to oversee the release of Phase One, unwilling to allow the economic outlay of over 900 million dollars to be spent without frequent progress reports and financial analyses. Sam was normally tightly wound, but the stress of this project had pulled him off his axis.

“Speak of the devil,” said Dianne, whose ginger coloring betrayed her middle age with the start of a few wrinkles around her eyes and a bit of sugar in her cinnamon-colored hair.

Marching through the second set of air-lock doors, Sam approached like a thunder cloud in a $10,000 charcoal pinstriped suit. With middle-aged good looks that only the best plastic surgeons can provide, he exuded charisma . . . until he opened his mouth. “If Jess is dropping out of college, I’ll give her up for adoption.”

Colby whispered, “I see why you were worried,” before Sam was close enough to hear.

Not wanting to escalate Sam’s mood, Regina forced a neutral expression on her face. “She’s twenty-one. That’s too old to terminate parental rights, but I understand how you feel.”

“How I feel? How I feel is that guttural and sincere patriarchal desire to break the toes of my boots off in her underperforming butt.”

Regina could actually see the vein in his forehead throbbing through a blanket of Botox. He was livid, well beyond the level of perturbance Jess should be causing him.

He continued, “If she’s transferring schools again . . . or majors—”

“She’s not,” Regina said in her best soothing voice, embarrassed that each of her team members was watching them. “She sent me the bill for next semester—same school, same declared major.”

Sam eyed her like she was a card dealer in Vegas, and she had just won three hands in a row. “Do you know what news she’s breaking?”

Regina shook her head. “She seemed at ease in our text conversation, though, so I doubt it is serious.” It was a lie, but one worth telling.

“We’ll see,” he said while tapping on his watch phone. It was old-school technology, but Regina contended he loved it because it made him feel like a spy in the year 2000. Sam had always argued that cell tower communication was safer than satellite-based since the attempted invasion in 2043. It had been nearly a decade since Earth had banded together to fight off a wave of two dozen alien attack ships. After a minute, he looked up.

“You wouldn’t have come straight to see me solely about Jess’s message,” Regina said in the same soothing tone. “That could have waited until lunch. What else brought you to my lab?”

Sam’s jaw clenched and released, one of his relaxation techniques. It almost never worked. “I won’t be taking a lunch. Unfortunately, neither will you or Velasquez.”

Sonya groaned, which elicited a look of annoyance on Sam’s face.

Regina had been looking forward to eating a vending machine turkey salad all morning. Something must be wrong with Phase One.

“We have a problem with Phase One,” Sam said. “Chauncey wouldn’t tell me what was wrong over the phone. He insisted I come down to the factory immediately. I’m bringing you and Velasquez from your team, Gullivan from engineering, Carpenter from biotech, and Braxton from nanotech. If we can’t figure it out before five, I’ll decide who to fire, and we’ll fly back to hear what outstanding news Jess has to share.”

Sonya looked at Regina with a flash of concern. The expression seemed incongruent on that face, like if the Mona Lisa stuck out her tongue. Regina shook her head slightly and tried to convey that Sam’s threat was more bravado than sincere. “An hour in the air, and thirty minutes on the ground leaves us a little more than four hours there.” She gave her husband a cynical look. “And that’s if we leave right now.” It was a little before eleven. Regina hated disruptions to her day, but a trip to the island was not bad as far as diversions go. The team Sam was taking was full of scientific rock stars, who would stand a good chance of solving whatever problem they encountered in short time. Besides, it would be fun to watch Carpenter strike out trying to flirt with Sonya on the jet.

“We are leaving right now.” Sam turned and started walking out, talking over his shoulder as though he expected the two of them to follow. “Tell Kristine what you want for lunch as long as it can be delivered to the post at our airfield in twenty minutes.” He nodded at his attractive thirtyish assistant who had waited outside the doorway, wearing a professional skirt suit.

Regina had worried about her husband’s hire until she saw the way Kristine always looked at Sonya compared to how she looked at Sam. “I’ll have a Rowdy Burger with bacon and a side of shallot crisps.”

Sam looked back at her incredulously.

“I’m counting this as a vacation – closest thing to one you’ve taken me on this summer. So, I’m eating like I’m on vacation.” Regina smiled with satisfaction when Sam turned his head forward and said nothing. He hated fast food.

“Same order for me,” Sonya said to Kristine. “And I want a coconut shake, too.”

Regina mouthed, “Me, too,” when Kristine looked at her. Truth be told, she had been craving a burger for several days, and a big, greasy Rowdy Burger sounded perfect.

Exactly twenty minutes later, Regina sat next to Sam in the front passenger seats on the Jenkins jet, as the service crew wrapped up systems checks with methodical precision. Savoring the first juicy bite of her bacon cheeseburger, Regina glared at Sam as he spread a cloth napkin across her lap. She felt his eyes linger on her body, and felt defensive. She had put on a few pounds over the summer. “You’ve worked my team around the clock all summer – I’ve had to survive on food from vending machines and have had no time for the gym.” She was still slender by any objective standard, and steamed a bit at the judgment she felt. She snapped off another bite like a challenge for him to say something.

“You look perfect,” he said, anxiously looking back at a file open on his lap.

“What’s that?” Regina asked as Carpenter and Braxton walked to the back of the plane, having finished their pizza in the hanger.

“Summaries from the patent attorney.”

Swallowing the bite of deliciousness, Regina said, “You were supposed to meet with the attorneys all afternoon, weren’t you?”

Sam nodded, trying to read his file.

“You probably made the whole emergency up just to get out of that meeting.”

Pulling off his reading glasses, he said, “You’re goading me, aren’t you?”

“Perhaps.”

“Is this about the burger?”

“Only a little.” Regina raised an eyebrow. “You were pretty hot with me in front of my team.”

Sam sighed and nodded. “You’re right.” He could be a perfectionist and a blowhard with a short fuse, but those weren’t the only traits that had won Regina’s heart. Behind the Botox and the high-end shirts was a brilliant man who had taken her all around the world. “I’m going to pay for the napkin in your lap, aren’t I?”

“With diamonds and a long talk.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Weak, late, and lacking in bling, but I’ll take it as a down payment.” Regina slurped her coconut milkshake loudly.

“I know we need to talk. Once Phase One is out and Phase Two is ready for production, we’ll can spend two weeks anywhere you want, and talk about everything.

That was a better start, thought Regina. Perhaps their marriage would survive the Space Toilet. “Anything interesting from the lawyers?” Slurp.

Visibly annoyed by the slurping, Sam said, “The Estate of Todd Malcolm has challenged several of our nano and biotech patents.”

James Braxton, a slender man and the youngest on their team at around twenty-six, with an oversized push-broom mustache under a prominent nose, said from several seats behind, “Are you talking about Todd Malcolm the astronaut? He wrote the treatise on nano ethics. I studied his methods and theories in grad school at MIT. Shame he was lost.” Braxton worked his way into the open seat behind Regina.

“It was a shame,” Sam said, “that he had such an inept patent attorney. Of course, that was good for us.”

“Does his estate have a case?” Regina asked.

“Not according to my very expensive attorney, who is billing me for a meeting that I am now missing,” Sam said, taking one of Regina’s shallot crisps before she could slap his hand. “The coding for more than half of the tech he developed came from an alien ship in the first round of contact, so that tech belonged to the United States of America. The government had every right to sell and we are bonafide purchasers with unassailable rights to the twenty-three coding patents related to nano waste disposal. At least, that’s the lawyer’s conclusion.”

Regina finished her burger and made one last audible slurp of the milkshake as the ground crew cleared the way for the jet to begin taxiing. “Is the lawsuit a money grab since litigation could delay the release of your ‘Space Toilet?’”

“No,” Sam said. “Their suit is for injunctive relief only – they want to stop any use of the technology.”

“Could still be a money grab.” Regina wadded up the empty wrappers and greasy paper bag, put them in the waste bin, and resealed the compartment. “As soon as the right dollar figure is offered, their noble concerns will wash away like dead leaves in the gutter.”

Sam shrugged while holding up a manila envelope. “I will know after I read this. The lawyer said the Malcolm family’s representative asked that I read this and then they will discuss resolving the lawsuit.”

“Better you than me.” Regina closed her eyes against the unpleasant feeling in her stomach and thought, Regret always comes after eating a Rowdy bacon cheeseburger and crisps. She buckled her seatbelt as they readied for takeoff.

The Jet surged ahead as it lifted into the sky. With the willpower of a shaolin monk, Regina was able to keep her lunch in her stomach despite the sensation of sitting in the backseat of a drag racer. By the time they leveled out, heading south over the Gulf of Mexico en route to Blanco Island, Regina was able to take steady and deep breaths and feel at peace. She listened as Braxton explained the nano technology element of the Jenkins Space Toilet to Kristine.

“The science behind this tech was viewed as an environmental watershed moment when it filled the sci journals a decade ago. Nanobots break down waste into four components: re-usable nutrients for re-consumption, dry fertilizer, dry disposables and pure water.” Braxton’s voice nearly cracked with excitement.

Kristine sounded a bit disgusted. “Reusable nutrients and clean water? People don’t actually eat or drink the stuff, do they?”

“They could.” Braxton’s excitement remained unswayed by Kristine’s response. “In space, they drank the water, but only packaged the reusables and kept them in storage in case of an emergency. Jenkins Industries will buy back the reusables under a contract with a dogfood manufacturer, and people will probably use the water for plants or pets. But, it’s totally safe.”

Regina had the feeling the young man could go on for hours about human waste and nanotech, oblivious or uncaring of the impact it was having on the attractive woman next to him.

Braxton began talking about the impact this tech would have on sewage treatment when Bradly Carpenter interrupted from the back row of the jet. His curly black hair and dark eyes made him look like a movie star from the chin up, but his oversized Adam’s apple and long neck took away the bonus points gained by his piercing eyes. “This space toilet tech is going to make our boss the 21^st Century Thomas Crapper.”

Braxton and Gullivan both laughed. Gullivan, squat and thick-armed with a ruddy complexion, said, “People are going to refer to a bowel movement by saying they have to take a Jenk!” More guffaws from his own mouth followed. Others joined, but without nearly the gusto of Gullivan.

Regina closed her eyes and waited for what she knew would soon follow.

Sam swiveled in the leather bucket seat and said, “Gullivan, you just sprinted past Carpenter to the top of my Jenk List of who gets fired if we don’t fix whatever’s wrong at the factory before five.”

Gullivan laughed as though Sam was joking and said, “Then, I guess I might as well pitch you what I think your ad campaign for Phase Two ought to be. Imagine a glassy mountain lake with pine trees all around. Up pulls a high-end RV and then in the cadence of a 1990’s infomercial, Jack Blang’s voiceover says, ‘The next time you go in the woods, make sure you bring your snapable, tapable, totally collapsible, pocket sized, car seat adaptable, just set it and forget it, Sam Jenkins’ Space Port-a-Potty.’”

Regina wanted to laugh, but she could feel the heat building from Sam even as Gullivan cackled until tears leaked out the corners of his eyes. The others had started laughing, but everyone else stopped before Gullivan.

“You know the thing about really talented engineers, Gullivan?” Sam said icily. Not waiting for a response, he went on, “There are loads of them. And they tend to work just as well in the basement as they do on the twentieth floor.”

Regina shivered. There was a degree of seriousness in Sam’s tone. He might have been puffing before, but Gullivan would need to be more cautious. Sam could be very petty. She added this to the mental list of things to talk about on Fiji with Sam, having already decided that was where they would have their talk. Sam needed to change or he risked losing talented people, like Gullivan. Like her.

The mood was subdued after that.

After a while, Kristine asked, “Why would the government sell the patents based on alien tech? Isn’t that dangerous?”

Sam looked up from reading the Malcolm documents and said, “They didn’t sell any of the weapons or defense-based patents. In fact, it was because of those that they sold the non-military use patents—to raise funds to pay for the Space Defense Initiative. Producing space-based defenses became necessary when the first invasion hit and proved that the universe was more dangerous than we thought. The tech recovered from their ships advanced our defensive capabilities by light years. The government funded those productions in part by selling patents for other tech and retaining rights for a share of the profits. Uncle Sam will make hundreds of millions off this toilet alone.”

Kristine said, “I’ve heard that before all that construction in space, the stars were beautiful.”

Sam shrugged, “I see the stars and wonder which one warms the planet of the aliens that tried to invade us, and when they’ll come back.”

Braxton nodded. “Yeah, but when they come back, we’ll be ready for them.”

Sam went back to reading with a scowl on his face. Regina knew something in the report had pushed him toward the edge. Gullivan’s ribbing would have normally earned him a slap on the wrist rather than a kick in the gut. She also knew better than to ask Sam about the report before he was ready to talk about it.

As the jet neared Blanco Island, the white sand beaches surrounding the five-square-mile strip of paradise glistened like diamonds. It had been a shame for their predecessors to have built an enormous concrete factory, long dock capable of accommodating mid-sized freighters and a private airstrip long enough for full-sized jets to use on top of such a gorgeous place. That predecessor had built military helicopters for clientele that ranged from South American governments, to private security companies, to drug cartels and the very wealthy. Once vacant, it had been a perfect fit for Jenkins Industries’ more secretive projects.

A freighter at the dock appeared fully loaded, but no workers were on the vessel or the dock. Regina thought it odd that it just sat there. Downtime for a freighter would cost Jenkins Industries much more money than Sam would be willing to pay without exacting a price from someone. The freighter was one of several that would carry thousands of Phase One Space Toilets to ports all over the civilized world. Even with a retail tag of over twenty thousand dollars each, the demand was high. The inaction around the huge vessel reminded Regina of the stakes of their trip. Her vacation was over. The jet banked sharply in descent toward the airstrip near the dock, causing another wave of nausea to hit her.

Sam’s eyes lingered on the freighter as well, which did nothing to improve his sour expression. He stuffed documents back into the envelope, and clasped the file folder closed.

Regina closed her eyes tightly, but resolved to learn what it was in the manila envelope that had upset Sam. This was not the day for additional unwelcome news.

The jet landed smoothly, much to Regina’s relief, and after a short taxi, it pulled to a stop in a concrete hanger. Four security guards in blue shirts and sunglasses stood near a Dominican business man with a shaved head, round glasses, and an infectious smile. Chauncy Perez. His smile faded when he saw Sam and the others stepping down from the plane.

Chauncy’s accent had faded little despite spending six years earning an undergraduate and master’s degree in business at Harvard. “Mr. Jenkins, so happy you came right away, but I did not expect you to bring so many.” He turned to a blue-shirted security guard and said something too low for Regina to hear. “We will need a second car, which will take a couple of minutes to arrive.”

Regina felt sweat forming on her forehead and elsewhere almost immediately. They could walk to the factory – it would take maybe fifteen minutes, but her blouse would be drenched by the time they got there.

“While we wait,” Sam said loudly to be heard over the sound of the crew attending to the jet, “you can tell us about the problem that was too secret to mention over the vid this morning.”

Chauncy’s forehead beaded with sweat and his hands fidgeted. “It would be best for you to see it for yourself. Before I compile my daily report to the Board, I thought you should see it with your own eyes and then we can discuss.”

“Damnit, Chauncy!” Sam’s face glowed with anger. “At least tell me what phase of the operation is having problems.”

Chauncy took a half step back and stammered, “Okay, that should be fine. It is with the floor workers, and the cleaning crew. Well, overall, many of the personnel throughout the facility.”

Sam laughed out loud as his head shook in disbelief. The team members from Houston gathered around, wisely saying nothing. After several tense seconds, he said, “You have me drop everything in the middle of the release of Phase One, while we’re transitioning into Phase Two, and fly to the island. Also, you refused to tell me the nature of the problem, so I decided I should I bring a member from every department I think might be needed, with the only exceptions being someone from human resources, and I arrive to be met with a personnel problem?”

Chauncy nodded. “Well—"

Sam bellowed an interruption, “You have my permission to fire anyone who stands in the way of Phase One being completed! Now, if all you have is a personnel problem – take care of it! I have a dinner with my daughter.” Sam turned and stepped toward the jet.

Regina put a hand on his forearm, partly to calm him, and also because she felt dizzy all of a sudden. She was surprised that it felt noticeably hotter there than it had in Houston. Perhaps it was her body going through that change some women start to endure in their forties. She had been feeling hot flashes in recent weeks. Maybe it was not just work stress.

Sam looked at her, concern replacing the anger for a moment.

Regina said, “We’ve come all this way. We might as well see the problem.” She lowered her voice, “I think Chauncy was trying to help you avoid being surprised by an unfavorable report to the Board.”

“Are you felling well?” Sam’s coloring had at least tempered closer to normal.

“I’d feel better in an air-conditioned car.”

Sam nodded. “Chauncy, my brilliant wife wants us to see this problem, but we want to go with you now. The others can catch up in the second car. I’m sorry I snapped at you.”

Chauncy gave Regina a grateful look. “Yes, Mr. Jenkins. This way.” He hurried as though he did not want to give Sam a chance to change his mind.

Regina turned the air conditioning to max and aimed every vent within reach toward her during the silent ride to the factory. Chauncy gave her a concerned look several times during the short drive.

At the private entrance from the executive garage, Sam put his palm on a scanner and inserted a chipped card, not waiting for Chauncy to fumble his card out of his pocket.

Inside the building, several long, dark concrete hallways illumined automatically as the group walked through them, turning dark moments later. A double door enclosing an air lock was their final barrier to reaching the factory floor. It made Regina wonder what besides helicopters had been manufactured in this enormous building.

At first, Regina failed to see any problem on the factory floor. Looking out from the second story management office, which was large enough to host a World Cup party, with the entire wall on the factory floor side being a sheet of tempered glass, workers operated computerized production machinery from one end of the immense room to the other. The office wall opposite the glass was a bank of video monitors where cameras could be zoomed in on every inch of the factory.

“Should that woman be operating a chemical bath control panel? She’s pregnant!” Regina pointed down to a young woman thirty feet blow and near the stairs who had that tell-tale look of a woman in her third trimester.

Nobody immediately answered.

“Or her?” Regina asked, pointing to another pregnant worker, beginning to get irritated. She stepped closer to the glass. Half of the floor workers were women, and the closer she looked, she could see that each one was pregnant. “What is going on?” Her thoughts raced to what might be happening on the island.

“They’re all pregnant. All of them.” Chauncy said, his voice dripping concern.

“I presume not all are married?” Sam asked.

“No. The majority, over 380 of the 450 female floor workers, are single.”

“Are they being raped?” Regina asked, irritation growing to rage.

“No!” Chauncy looked wounded. “Most of the workers stay on the island for months at a time, living in barracks that are divided by gender and secured. Keyed entry with bio confirmation is required to get into the buildings. Halls and entrances are monitored here.” He pointed at the wall of monitors. “Most are from Central and South America, and only go home once a quarter, which is the frequency of travel we provide at no cost.”

“Still, they could be attacked coming or going to their barracks—” Regina began, but Chauncy stopped her.

“We asked them all this week, having the same concerns you’re expressing. Every woman denies she was attacked.”

Sam walked near the window and looked down. “That’s one hell of a coincidence.”

Regina was not ready to let go of her irritation so easily. “These women are in their third trimester – and you just got around to asking them this week?” She felt light headed with all of the excitement, so she leaned against the glass, enjoying the coolness from its smooth surface.

“That’s another thing,” Chauncy said, “They weren’t showing until this past weekend.”

Regina looked at the woman near the chemical bath, who looked up and locked eyes with her. Regina said, “It’s not possible.”

“I agree,” said Chauncy, offering Regina a chilled bottle of water. “The other thing that’s not possible is that most of the women claim they have not had relations with a man, many say they never have had relations at all and others, not within the proper date range for their pregnancy. These are religious women for the most part.”

The pregnant woman at the chemical bath had not taken her eyes off Regina. Other women had stopped their work and were looking up at the office as well. Sam and Regina moved to the other side of the room, near the monitors, and she drank deeply from the bottle of water.

Regina asked, “Has the medical staff on site examined or treated the women?”

Chauncy pulled a rolling chair out to face Sam and Regina. “Yes. Dr. Hamblin has examined many of the women and is providing prenatal care. Our facilities are limited, but basic care is available.”

“I’d like to speak with him,” Regina said.

Sam, who had appeared deep in thought, interjected, “When is the rest of our team supposed to be here?”

Chauncy frowned. “The other car should have brought them here already. I will have that checked out.” He nodded at one of the two blue-shirted security guards in the room, who clicked on a headset and started talking. Chauncy turned to Regina and said, “Dr. Hamblin’s a woman, and as you might imagine, her days this week have been completely filled. I could have you taken to her, but I doubt she would be able to break away any time soon to come up here.”

Regina had an odd feeling sweep over her, like she was being watched by a predator. She looked over her shoulder and saw that more than a dozen women were looking at them in the office. No, looking at her. She wished Sonya or Kristine were there so she was not the only woman in the group. “I am nervous to find my way around the facility. I’ve never been to the medical office. Can you or one of the guards take me?”

“I can send you with Tellez.” He motioned to the taller of his guards, a Hispanic man in his upper twenties with long arms, big hands and the kind of nose that had been broken multiple times. “But I better wait for the rest of your team.”

“I’ll wait, too,” Sam said with an apologetic look on his face.

Regina finished off her water bottle and stood, looking at Tellez and motioning toward the door to leave. “Have you offered them maternity leave?”

Chauncy nodded. “They refused. Every one of them. They also refused to be transferred off the floor to easier jobs,” he said as Regina moved to leave the room.

When the door to the office clicked shut behind her and Tellez, Regina felt vulnerable. Tellez stood over six foot four, and weighed over 250 pounds, but she felt like she was wading into a rough ocean with only water wings to keep her afloat. She looked at the thermostat at the bottom of the stairs and saw the temperature on the floor was ninety degrees. “Is it always this warm?”

Tellez’s voice was surprisingly high, and melodious, “Not before this week. We are accommodating the requesting consensus of the workers. We used to keep it under seventy-five.”

Regina was incredulous. “The pregnant women want it to be ninety degrees?” She couldn’t imagine it. When she had been pregnant with Jess, she had never wanted the temperature above seventy. It was the only time in her marriage that she and Sam saw eye-to-eye on the thermostat.

“Nope. The women wanted it set at one hundred, but the men begged for it to be lower.” Tellez led them through the main corridor on the floor that went from the front to the back of the open room.

“You could fit a football pitch in here. Maybe two or three,” Regina said, just wanting to talk to keep her focus off all of the pregnant women eyeing her with blank stares, like dolls’ eyes.

“Eight, actually.” Tellez seemed unaffected by the staring women. Of course, they were looking at Regina, not him.

Her eyes lingered on some of the men. They looked scared, and soaked with sweat. Each had a tall water bottle, which seemed woefully inadequate to the task of cooling and keeping the men hydrated. The smell of sweat filled her nose; not just any sweat, but tainted with the pungent smell of anxiety. The women, on the other hand were dry and unsoiled. The two minutes it took to reach the back of the room and the doorway to access the medical hall seemed like a whole season.

The hall back to the medical office was like the halls coming into the factory, dark and made of polished concrete, with lights coming on only for the time Regina and Tellez walked through each section.

The sounds of screaming ahead drew Tellez into a run. It was a woman’s voice, but Regina could not make out any words. She hurried after the big man, but he moved like a track star, and she did well to mark the turn he made ahead, and the next. The screams grew louder as she approached a doorway that Tellez had entered several seconds before she arrived.

The receiving room was full of women sitting on chairs and couches, some reading magazines and one knitting a baby sweater. All were very pregnant, and all looked up at her. Several smiled and then returned to what they had been doing. Regina huffed loudly to regain her breath and looked around incredulously. There was no sign that the women had just heard blood-chilling screams from the room behind the reception desk. No receptionist sat at the desk, but a sheet for sign-ins sat next to a feathered ink pen.

Moments later, the receptionist (as Regina would later learn) and a nurse, both pregnant, walked Tellez out of the back room. The nurse, a Hispanic woman with sharp, angry eyebrows said, “Come back to the examination room again and you can wait in the hall.”

“I came because I heard screaming.” Tellez’s hands shook and his eyes opened wide.

“It’s stopped, so don’t worry,” the nurse said challengingly. “All is fine.”

Regina was startled to see the large man cowed by the nurse. Yet, even a lion will back away from hyenas when the numbers are this unfavorable. She was surprised to see the eyes of every woman on Tellez, loathing exuding from the room in general. Fear blossomed in her and spread like fire, and by the look in Tellez’s eyes, he felt it even more strongly. Regina’s guts roiled with anxiousness.

The examination room door opened and out came a tall woman with more gray than blond in her hair, cut stylishly off the shoulder. Her doctor’s coat had blood on the sleeves, but she wrapped her arms around a swaddled bundle in a blanket. Part of Regina wanted to see the baby in the swaddle, but another part of her was terrified by what she might see.

The woman handed the baby to the nurse and nodded in greeting to Regina. “I’m Dr. Hamblin. I’m booked this afternoon, but I can see you in the morning.” She was pregnant too, though not quite as close to delivery as the women in the room.

The nurse went to the back room with the bundle, making loving sounds and doting on the newborn as she went. It was a stark contrast from the greeting she had given Tellez. He looked like a cat in a room full of sheep-sized rats.

Regina said, “I don’t need an appointment, and I won’t be here in the morning. I just need to ask a few questions. My husband is Sam Jenkins, and I’m one of his lead chemists, Regina Jenkins. We are here to make sure Phase One is on track for release.”

Dr. Hamblin put blood stained hands behind her back and said, “Phase One is on track. Nothing will stop it now.” The women in the room nodded. “I have little time for questions, but you may ask a couple before I see Murian.” She nodded fondly to a brown-haired woman with large green eyes, sitting on a stiff-backed wooden chair. Her eyes looked like they belonged on a doll.

“Perhaps we should go somewhere private,” Regina suggested.

The doctor shook her head, “There is nowhere else to go, and I have little time. These ladies won’t mind your questions.”

Regina wanted to challenge Dr. Hamblin for not knowing what questions she would ask, some of which might make these women quite uncomfortable, but that seemed foolhardy and unlikely to get her anywhere favorable.

“I have a question, too,” Tellez said, his hands making tight fists. “The patient who just delivered the baby must have been the one screaming – is she okay?”

Dr. Hamblin snapped her eyes on Tellez, as did the rest of the women in the waiting room. “I did not say I had time for your questions.” Her tone was liquid nitrogen.

Regina felt a keening horror that must have reflected in her eyes. Everything seemed so unreal that she wondered if she were in a dream. No, a nightmare.

Dr. Hamblin smiled at her. “I can see you have concerns about her well-being, too. I assure you she is as well as rainwater.

Regina wondered if the doctor’s mis-phrasing had been deliberate. Had she meant right as rainwater or had she meant what she said? Feeling the pressure of time and not thinking clearly enough to be artful in how she phrased it, Regina asked, “How did you all get pregnant?”

Laughter filled the room, but it sounded inhuman, like the laughter of hyenas. Dr. Hamblin smiled warmly, “Surely a scientist knows the answer to that question.”

“But, Chauncy Perez said none of you were showing until this past week.”

“Men!” Dr. Hamblin sighed. “They really only see what they want to see. Look around and see if you believe women this far along were not showing until this past week.” More laughter followed. “I apologize for not having more time, Regina, but as you can see, I have a long afternoon ahead of me. I will see you in the morning, if you’re still here. Do what you need to do to report to the Board that Phase One will complete fully and on time.”

She turned to the brown-haired Murian and said, “Give us a minute to clean up and we’ll be ready to see you.” Looking at the receptionist she said, “See Regina and the guard out and then come help me clean.”

“I’ll see them out,” Murian said. “My legs will go numb if I sit any longer,”

Murian led them into the dark hallway, and the lights popped on as they stepped onto the polished floor.

Regina wanted to sprint back to the office, grab Sam and get off the island immediately. Her skin crawled with fear. She forced her composure to hold even as her intestines felt like fighting eels. “Thank you, Murian. We know the way back just fine.”

“I want you to know the truth. You looked scared, but you needn’t be.”

Regina stopped. Tellez wisely said nothing.

“Walk with us and tell me everything.” They started at a slow pace and it took twenty seconds for the lights behind them to darken and the hall ahead to illumine.

“We are nearly all faithful women. Followers of God. Are you?” Murian asked hopefully, gazing upon Regina with her glassy, green eyes.

“I have faith.”

“I knew you did!” the pregnant woman said excitedly. “Then you must know the truth. That we carry children put in our bellies directly from heaven.”

Regina looked her in the eye, shivering inside despite the heat. The woman believed what she was saying. “How can you be so sure?”

“I have known no man, and there is no other explanation.” She was earnest. “Also, my baby has spoken to me, spoken to my mind and heart. He is so wise—he must have come from heaven.”

Regina wanted to vomit. “Thank you. I can see you have great faith,” she said, feeling like a coward and a hypocrite.

Murian excused herself and went back down the hall. Regina tried to keep herself from sprinting to the office.

Not sure which gave her more relief, the fact that she and Tellez made it safely back to the office or the fact that the rest of the team were there when she got back, Regina melted into one of the office chairs and faced the bank of monitors. She did not want to look into a sea of dolls’ eyes. She wanted to fly home and forget the place. She was relieved by one more thing— she had finally adjusted to the temperature.

Sonya and Kristine were talking excitedly nearby. Sonya said, “Yes, that was my first time using one, too. I couldn’t stop laughing when the nanobots started, you know.” She stopped, looking around at the men who were paying close attention to the conversation.

“I don’t know why they were so insistent that you two use the bathroom and didn’t care two whiskers about us guys going,” Carpenter complained.

“Women stick together,” Kristine responded. “Besides, the woman who showed us to the bathroom was pregnant. She probably has to go all of the time, and didn’t want us to get tied up in our work and be uncomfortable.”

“Guess we’ll just have to wait for Phase Two to have our nethers tickled by nanobots, guys,” Gullivan said. “None of us can afford a gold-handled toilet.”

“Stop whining and maybe Regina will let you use ours on the thirteenth floor in Houston.” Sonya drank from a water bottle like the one Chauncy had given Regina.

Sam and Braxton engaged in a serious conversation of their own in the back corner of the room at a desk. Sam was seated, but both were looking at the monitor associated with that computer. Regina was not able to see what they were looking at.

Chauncy stepped over to Regina’s group, nervously rubbing his hands. “Ms. Jenkins, did you learn anything useful at the medical office?”

Regina nodded. “Only a little.” A disgusting realization hit her, “You’re obviously using space toilets in this facility. The water you gave us,” she nodded at Sonya and Kristine drinking from chilled bottles, “was that from…”

Chauncy shifted uneasily. “You drink purified water that has passed every test.”

Kristine spat out what she had been drinking and made a gagging sound.

“Some of it comes from our groundwater, we can even desalinize ocean water through the toilets. There will be so many uses for the nano technology that we had not yet comprehended.”

Sam interrupted from the far side of the room. “First, we are going to have to clean the code. Carpenter, Velasquez, come over here please.”

Everyone moved to the back corner of the office. Regina saw the men and Kristine were sweating, but she was surprised to realize she still felt comfortable. Glancing back at the factory floor, Regina saw more than a dozen women standing around the bottom of the stairs that led up to the office. Staring up at her.

“I read some unsettling information on the flight out,” Sam said, sweat beading on his forehead, which he mopped with a silk Gucci handkerchief. “The representative of the Malcom estate – one of the astronauts from the 2040 Explorer space mission that ended tragically – provided info from journal recordings that belonged to the estate. I would have thought any such recordings would have been classified and sealed by the NASA investigation,” he said absently. “Regardless, the statements purport to say that the crew was divided and broke down almost completely in the nine weeks of the mission they were alive.”

Sam continued, “Apparently, Carmina Shultz had boarded the vessel expecting a child. She had not disclosed the pregnancy, and must have deceived the doctors in her pre-launch examinations. It was a point of heated contention after she began showing six weeks into the journey. Her health deteriorated and she ranted uncontrollably. She became so physically disruptive that they had to keep her secured with restraints for most of the last week she was alive. Complications in her pregnancy took her life, and destroyed the collective morale of the group. Her body and the unborn child’s were evacuated into space.

“The information I received warned that Malcom believed there was a flaw in the coding. That mission included the use of more alien tech than any before it, and he believed the coding contributed to Schultz’s delusions. Let me read the quote attributed to be his last recorded words. ‘We accepted the alien hyperdrive, communications, guidance and even waste disposal technology without understanding how all of it worked. We cut and pasted it into our mission, cobbled it together like a technological Frankenstein’s monster. What we don’t understand, we should never have used.’”

Regina’s voice sounded dead in her own ears, “Now, Schultz’s pregnancy must be viewed in a wholly different light.”

Sam nodded. “We need to check the code. Until we understand what is happening, Phase One needs to stop.”

No one spoke for a while – all of them stunned to hear those words come out of Sam’s mouth.

Regina broke the silence. “One of the women delivered while Tellez and I visited the medical office.”

Everyone looked at her, and she felt a chill.

Chauncy asked, “Did you see the baby?”

“Yes, sort of,” Regina began, “but it was heavily swaddled in a blanket so we did not see the baby itself. The bundle moved, and it looked like a babe was inside.”

Sam asked in a husky voice, “Did the mother survive?”

“Dr. Hamblin reported that she was doing fine, but we did not see her. There was a fair amount of blood.” The eyes from her group made her feel nervous. Perhaps she should have done more at the medical office. Guilt and doubt filled her, and she knew she should not talk about it further.

Sam rose from the chair at the desk and motioned for Braxton to take his place. “While Braxton looks into the coding, and designs a method for assignments to be made for his team back in Houston, Chauncy and I will call a video conference with as much of the Board as may be gathered. We’re going to freeze the project until we know more.”

Regina was surprised this decision had not infuriated her husband. At a minimum, it would cost the company millions. But there was an unfamiliar look in his eyes. Fear? She spared a look back at the factory floor and noticed more women had gathered around the base of the stairs, dozens stood there, looking up at her. They did not seem as frightening as they had at first. If they meant the group harm, they would have attacked. No, they were just women in shock, trying to figure out what had happened to them. She could see it now.

Braxton wiped the sweat from his eyes with the bottom of his shirt. “Mr. Jenkins, this could take years. I have no idea what to look for. It’s like trying to find a specific item in a thousand-square-mile flea market, without knowing for sure what the item is. This could take years.”

Sonya leaned in, next to the young genius and said, “Search for this imprint sequence in the coding.” She jotted something down on a scratch pad on the desk.

“What’s that?” Braxton said through his thick mustache.

“A derivative overlay, like a subtext or footnote to primary DNA strands that relates to the event of a woman becoming pregnant.” Her accent was hypnotic.

Regina blinked to pull her focus back. Her mind wanted to drift. A tickling thought tried to force itself forward, associated with emotional urgency. There was something she should be thinking about or doing, but muddled thoughts would not let her mind settle on what it was. She found her chair and sat back down. “You don’t think there’s anything in the water that made them pregnant, do you?” she asked no one in particular.

Gullivan came to her side and looked at her with compassion. Or was it suspicion? People could be difficult to read. He said, “Probably not the water, but I think we are definitely looking at Third Contact.”

“We can’t get the link up!” Sam growled. “Gullivan, come and see if you can help with this.”

Gullivan gave Regina a concerned look, but hurried to where Sam and Chauncy huddled over another computer.

Regina swiveled her chair to look at the factory floor again. Several of the women held guns, military style rifles with large clips of bullets. The men were hurrying to the left side of the room, and the women congregating to the right, around the stairs to the office and the path leading out of the factory. She thought she should alert the others, but they seemed so occupied with the tasks her husband had ordered them to follow.

“Mr. Jenkins! Mr. Perez! Look!” Tellez shouted from near the door and pointed at what was happening on the factory floor.

I must be in shock, Regina worried, knowing intellectually that her behavior and reactions were off.

Women were standing on the stairs themselves now, too.

“Call for additional security, bring everyone from the dock if we have to!” Chauncy barked. Gone was the sophisticated Ivy League-trained businessman.

Tellez clicked his headset and started barking out orders.

“We have shut down the satellite uplink from the island,” a woman’s voice said confidently over the loudspeaker. A voice familiar to Regina – Dr. Hamblin’s voice.

Regina looked down and saw Dr. Hamblin near the control post at the center of the factory floor, though she was so far away that it was hard to see the details of her face and expression.

“Pull her up on the monitors,” Chauncy said.

The technician at the center of the monitor bank typed a dozen quick strikes with his fingers and Dr. Hamblin’s face filled nine of the monitors in the center of the wall. It was ten feet across and reminded Regina of the wizard’s face from the old classic movie “Wizard of Oz.”

“Clearly,” Dr. Hamblin said confidently, “you are all suffering from some kind of mania or mass hysteria. As the chief medical officer of this facility, I am putting you under quarantine and cutting off your access before you can spread lies that compromise the efficient release of Phase One.”

“Keep working,” Sam said, desperation cracking his voice.

Braxton’s group turned back to their computer while Gullivan and Chauncy’s technician pounded keys near the bank, desperately seeking a connection.

Dr. Hamblin continued, “Please exit the office and come directly to medical.”

Sam grabbed the microphone connected to the speakers and said, “If we are the delusional ones, why have you taken up guns and forced the men to the far side of the floor?”

Dr. Hamblin’s huge face smiled. “To prevent your hysteria from spreading. You appear severely emotionally distraught and on the verge of incoherence. Look at how you sweat!”

“I am Sam Jenkins, the CEO of Jenkins Industries, and you all work for me. I want all of the women on the stairs and beyond to stand aside and let us leave the facility. That is my directive. Please do not violate this or you will be in breach of your employment contract.” Sweat dripped from his face.

Regina wondered if Dr. Hamblin was right, her husband did appear ill. None of the women moved an inch in response to his directive.

“Found it!” Braxton said. “The sequencing Velasquez mentioned, it’s here. And, there’s more. Complete DNA stranding was broken up and embedded into the code in thousands of places. Millions, perhaps. The sequencing Velazquez identified was a trigger of sorts that drew these DNA strands together from the immense body of code.”

Carpenter studied the DNA strand on the computer monitor. “It’s definitely not human.” His voice sounded subdued. Gone was the levity from the flight. “Not from Earth. See, this strand here, and these pairings. There is so much here that I don’t understand. We have to report this to Houston. To the government. Gullivan’s right, we’re looking at Third Contact.”

“You have five minutes to come out and let me treat you all,” Dr. Hamblin said, her smile still unnaturally wide. “I don’t want to send my sisters in to bring you to me, but I will if you don’t accept treatment of your own accord.”

“At least the mute button still works,” Sam said with futility dripping from his words. “You three,” he pointed at Velasquez, Braxton and Carpenter, “put a short report together with the critical information for our team back home in case we can find a way to transmit.” He looked back at Chauncy, Gullivan and the technician. “Any luck establishing communications?”

Gullivan shook his head. “She was right about the satellite uplink being down.”

“You could use your watch,” Regina said, surprising herself. The coherence of thought associated with her suggestion quickly swept away like dandelion fluff in the wind. Regina fought to reclaim her drifting thoughts.

“Wouldn’t do any good on an island this far from the mainland,” Sam lamented.

“Not necessarily,” Gullivan said. “During the failed invasion, NASA warned that an attack like that could easily destroy all satellite communications, so the federal government funded the modification of cellular towers to allow tower-to-tower transmission in cases of emergency. Cellular devices automatically switch when satellite communication is not possible, but they can only transmit to other cellular devices via that network.”

“My watch is plugged into my computer at my lab,” Regina said.

Sam gave her a compassionate look as he told his watch to dial Regina’s. “Can you link the vid to the lower monitor, so we can see in here, but they can’t see down there?” Sam darted his eyes toward the factory floor.

“I’ll work on it,” the tech said.

Why does Sam look so sad? Regina thought. Something in her stomach lurched and she vomited. Her insides cramped like someone were twisting her guts with a wrench. She clutched at her midsection as she heard the sounds of unanswered ringing being picked up by the office audio. She looked and saw Colby’s bulging eyes on the lower monitor. Something moved. Her stomach roiled and her hands could feel what she had through were simply a few extra pounds around the midsection had grown into a bump. The realization chilled her and she shivered uncontrollably.

Sam made sure Colby was recording the conversation, and gave him concise instructions to get the recording to the Board immediately. The use of alien technology in the release of Phase One has initiated a Third Alien Contact on Earth. All shipments must be halted and returned to this island. Any woman who has used a Space Toilet must be quarantined, held under security, and monitored for unnatural pregnancy for at least six weeks by a medical professional. Braxton will be transmitting instructions for locating the compromise in the coding. Until the code has been cleaned, all tech based on the code is unsafe.

“We have a toilet on the Thirteenth Floor,” Colby said solemnly.

Regina could see Dianne approaching the watch, next to Colby. “She’s pregnant,” Regina said, knowing without doubt it was true. There was a glassiness to her eyes that somehow made her sure.

“What are they saying?” Dianne asked as she approached.

Regina could see a bead of sweat rolling down the side of Dianne’s face.

“Did you understand my instructions?” Sam asked with a serious tone.

Colby nodded, sadness filling his large eyes.

“It’s ready,” Braxton said, holding a sheet of paper filled with coding and symbols.

Sam walked over to the monitor that still had an image of the alien DNA strand on the screen. He pointed the camera first at the hand-written instructions and then at the monitor. “Colby, please confirm the note and image on the monitor are visible on your recording.”

A few seconds later, Colby nodded once more.

Regina scooted her chair closer, but dared not let the camera capture her image, for fear of seeing herself on the monitor. She called out to her friends in Houston, “Have a great day and see you tomorrow.” The last part was a lie, she knew, but one that might put Dianne more at ease.

They said goodbye and the call ended.

Women on the stairs started to pull on the door.

“Hold them off for a minute,” Sam said. “We have one more call to make.”

Seconds later, Regina cried as her twenty-one-year-old Jess’s smiling face filled the bottom screen. A large pasta pot boiled behind her. She always loved making ravioli.

“So good to see you,” Sam said, his voice sounded surprisingly normal, but Regina could see his legs were shaking.

“Hey Dad! Nice party you’ve got going there – is Mom with you? Heard you were checking something out on the island.” She smiled and lit up the room.

“I’m here, just working on something.”

Sam looked back and motioned to move the camera so Jess could see her. Regina shook her head no, and Sam nodded. The look in his eyes told her that was the right choice. Tears glistened when he saw her stomach. Turning back to face the watch, he smiled and said, “I’m so sorry, sweetheart, but we are going to be tied up for a while and won’t be back in time for dinner.”

Jess’s smile faded, “That’s okay – the salad greens are wilted and brown in too many places. I can make dinner tomorrow and do a better job of it.”

“That sounds great.” Sam said.

Regina wiped her own tears, which had left the image of her daughter blurry. “We won’t be back until its very late, maybe tomorrow. So, don’t wait up. Do you want to share your news with us?”

“Who said I had news?” Jess asked.

“That mess in the kitchen,” Regina said. “It’s code for we need to talk.”

Jess’s expression grew serious, and her eyes seemed to glisten, “We should wait until you’re back. It won’t change by tomorrow, anyway.”

Not glistening, glassy – like a doll’s eyes. Oh, no! Regina sobbed. Not Jess!

Pounding on the door grew louder. Regina chanced a glance and could see two women with guns were ascending the stairs.

She made herself sound as normal as possible, but emotion made her words sound thick and strange. “Yes, your news can wait until tomorrow. But I really need you to do me a favor tonight, Jess. Promise me you will take that delicious dinner to Colby and Dianne at my lab. They will be working late for me, and you can’t eat all of that food by yourself, anyway. Make sure you tell Colby there is a problem with our Space Toilet, and ask him to send a technician to our home tomorrow. I know that’s a weird request, but will you do it?”

“Of course, Mom. Gotta run. Love you both!”

“Love you,” Sam and Regina said together as the image faded.

Sam cried openly as he clearly realized what Jess’s message was from Regina’s reaction. Regina and Jess were both pregnant and they had to hope she would go to Colby like she had promised and that he would catch the clues she would offer. For ten seconds, they held each other and cried.

Moments later, they were led toward the medical office through a sea of pregnant women. Regina’s thoughts were resigned, though something inside was numbing her pain and covering what was broken. She thought, Why invade and destroy the planet with war when you can people the world with your own and claim it without a fight?

Why indeed, Mother? A strangely accented voice spoke to her mind as the something in her stomach twisted.

A TALE OF LAZARANTH PRISON By Kristin J. Dawson

4,000 Words

Prompt: Rubber duckie.

OJO STRAIGHTENED, PUFFING out his chest, as his comrade thrust a small box into his hands. Trepidation crawled over his skin at the thought of the monthly feeding. After living on a circus world, he thought there was nothing strange enough to faze him.

He was wrong.

The lower levels of Lazaranth Prison held twisted horrors from a litany of pages torn from their respective worlds.

"Razon was twice as experienced and smart as your sorry carcass, and look what happened to him," the soldier said, her mechanical pupil adjusting to the light near the entrance. If she was trying to give Ojo a pep talk, she was doing a poor job of it. "Don't deviate from your instructions. Don't be a half-wit."

Ojo gave a downward jerk of his chin. Of course. Who wants to end up a blathering fool?

The oily fear that coated his tongue every time he walked the dim corridors wasn't from the mumbling wizard in a constant trance, the brooding cowboy neither living nor dead, the mad scientist, nor any of the dozens of prisoners; it was the snake creature, half-humanoid, half-serpent, unlike anything he'd heard of in the Literary Worlds. In some unfortunate twist of fate, poor Razon had locked eyes with the snake.

Ojo cleared his throat. "The snake's new iron mask is secured, then?"

"You'll be the one who finds out first, rubber clown." The soldier smirked as she rapped her scarred fingers on the box before spinning on her polycarbonate heel, mumbling about the Council and dimwits. The door thundered shut, echoing in the cavernous space.

The box trembled in Ojo's hand, and the newly promoted guard automatically gripped it tighter. He sucked in a breath and marched down the steps, his boots announcing his presence. He set the box on the trolley, the last meal on the list.

Not a clown, a contortionist. And a good one at that, Ojo thought to himself. At least, he thought he was special until he realized he was merely a background character in a book, too small even to be noticed when he disappeared from the pages after accidentally finding his way through a ley line to Rogue Destiny. Ojo shook off his comrade's insult. It was only his pride that she stung.

He passed an empty cell being prepped for another high-risk prisoner. A Raconteur, of all characters. The Rac was rumored to have destroyed an entire literary world. Ojo didn't know if he believed it though. The Racs were responsible for saving worlds like Ojo's own Circus Dawn. If Ojo hadn't followed a Rac that fateful day, the contortionist never would've realized the larger universe he was missing.

In the next cell, a wizard mumbled, his eyes closed. His skin was taut against his wasting ribs, further pronounced by shadows from an eerie flicker of light near his knees. Ojo slipped a box of vegan fare through a slit in the bars and retrieved the untouched meal from the day before. During the exchange, the wizard didn't stop his mantra. He never did.

A few steps further Ojo approached the next cell. Fortunately, this character didn't require food. Ever. In the month that Ojo had trained, the broad-shouldered cowboy had faced the wall, his meaty hands curled into tight fists. Ojo's heart thumped. As if in response, the cowboy turned, staring through Ojo with soulless eyes. The prisoner's hands gripped the bars so tightly they'd be white, if he had any blood in his veins. Ojo's stomach dropped, and he jerked his gaze ahead, not wanting to provoke this creature that bridged life and death.

No one has escaped. No one has escaped. No one has escaped. The mantra brought Ojo little solace.

Ojo passed a half-dozen other prisoners, his focus tunneling ahead. Each step grew heavier as he grew closer to his primary objective for his first night solo: feeding the grotesque snake-creature Maquna.

Every cell was specifically tailored for its inmate. The one for Maquna was five walls of reinforced stone, and a sixth wall made of unbreakable one-way glass. As an added precaution, the blinding scarf over the snake's eyes had been replaced. After Razon's accident, a newly forged iron mask was secured to Maquna's unique humanoid-demon facial bones and sinews. As the cell came in view, Ojo's heart thumped against his ribs.

I can always pull the emergency lever. I'll be fine. A tiny hole in the ceiling was poised to pump a sleeping toxin into the cell, if needed. Though it had done the last guard little good.

Ojo's leaden footfalls closed the distance. Though he had determined not to, he inexplicably found himself staring through the glass at the beast. His knees stiffened and locked as he gazed upon the creature's serpentine tail that morphed into a muscled torso, veined herculean arms, and a face only a demon-mother could love. In Ojo's hands, the box tilted as tiny feet skittered to one side of the package, reminding him of the disgusting task.

"Just breathe, circus boy," a woman's voice with a proper English lilt sounded behind him. Dr. Idalia Jyotsna Devi was in the cell across the hall, too far away to see into the snake's cell, but she could easily spy Ojo.

Unable to move, sweat broke out along Ojo's brow.

"Entranced?" she mused. "Maquna does have that affect on people. He can't help himself. It's in his nature. But he can't take credit for what you're experiencing now. You're holding yourself there, circus boy."

Ojo squirmed within himself, fear rooting his feet to the stones beneath them. There was a scratch and then music sounded from Lady Absinth's cell. A smooth, brass melody that loosened his muscles. His lungs released his locked breath, and his back relaxed enough for him to turn. He couldn't see Dr. Devi, but he pictured her by her gramophone, watching the record go round and round.

He shifted his focus back to the box in his hands, air holes stabbed in the top with a knife. Kneeling at the bottom of the one way glass, he placed his thumb on the wall, and a five by five inch slit wavered and then disappeared. Pulling a latch on the box, the ferret broke free. From the frying pan and into the fire, the ferret rushed into Maquna's cell. Pressing his palm on the wall again, the door waved shut, locking the ferret inside.

The snake's body jerked to the side. Ojo jumped back, unable to tear away from the sight. The massive beast's body went rigid, hovering. His tail twitched, then he dove at the ferret, snatching it up, his hands quick and sure. Then he swallowed the creature whole. Alive.

"Maquna prefers to strangle his prey first," Lady Absinth said, her voice flat. "Kill it. Then eat it. But a ferret is too small to bother with. The Council knows this. Yet they refuse to send anything bigger to satiate him. They're just frustrating the beast. That's probably why he went to the effort to rip the last blinder off him."

A trickle of sweat ran down Ojo's back. He'd suspected the snake managed to remove the blinder, but hearing the doctor say as much made it all the more real. The beast had more power over magic than Ojo had wanted to admit.

"He'll never get this one off," Ojo blurted.

"You're probably right," she nodded. Dr. Devi seemed more detached than actually dangerous, but Ojo had the feeling of being studied like a fortune teller studies her cards. "What toxic mess did they send me today, circus boy?"

Ojo sorted through the remaining dinners, wondering how she'd figured out he was from a circus book. Few knew his background. Most characters rarely spoke of how they ended up in Rogue Destiny—each character's literary past generally came with painful memories of loss. But the Council knew everything about Ojo, including his body's ability to stretch like saltwater taffy. Despite what his comrade had said, the Council put him through rigorous testing. A clown from a light-hearted choose-your-own-adventure could be as effective a soldier as a combatant from a sci-fi space military novel. And Ojo would prove it.

Ojo pulled out a platter with a silver dome, both of them knowing she received the finest accommodations in the entire prison. Dr. Devi wore a dark, full skirt that brushed the floor when she walked, with a fitted, button-up bodice, and a velvet waist-coat. Delicate lace peeked out from the sleeves of the coat and along her neckline. Her hair was pulled up into a loose bun, a curl of dark hair escaping near her temple. Her room was furnished with plush rugs, an oak desk, a sitting area, cupboards, every flat surface cluttered with her inventions, even the edge of her canopied bed. Canopied. Of all the cells on any level, she was the only one with any privacy.

Ojo had been overwhelmed by the vast universe of Literary Worlds available from Rogue Destiny, but settled into a few favorites, including Sherlock Holmes; he imagined Dr. Devi would've fit in nicely there. Perhaps she had been there, but was flagged as potentially dangerous and yanked out by a Raconteur, making her an ageless thirty-five year old woman, give or take a few years.

She waited politely by her gramophone as Ojo pressed his hand to the bars, a portion of them disappearing as he cleared away her last domed platter. The bars had been recalibrated to only leave a sliver of air around the serving dishes. His hands squished down, the bars constricting his flesh, his rubber-like body pressed nearly flat to fit through the space, then rebounding back to its usual size. Lady Absinth watched him with cool curiosity from across the room. His elastic DNA was the reason the Council hired him above the other candidates, touting another layer of security with Ojo delivering the food. When he had pushed in her new tray and stepped back, Absinth moved to a side table, and twisted the knob on some kind of steaming contraption before fetching the fresh platter of food. Ojo had seen it before, but her inventions always amazed him. Soon a kettle atop of it was burbling, and she poured herself a cup of tea.

Setting her tea aside, she moved to a cupboard on the wall, relocating sketches, her compass, coils and metal scraps. Finally, she spoke, "Ah, here it is."

On the desk behind her, the usual piles of paperwork had been shoved to the side in favor of a thick, worn book. Her table light was still on, the green cover casting the room in a sickly hew.

"Circus boy, you really must learn to school your mind," Lady Absinth chastised as she plopped something yellow into a sack. "I might have just the thing."

The cyber soldier's warning rang in the back of Ojo's mind. He shoved the cart forward, determined to get the rest of his route finished quickly. "No, thank you."

"Another time, perhaps," she said without raising her voice.

Ojo grunted, his mind wandering to the evening he had planned. Could he turn the horror of feeding a ferret to the snake into a humorous tale? With a bit of embellishment, perhaps. His job was terrifying, but the pay was decent. And Ojo enjoyed his new acceptance at Rogue Destiny's most popular establishments, including the Obtuse Turtle. Even Racs were often spotted there when they were on world. With the upcoming trial, more and more of the infamous literary protectors arrived each day. His acceptance at the Turtle couldn't have come at a more opportune time. He'd even made a friend or two. Not bad for a chapter-book clown. Though Ojo was under oath not to divulge anything about the security, unless he wanted to end up in Lazaranth himself. He'd had himself be-spelled to twist his tongue into nonsense if he ever got drunk, or slept. No sleep talking was going to land him behind bars.

Despite his newfound acceptance, Ojo's nerves wound tighter with each passing day. A few weeks had gone by since his first day alone in the dungeon, and it seemed that the prisoners were getting more interested in him, not more bored by his presence. His skin itched, and the back of his neck pricked. He'd even tried flattening his body a bit and stretching taller. But all it did was draw even more attention to him. Not good.

"Are you sure you don't want my help with the prisoners?" Dr. Devi didn't look up from her notes as her quill scratched across a paper. "I'm not a savage, you know. Just someone who likes to test the limits of science. Let me help you."

Something brushed over his toe, tiny claws sending a flood of adrenaline through Ojo's body. Ojo jumped and let out a pitiful, strangled cry. In the same moment, the vermin squeaked. Only a rat. Ojo internally cursed as the critter skittered further down the hall, hugging a wall. The rat inadvertently crossed a red line. A furry, clawed paw shot out, lighting fast, trapping the rat in a cage against the floor. The claws slowly scrapped across the stone before disappearing back inside its barred cell.

Ojo clenched his jaw, his gaze fixed on the spot where the rat had just been. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he vaguely recognized he was standing in front of a high security prisoner, with only a few bars between them, but no red line. He ignored her, his shoulders hunched, as he delivered the remaining trays.

It'd been a month since Ojo had first fed Maquna. Ojo placed a box with haphazard air holes on the top of his trolley. He ran a hand down his stubbly chin. All night he'd dreamed he was a ferret, running for his life down a never-ending corridor. He stood rooted to the steps, his stomach in knots. As much as he didn't want to give up his newfound popularity, he worried his comrades were right: a clown wasn't meant for serious work.

He frowned, forcing himself forward. He wondered what it would be like to have his memory of this place erased. He knew that was the Council's rules for any guards with higher security clearance. And he'd heard rumors about how erasure wasn't an exact science. What else would he forget? He shook off his feeling and grit his teeth, determined to overcome his paranoia.

He dragged his feet to the one-way glass, staring at his boots, wondering if there was anything else acceptable to feed the snake.

"If you don't do it, Maquna will make a fuss," Lady Absinth remarked in her crisp English accent. "And the next guard on duty will know you didn't do your job. Do you want that?"

Ojo inwardly groaned. He shoved the box up to the glass wall, slamming his palm against the glass. He closed his eyes, but he could hear the crunch of bones before he could get the feeding gate closed again. He'd hear that sound over and over again in his sleep. How long could he bear the weight of this repugnant job?

Ojo was running out of options. What harm would it do to hear the doctor's suggestion? "What did you have in mind?"

"There is a toy, a rather silly thing, actually. But Maquna adores it. Most everyone here knows it belongs to him. They all recognize it by sight, or by smell. If you give it to Maquna, he'll back off. And he'll signal to everyone else to leave you be as well."

The idea was preposterous. A deadly snake with a childish attachment? The doctor must want something desperately. Ojo wasn't a fool. "What do you want for it?"

"Something simple. Information is all." She sat on the edge of her desk, her eyes glittering in the greenish light. "When is the Raconteur's trial?"

Ojo paused, wondering at such a mundane question. "In a week. Why?"

"Only a week. That doesn't give me much time." She glanced at the snake and then jotted something in her journal. "And all the Raconteurs are coming for the trial, I presume?"

Ojo nodded. "The ones who can, I'm guessing. Why?"

"Seven days, then." She turned and pulled open her top desk drawer, procuring a yellow object nearly swallowed by her palm. She placed it under the food dome and left it for Ojo to retrieve.

Ojo tugged the tray toward him, lifting the lid. "A rubber duckie?" He raised an eyebrow. "The snake adores this thing?"

His first impulse was to chuck it back at her. Was she mocking him? But even he knew it was tempting fate to spurn one of the prisoners, behind bars or not. He slunk forward, wanting to forget the whole exchange. At least the doctor had only asked how many days it was until the trial. That wasn't much at all.

But as Ojo walked down the hall, an unseen prisoner hissed at him from behind a solid door. Another scurried to the back of its cell. Ojo stopped and plucked the rubber duck from the tray. The creature next to him whined and covered his face with furry claws.

Finishing his round, almost back to the exit, the wizard paused his muttering. He dropped his hands to his knees and slid his gaze over to the rubber duck on the trolley. The prisoner swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down. Ojo looked from the duck to the prisoner and back again. Perhaps there was more to the toy than he thought.

"Still donning the duck, I see." Dr. Devi commented as Ojo removed her platter. "To you it's a powerful trinket, but to Maquna it's everything. Give it to him, and you'll gain his loyalty. He'll mark you as his and will never again be a threat to hold you in a trance."

Ojo clasped the rubber duck. The string hooking it on his belt was knotted like a noose around its yellow neck, securing it like a sidearm to his hip.

"You like the fear of the prisoners. But remember, they fear the smell of Maquna, not the toy itself. Give him the toy, and his loyalty will keep them away forever, whether you have the duckie or not."

Ojo jerked his gaze to the woman behind the bars. "Why are you helping me?"

"I'm simply a curious scientist, Ojo. I'm driven to use mechanics to break the laws of nature. I'm on the verge of something great and Maquna's frustration oozes throughout the corridor, distracting me from my work."

"But you'll never be able to put your inventions to use."

"That's beside the point, circus boy," she said, her head tilting as she examined him. "It's all in the accomplishment. Nothing else matters."

Ojo wondered at the doctor's reputation, and her nickname, Lady Absinth.

"Deliver this duckie, gain Maquna's loyalty, dissuade the other prisoners from their interest in you, and quiet the fear in the corridors." She lowered her voice. "It's better for everyone this way."

Ojo ran a hand down the side of his clean-shaven face. He'd felt better since he'd received the duckie, an amulet of sorts. But if he could gain the snakes loyalty, now that would be a tale. Even one the Racs would like to hear.

Turning, he untied the duckie and approached the snake's door. It was smaller than the ferrets, but only just. He pressed his hands against the glass, then clutched the duckie, hesitant to let it go. Down the hall, the sound of claws screeched and echoed as the prisoner sharpened them against the stone. Ojo took a breath and pressed the toy through, his hands compressing, squeezing the duck. On the other side of the glass, Ojo's hands returned to their normal size, his amulet and peace offering in the cell.

The snake's tail twitched. Sharp fingernails dug into Ojo's hands, puncturing the duck between them. A shock of horror reverberated down Ojo's spine as he was jerked inward. His arms flattened as he was violently pulled through the hole.

Before he could cry out, his shoulder smashed against the glass. His arms expanded inside the cell as he fought wildly against Maquna's grip. The duckie fell from his grasp. In a flash, the creature's teeth sunk into the flesh of Ojo's palm. This time Ojo's scream pierced the air. In his periphery, he caught the swish of a black skirt. He sucked in a breath, hearing only the quill scratching on parchment. Ojo's skin was tearing with the force of the snake's frenzied movements. Still, the guard lost ground, his body flattening, sliding inch by inch into the cell. Pain exploded as his shoulder, skull, and then his upper back squeezed, pushing his genetics to the edge of their ability. He pushed out his legs into a desperate split, frantically trying to keep himself from being pulled completely into the cell.

The body of the snake flexed, muscles rippling across its humanoid chest. Ojo felt the glass scraping across his lower back. His body automatically contracted, fitting through the tiny hole. Still, the explosive pain made it impossible to have a coherent thought. A crack sounded from his hip, but he barely felt anything beyond the numb terror.

Maquna 's warm breath puffed over Ojo's neck. The guard's feet stretched, his boots popping off his feet as they smashed against the glass. The snake jerked, its serpentine body wrapping around Ojo. He tried to scream, but couldn't.

As the snake squeezed, Ojo caught a glance in a spiraling space between the scaled tail of the beast. The yellow duckie lay on the ground, discarded. Beyond, he could only hear Lady Absinth's cooing voice.

"Interesting experiment, my pet," she said.

Maquna was a pet? Ojo's frame thinned under the pressure of the snake's constriction. Ojo's body was slick with sweat, pushed beyond his limits, as the snake continued to tighten its grip.

"I told you I could get you an unscheduled feeding. You doubted I could do it before the trial. I myself didn't know if it was possible. Still, it's good to have goals." Dr. Devi's voice was barely discernible through the small hole left open in the glass.

Ojo couldn't see the doctor, but he imagined her quill scratching. He concentrated on oozing through the snake's grip, despite knowing he couldn't control his body like that. Still, he tried. In the recess of his mind, he cried, but his lungs didn't respond beyond a gasp.

"So tell me how it feels, circus boy." Lady Absinth's voice was calm. "Knowing these are your final seconds as your lungs are crushed and your breath taken while you slip into the abyss."

His vision grayed, and somewhere in the back of his mind, he wondered, Who will close the food access slit?

"I have always been a student of Death and never miss a chance to record it firsthand," the doctor continued.

A maniacal laugh burbled in the back of Ojo's mind. Of course it all made sense now—her name, Lady Absinth.

The snake twisted, and Ojo felt himself drifting away as he heard the doctor's final words.

"This is for science after all."