Afro Puffs Are The Antennae Of The Universe

by Zig Zag Claybourne

  If nothing else, there’d better be a goatee on his chin.

  What there were, were paintings everywhere. Large ones, small ones, rough sketches, masterpieces. There was also, noted Keita, a row of large, white canvases hung side by side, as though one out of a billion messages existed there for the seeking.

  Guerris himself (no, Guerilla, Keita reminded herself): a fawn. A dusting of pollen atop dew. Wiry arms from gesticulating with brushes in hand; flat butt from sitting; wide, slightly wild eyes from attempting vision. He had a narrow face that ended in a hairless, nubby chin. Very hairless. As in no goatee. As in disappointing.

  But he was a damn good hugger, throwing his entire soul and body into the embrace.

  Keita returned the pleasure.

  Guerilla broke the hug, upper torso only, bending back enough to look at Keita’s face. He was smiling too genuinely to speak, but words were generally superfluous when so much joy was evident. He looked at her as though she were a new lover, not a new acquaintance, and though that wouldn’t be happening, he was another good reason to be glad to come to Atlantis.

  “Which language would you like to speak?” he asked her. “I can tell you speak several.”

  “Maba?” Keita asked.

  He then greeted Keita with perfect Maba, finishing in Atlantidean with “It’s an artful language” as enough explanation for this fawn knowing the rhythms and stoppages flawlessly.

  They broke the hug, smiling.

  “I’m not completely sure of my Atlantidean,” Keita said.

  “You’ll be by the time you leave this house. Yvonne and Neon were naturals.”

  “Is true,” said Yvonne, which in Atlantidean was Jat Ch’kum. To Neon: “What, two, three months?”

  “Two,” said Neon.

  “It helps when immersion is dealing with the aftermath of a giant psychic whale thing,” said Yvonne.

  Guerilla motioned toward seats. “Their first time out with the Jetstreams was eventful,” he told Keita.

  “Understatement,” Keita said. “I’ve read all the reports. You were a big inspiration to Milo and Ramses.”

  “They exaggerate everything,” he said.

  Desiree removed a tarp from the corner of a large canvas taking up considerable space in the sitting room. “Not this,” she said. She clearly had seen it before, clearly knew its significance, and clearly wanted it—and nothing else—to serve in this instance as the final recap to Keita of the Jetstreams’ most memorable foray into Atlantis.

  The art hit the newcomer like a sermon.

  Jetstreams’ Last Stand. Guerrilla had intended it to stand alongside The Court of Death, Life Retold, Mourning Angels—even The Universe Pursues. It wasn’t finished, but even its rough state demanded respect. Individuals were represented by swaths of color and energy, the entire painting seeming to be in subtle motion without giving any sense of a destination, more a cycle.

  “This feels like thanks,” said Desiree, who had piloted the Ann that last stand for what she’d thought might be the mortal last.

  “You never ask for it,” said the artist.

  Desiree demurred, a slight smile directed toward the floor. She took a seat beside the canvas.

  “You should have been there,” Guerilla said to Keita. “It was as if we’d all sprouted wings, intending to fly.”

  “Angels,” said Keita.

  “Angels,” he agreed. “Which reminds me: are they here?”

  “Battle Ready Bastards? In space,” said Desiree.

  “And,” he prompted, “you’re here to?”

  “Build,” said Desiree.

  Which caused him to beam even more. Keita revised her assessment; maybe she wouldn’t bump uglies with him but, had he asked, she’d marry him. “May I help?” he said, eyes already roughing sculptures and oddly shaped water features. “I’d like to.”

  “I was hoping you would,” said the Captain. “Today, though, we sight-see.” She reached out and gave Keita’s shoulder a squeeze. “This one is wonderful.”

  Guerilla smiled directly at the joy in Keita’s eyes. “I see,” he said. “Musicians are wandering the shores today. First stop?”

  Without a word, the hell yeah was unanimous.

  The instruments were clearly identifiable—most of them, anyway. Guitars, even when made from wood that seemed perpetually wet and shaped unlike guitars, were guitars. Vocals, no matter the language or interweaving harmonics, were vocals, and all the wanderers automatically kept respectful distance from one another, such that the effect of the wandering singles or troupes became one giant show divided into flowing sections.

  The temperature, being warm but not uncomfortably so, was further mollified by the ocean’s salty breeze keeping life flowing between bodies. Keita had expected it to be crowded. A huge free-roaming music festival on a sunny day? Guaranteed wall-to-wall back home in Montmartre.

  Desiree’s ears pricked up. A solo guitarist and a solo drummer riffed to the gods. The crew of adventurers, scientist, and artist found a patch of half grass, half sand and sat to marvel at what was clearly a competition and collaboration.

  Perhaps the operative word for this log entry would be clear. There was a clarity to the space similar to the Elf catacombs. Not peace, not utter harmony, and definitely not paradise (she’d already noted two petty arguments among the citizenry and one outright instance of rudeness to a child—the latter corrected by a single arched brow from Captain Desiree Sandrine Quicho), but clarity existing inside a brain freed from the onslaughts of the unhinged. It was odd not seeing a single billboard, advertisement, or sponsorship banner but a welcome, good odd. There were informational kiosks at intervals where one could access the goings of the day (not everyone had a mobile device), but they looked like human-height hillocks that just happened to spring from the ground. Even the screens looked organically formed per each distinct hillock, some of which were covered in short grass, some appearing as wood, some abstract grey art.

  Keita watched Desiree a moment. The captain—a person who had been all over the globe and witnessed more than nine-tenths of the entire human population had reason to imagine—wore her face completely enraptured by the sonic theatre mere meters away. Certainly, the fire hadn’t been erased from the captain’s mind, but at least the captain was pretending it was, and that meant a lot. Yvonne and Neon swayed and offered syncopated handclaps to the performers, who respected the gift by altering rhythms and beats to encourage even more improvisation.

  Keita placed a checkmark on her mental sheet, approving Atlantis as a home for a woman who had become a good friend.

  She also noticed the captain kept watch on the water near them, but for what? Leviathan was asleep, the kraken hadn’t been released for four hundred years, and there was no truth whatsoever to the rumor that singularities were becoming amphibious. As far as they knew, there hadn’t been a Thoom or Nonrich incursion since Buford’s defeat, and even the Vamphyr (Keita admitted to preference at this pronunciation) had lain low these past quick months.

  She made yet another mental note. If the captain was wary, so was she.

  The guitarist shouted a sudden request. “Out-Blank suggestion!”

  “Don’t show off your travels!” the tiny drummer shouted good-naturedly. Xe beamed, though, hoping for something excellent to riff from.

  “‘Computer Blue’!” Desiree shouted back. The guitarist’s solo seamlessly evolved into a passable facsimile of the transcendent guitar solo from said song. The drummer obliged with a resoundingly tasty, funky drum slap at the appropriate accent points. The guitarist, a man so round, his fingers were two of everyone else’s, took this energy and transformed it into a repeating motif always just on the edge of completion but never quite, making grinning goofs of those in the audience familiar with the song, and everyone else simply grinning.

  The festival didn’t seem sponsored, didn’t seem to be making any funds for anyone, celebrating religion, or leaning toward straight carnival. Keita leaned toward Guerr
illa. “What’s the purpose of this music?” she said into his ear, then offered her own for his response.

  It took him a split second to understand the question. “To play!” he said into the curls of her hair. It hit her ear and made her smile and laugh.

  Hashira Megu knew the Thoom didn’t have the Bilomatic Entrance. Maurice knew it too, but pretexts were pretexts. Such a brazen act was a declaration of war whether the attacked knew a gauntlet had been thrown or not. Such was the way of things for those with power. Maurice had already authorized strikes against Thoom bases in the US and Russia. Nonrich had routed three Thoom research facilities the past three days alone. Even the vampires were enjoying the farce. In a bar fight, always punch for the body already going down.

  As long as Megu was left to release infected yet enticing data out to hungry, frantic eyes—for there was no way the Thoom weren’t scrambling wildly in full WTF mode—she could oblige Maurice et al their theatrics.

  Of course, she could create another Bilomatic Entrance. It would be time-consuming to be done properly, but she suspected the thieves knew that. Normally, she would have had three prototypes in production simultaneously, but this particular project, with all its surprises, advancements, and quasi-miracles, demanded she in turn surprise herself and change her tactics. She could make a hundred Bilomatic Entrances before she died, if she were so inclined. But there was only one BE with her soul. That mattered. Mattered a lot.

  Those who had the current BE would put it to use.

  Megu never worked for less than she was worth. Megu never worked for anything beneath her talents.

  And by whatever love she still felt for what she and Maurice had been, Hashira Megu never worked for free. That included her soul and all adjacent material.

  She finished lunch quietly and privately in her lab, left the various bots to straighten things up (she’d had a taste for peanut noodles and baklava, the former for its exquisite simplicity, the latter for its joyous messiness, flaky bits of crust looking like a celebratory end to a parade), and set herself the task of finding precisely who had her property by meditating.

  She had no interest in the games of vampires, Thoom, Kosugi, and the Nonrich Queen.

  For herself, she would wait for the Jetstreams to show their hand.

  “There’s a music festival in Abba,” said Compoté. Compoté found no humor in this. Cobra Commander pitied Compoté.

  “A date, Number One?” she said.

  “If so ordered.”

  Jesus. “No. Please relay that to everyone in case there was a slim hope rising in anybody. Nobody’s going anywhere. That’s how mistakes get made.”

  “Agreed. Which is why it should be only us. Mistakes won’t get made.”

  “And intel gathered?”

  “Likely,” he said.

  Likely. Eight months hiding, sitting, waiting, thumbs figuratively—except for one instance requiring disciplinary action—up butts in a fantastical setting smack-dab in the mundane world. Keeping discipline and focus under similar lack of action for eight months in Des Moines would be hard enough; her platoon deserved a tiny bit of levity, and morale always came from the top down.

  “Native garb,” said Sharon.

  “Weaponry?”

  “Small arms, nonlethal.”

  Compoté nodded but didn’t smile. Not even an extra step to his stepping lively.

  Ah, well. A ride in the native rover they’d procured would be fun; a little open speed, a little air, and the music would definitely be worth a late afternoon. Any music would. Except country.

  Sharon Deetz, all wiry, steely-eyed Linda Hamilton inches of her, didn’t do country.

  Sharon couldn’t help noticing that Atlantideans ate a lot of sausages: sausage sandwiches, sausage bites, skewered sausages. They clustered in groups of threes for conversation. As intel went, it wasn’t vital, but rank had its privileges. Rank got its walk in the sun, its delicious food bits under the artwork of a perfect blue-green sky, and—even better—music good enough to make her long for her guitar.

  Compoté returned to her side with two large cones in hand after being gone for several minutes. He handed hers over. It was filled with large, brown, dry globules. She looked at it suspiciously.

  “I tried one. Tastes like key lime pie,” he said. Then he gave what was for him a confused frown. “I could’ve sworn I heard Earth, Wind and Fire somewhere.”

  The commander transferred her suspicious look from the contents of the waxy cone to him.

  “‘Reasons,’” he said. “Instrumental.”

  One, she was surprised he knew about Earth, Wind & Fire. She, being something of a music snob, had dated several DJs in early college. “Should we keep eye out for Phillip Bailey?”

  “I’d say more likely Verdine from the sound of it.” He indicated the direction of the suspect music. Shoreside.

  Sharon popped one of the jawbreaker-sized treats into her mouth. It actually did taste like key lime pie, crust and all, despite her brain telling her it should have tasted like a cinnamon bite or other doughnutty goodness. A key lime doughnut ball. Atlantis was weird.

  They wove through the festival crowd, silently munching, both constantly watching. The closer they got to the source of Compoté’s mystery, the less the pretense of watching for anything in particular held. Insects kept trying to land on Sharon’s treats, but if that was the greatest irritation of the day, she’d take it.

  And then it hit her. She stopped. “Truman! You brought me Schweddy balls. Oh my god, you have a soul.”

  Compoté stifled a smile. “Just hoping ma’am liked ’em” was all he said.

  A swell of music and cheering swallowed the small laugh she gave him.

  The music wasn’t Earth, Wind & Fire.

  It was David Bowie.

  And while the rumor that Amelia Earhart lived somewhere on this vast paradise was eternal, there was no way in hell the late David Bowie shared the same postal code.

  “Did you…” said Compoté.

  “‘Fame,’” said Sharon. They walked faster.

  A mass of people surrounded the tune. Now and then, Sharon caught snatches of the musicians as the crowd shifted.

  “Seriously,” said Sharon, “who the hell here knows ‘Fame’ by David Bowie? Scan the crowd closest to the musicians.”

  They separated. When they met at the completion of their circle, Compoté shook his head curtly.

  “Don’t be obvious,” she said. “Don’t go military on me. Nothing?”

  He relaxed into place at her side. “Nobody stays in place more than five seconds.”

  “These musicians are too damn good.”

  “Too damn good,” he seconded.

  “Okay, so there’s a chance there’re interests here, or just a huge coincidence I wouldn’t put money on in my own mama’s casino.”

  The music segued from Bowie-esque to strictly Atlantidean jazz. A singer’s voice boomed its thanks to Desiree Quicho and crew for their inspiration for this impromptu out-Blank jam session. The crowd hooted its pleasure.

  Deetz and Compoté looked at each other.

  “Get back to the rover. I don’t want to take any chance of them spotting us on radio. Tell a small squad to haul ass to that build site. Have them bring mines. Lots of mines. Tell them to stay invisible for thirty minutes, then have them radio me. Tell them I will be on my way. I’ll meet you at the rover in fifteen minutes.”

  Compoté left.

  Sharon got close enough to the musicians for her shout of “Encores! More!” to be heard over the din.

  This sent the musicians into paroxysms of joy and renewed out-Blank improvisation.

  Nobody ever left during encores.

  In the rover, Compoté told her, “This is a huge risk, ma’am.”

  I’m getting that boat. “We’re prepped for opportunity,” said Commander Deetz. “Opportunity is not without risk. Understood?”

  “Understood.”

  She could sail anywhere in the wor
ld on that boat.

  Or nobody would.

  When the last grunt placed the last mine, Sharon gave the fallback order. Unfortunately, a sudden migration of yebaums from the trees blocked what was otherwise an efficient backfall, illustrating the importance of awareness of local fauna and flora as more than background noise. She hadn’t known there were so many of them. They must have blended with the trees.

  And they were quiet, little more than the rustling a sustained wind might cause. Like a solemn procession out of a church on a high holy day.

  She considered opening fire, except that’d sully an otherwise incredible moment of oneupsmanship: Captain Desiree Quicho’s ship festooned with mines, a clear message to walk away from that troublesome Jetstream life and surrender to Sharon’s superior force.

  The yebaums paid the expensively outfitted people no mind, unhurriedly picking their way around grunt, commander, and Compoté alike, some of the potato-shaped tree dwellers carrying offspring on their backs, others munching wads of leaves as they passed.

  Sharon held up an arm and made a fist. There had to have been at least a hundred meandering through.

  Her group—self, Compoté and two people on long-range perimeter duty included—totaled twelve.

  In the sudden stillness she picked up the nearly subsonic thrum of a rover moving at breakneck speed.

  Cobra Commander tapped the weapon at her hip and gave a thumbs-up, telling herself, Even if you steal a boat, you don’t get to ride it for free.

  The breakneck speed of the rover? Neon at the controls. Wide-open terrain outside of the forested areas and a vehicle capable of making the Kessel run in twelve parsecs? When else was that kind of freedom not only accessible but encouraged?

  “Faster!” Yvonne shouted.

  “You got this?” Desiree said, seated beside Neon.

  “I got this.” The key was keeping the rover a minimum of two feet off the ground, ensuring plenty of time to compensate for sudden wind dips, particularly as she had the rover entirely on manual. The best way to get to know a machine was at its most basic and raw. Engineering 101.