Enormity

by Nick Milligan

  “I see.”

  “A holy one. A child that shares the blood of both our species.”

  “A Messiah,” I say.

  “Precisely,” says Brannagh, and smiles whole-heartedly. He seems satisfied that I understand the bigger picture. That I’m up to speed. That we’re on the same page.

  “You think I’m the Messiah?”

  “I know you are, Jack.”

  I gaze with faux reverence at the skeleton as lies form in my mouth and trip off my tongue. “I haven’t told anyone this, but I’ve been having very intense dreams.”

  “Yes?” asks Brannagh, his interest peaked.

  “I’ve been hearing a voice. I’m lying in bed and there’s a wide, dark shape standing at the end of my bed, almost filling the entire room. My entire field of vision. It’s a deep voice, but it’s gentle too. It keeps telling me to be ready. ‘Be ready, be ready,’ it says over and over again.”

  Brannagh is almost catatonic. He nods slowly, accepting every word as gospel. My momentous admission has filled him with joy.

  “Jack,” he says, walking over to me, taking my right hand in both of his, “you will be ready. Your followers will be behind you and the offerings will be complete. We will show them that we desire their return.”

  “Thank you, Marty.”

  “We are supposed to know in our hearts who the Messiah is. He or she, in the scriptures, is supposed to have an indelible impact on our population. To be a momentous individual. Your music, Jack. It’s spiritual. It’s life-altering. It flows out of you as if from a higher entity. I knew it was you. In my soul I knew it was you from the moment I heard your music.”

  “That’s very kind.”

  “You have their blood, Jack. Your beating heart heralds their return.”

  “What about the girls upstairs? What’s their part in all of this?”

  “They believe. They feel your power when they’re around you. Those women were chosen by you and they were inexplicably drawn to you.”

  I can’t argue with that.

  “You breathed life into Stephanie. On my yacht. We all saw that,” says Brannagh.

  “Yes, I did.”

  “The porcines in the nightclub. The night you were out with Natalie. They were placated by you. They never behave like that around humans.”

  “So I’ve been told.”

  “And just now, before our very eyes, a deadly creature invaded my home and by your command it obeyed you and was banished. That is unheard of. None of us have ever seen anything like that.” Brannagh walks over to the rope and closes the large curtain. “Those young, vibrant girls upstairs believe in you,” he adds. “They believe in you and they worship you.”

  “That’s very flattering.”

  “Those young women upstairs have offered their bodies for the return.”

  I’m not sure what Brannagh means by this. “How so?”

  “That has yet to be determined. We await the next sign.”

  “Excellent.”

  “Be alert and try to take in these dreams you are having. It’s likely your father will tell you what to do next.”

  “Where does that Marioneta de Carne exhibition fit in?”

  Brannagh smiles. “They’re simply the people who have already offered their bodies to the return. This has been many hundreds of years in the making.”

  “It seems like a large sacrifice.”

  “We all die. We cannot turn our back on the chance to be significant. It is how we transcend death.”

  I don’t reply. I just give Brannagh a warm smile.

  “Let’s return upstairs,” he says. “Let’s return to them. The night is young and we need to rejoice. The holy ones ask that we fulfill every desire.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Natalie and I arrive at the check-in counter of the Pluie Tordue. The desk clerk’s eyes fill with amazement.

  “Hello… sir. How can I be of service this evening?”

  “I’d like to check-in to the emperor’s suite please,” I smile.

  Natalie puts an arm around my waist and gives the young clerk a suggestive grin. She holds her clutch with her spare hand.

  “Of course, yes,” he says, tapping furiously at the keyboard in front of him, looking at the computer screen. “How long will you be staying with us?”

  “We’ll start with just one night,” says Natalie. “If we last one night, then we might stay for a second.” She’s back to being mischievous again.

  The clerk just smiles and nods, unable to elicit a response to Natalie’s provocativeness.

  “Any luggage?” he asks.

  “We just brought ourselves,” says Natalie.

  “Well, if you need anything, don’t hesitate to call for service,” smiles the clerk politely.

  “What more could we possibly need?” asks Natalie.

  The hotel room is gigantic and extremely decadent. It is indeed fit for an emperor. It almost looks Egyptian or Arabian, like a lavish set built for a Cleopatra movie.

  Once the grand double doors to the room are locked behind us, Natalie quickly navigates our surroundings, looking at the television, the sound-system and the many other electrical devices. She then lifts up every pillow and cushion in the room, shaking them, assessing their weight and balance.

  “May I enquire?” I ask.

  “Just being cautious,” she says.

  “Rather than hunting for them, wouldn’t it be easier to have room service just bring us some prophylactics?”

  “You’re very funny.”

  “Please tell me what the fuck’s going on.”

  Natalie scowls at me and continues to search the room. I watch her move about. She’s thorough. She knows what she’s doing.

  “So who are you?” I ask her.

  “Who are you?” she replies, stopping her search and walking up to me, staring me in the face.

  “The world’s most eligible bachelor.”

  “No more fucking around,” says Natalie, with a calm but detectably aggressive tone. “How did you make that arachnid walk outside?”

  “I asked politely.”

  Natalie huffs. She takes a deep, calming breath. “Five years ago an object landed in the middle of the ocean, about fifteen miles from the coast. It was destroyed after impact.”

  I smile. “You’re very sexy when you’re being expositional.”

  “It sank to the bottom of the ocean but the parts were retrieved and reassembled.”

  “Go on.”

  “It’s believed that whatever landed inside the craft may have been humanoid.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “There was obviously extensive damage, but we could still study certain aspects of the interior and the ergonomics of the design. Levers, control panels and parts of a seat.”

  “And?”

  “And we also found an inflatable raft washed up on a beach. An old priest that lived nearby found it and called the police. We couldn’t work out who it belonged to. It wasn’t navy or military. It didn’t belong to any fishing or shipping organisations or private cruise ships. It had our language printed on it, but it had no owner.”

  “We?” I ask. “Who’s we? Who do you work for?”

  “I’m in a very precarious position.”

  “How so?”

  “It wasn’t my job to be following you and studying you.”

  “No?”

  “I’ve been getting close to Brannagh.”

  “Record deal?”

  “No. The reason is more to do with his secret life as a cult leader and his link to the Narc dens. You were never my problem.”

  “So why am I your problem now?”

  “Because Brannagh has become obsessed with you and these two very separate assignments have become… intimately woven.”

  “So what makes you think I would know anything about this inflatable boat or the thing that crashed?”

  Natalie sidesteps my question. “Brannagh believes all that nonsense about t
he winged people. How there used to be these creatures with wings on the planet that we co-existed with. Other people that believe it have been gravitating towards him. They have essentially been coalescing as a modern version of the Niños de Macarbe.”

  “And Brannagh believes a Messiah is going to return.”

  “Yes, so when he sees you on his yacht, somehow bringing Stephanie back to life, it puts an idea in his head.”

  “That I’m… special?”

  “That you might be the Messiah he’s been waiting for. The missing link that was to appear before their return.”

  “So he thinks my dad was a winged demon and my mum was a human. Meanwhile,” I say, walking over to the minibar to find a beer, “you’ve been getting close to Brannagh, using your charms to be initiated into the Niños de Macarbe.”

  “I started by getting a job at the Walkley Gallery, working on installations. I worked my way up to being a curator. Brannagh took a shine to me.”

  “I bet he did,” I smile, choosing a beer from the small fridge and twisting off the top. I take a long swig. “And he also gave you the very important assignment of acquiring a DNA sample from me.”

  Natalie walks to me to and takes a long drink of my beer, before handing the bottle back to me. “When the DNA sample came back as… not human, it confirmed it for him. You were the Messiah.”

  “But it also alerted you to the fact that…?”

  “That you might not be from around these parts,” smiles Natalie. “You don’t have a background. You seemingly appeared from nowhere. Your mythology is such a huge part of your charm that no one has dared question it. Homeless people have their names registered in the shelters and are crosschecked with birth records, but you’re not registered anywhere. Somehow you’ve been homeless your whole life? A handsome, talented and educated songwriter?”

  “What can I say? I slipped through the cracks.”

  Natalie shakes her head as she sits on the end of the wide double bed. “Do you know what he’s planning to do to those girls?”

  “Well, I’ve seen the rather fucked up exhibit in his gallery, so I have some insight... but how the hell is he convincing them that all this is true?”

  “It’s a combination of factors. They’re girls who are already enamoured with you and your music. Girls you’ve slept with and then cast aside to pine for another opportunity to meet you again. He contacts them, shows them the footage from the yacht, the DNA tests, spins them the story about how we used to share the world with these winged creatures… then he takes them down to his basement and shows them the skeleton.”

  “Ah, the skeleton. Very impressive.”

  “They believe it. So far they’ve all believed it.”

  “I have to hand it to him, he’s crafty. He even convinced my friend Rose, and she’s a smart, perceptive person.”

  “Deep down people want to believe in things like this. That there’s a purpose for them beyond the cycle of birth and death.”

  I take another swig of my beer, thinking. “So why are you revealing yourself to me now? I might decide to blow your cover. Brannagh keeps me very rich. My money is invested through a firm that he’s intrinsically linked to. It’s in my best interests to be loyal to him. He could make life very difficult for me.”

  “Life’s already getting very difficult for me,” says Natalie. “Keeping you in the dark about all of this is going to end up blowing my cover anyway.”

  “That’s not a reason to keep me from telling Brannagh.”

  “Now the government finally knows who you are, they have the option of making you disappear. You’re…”

  “What? An illegal immigrant?”

  “We’re well within our rights to have you locked away and studied.”

  “If you hadn’t noticed, I’m kind of a big deal.”

  “Famous singers die all the time. You’re a wild party animal who’s surely only one festive gathering away from an overdose.”

  “So why not do it then? Just take me out.”

  “Because it’s ideal for everyone involved if you help us. We can’t strike Brannagh down until we’ve acquired enough information about everyone involved in this. We need to make sure this organisation doesn’t emerge again.”

  “But what’s in it for me?”

  “It’s my job to peacefully learn your story. To be your liaison. To be the conduit between your species and ours. We can help each other. We can learn from each other. I can protect you from Brannagh and what he might do. We’re not sure what he’s capable of.”

  “So I help you and then we just sit down and chat, race to race? I have no guarantee that you won’t lock me up and experiment on me anyway.”

  “You just have to trust me,” says Natalie. “Helping me would be crucial in convincing the government that you should be a citizen here. It might help them look past your various… social indiscretions.” She motions for me to sit on the bed with her. I reluctantly oblige. “I swear to you, Jack, I will make sure no harm comes to you. We don’t want you to stop being a part of our society. You can keep writing and releasing songs. You bring so much joy to so many people. But we really need to know why you’re here and where you’re from.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet you do.”

  “Please, Jack. I have been a very vocal advocate of you. You’re a gifted creature and I know there’s more to you than the public’s image. The way you’ve managed to assimilate is remarkable. You’re obviously of a high intelligence.”

  “I crashed here,” I shrug. “I’ve had no choice but to assimilate. It wasn’t my intention to become so … prominent, but things got out of control.”

  Natalie hangs on my every word. “So where are you from specifically?”

  “Another planet.”

  “How did you learn our language so quickly?”

  “It’s the same language,” I reply. “You essentially speak the same language as where I’m from.”

  Natalie stares into my eyes. I think she’s trying to determine if I’m lying by reading my face. “That’s impossible,” she says. “It’s… highly unlikely.”

  “It could seem so,” I say. “But it wholly depends on what you base that assessment. Up until now language and its development has been studied on the basis that it only exists on one planet. If you knew that a language existed on two planets, then your approach to studying it would be entirely different. It’s all about your realm of knowledge.”

  Natalie nods. “It’s certainly a lot to get your head around… it’s just amazing,” she says, quietly. “And even your anatomy is… basically, identical. You’re exactly like us.”

  She has certainly taken some time to study my anatomy. “It does seem that way. Our DNA is marginally different, but the difference seems genetically superficial. But that’s not really my area of expertise.”

  Natalie takes my beer and helps herself to another long gulp, then hands it back to me. “What is your area of expertise?”

  I just shrug. “Enough about me, let’s talk about you.”

  “Me? What do you need to know?”

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m Natalie.”

  “Natalie the secret agent?”

  “Perhaps,” she says. “Though that’s certainly not my background.”

  “Which is?”

  Natalie takes my beer and has yet another long swig. When she hands it back I can feel that there’s very little left. “Let me go and fix us some proper drinks,” she says. “We have a lot to talk about.”

  “Alright,” I say, finishing the final drop.

  “Lie back on the bed,” she says. “We’ll need to be comfortable.”

  I remove my shoes and socks as Natalie walks over to the minibar and mixes us something. I slide to the head of the broad, luxurious bed and relax back into the pile of plush, expensive cushions. Natalie returns with two spirit glasses and she hands one to me. Ice floats in the small, clear vessel, which is full of what looks like soda. “I think these elixirs are
more appropriate for such dense conversation,” she smiles, handing me my glass and then sliding on to the bed next to me. Her body feels nice next to mine. Natalie then raises her glass in a toast. “Here’s to finally sharing the truth.”

  I smile and lightly chink my glass against hers. Then I take a long sip of the icy liquid.

  “Where were we?” asks Natalie.

  “You were about to tell me who you are,” I say.

  “Oh, yes,” she says. “I’m a doctor, actually.”

  “A doctor…” I reply. I feel the glass slip from my hand and fall on to the mattress next to me. I then lose consciousness so quickly that I don’t have time to tell Natalie how disappointed I am.

  When I wake, I don’t immediately notice that I’m naked. My brain feels like it’s floating upward through water, looking for the clarity of the surface. When that lucidness arrives, I realise that I am also tied down. My hands are cuffed above my head to the top of the bed frame and there are leather ankle constraints on my legs and an extra leather strap across my stomach, holding me on the mattress.

  My mouth’s dry and I feel incredibly groggy. I emit a quiet groan and Natalie, who is kneeling next to the bed, turned away from me, spins around.

  “You’re awake?” she asks.

  I try to speak, but it’s as if I have no muscles in my throat.

  “You should be out for at least another two hours.”

  “Sorr...ry to disappoint....” I mumble.

  Natalie stands up. It almost hurts to turn my head to look at her, each muscle in my upper body stiff. I feel like a waxwork. Natalie stares at me. She’s wearing white latex gloves and holds a syringe in one hand.

  “Seriously, Jack. How are you awake? I gave you a massive dose.”

  “You... fucking bitch,” I say, straining on my binds. “Let me up.”

  A sad expression crosses her face. “I'm sorry,” she says. “You weren't meant to wake up yet. You weren't meant to see any of this.” Natalie moves towards me with the syringe. “I'm just taking samples. I'm required to. I don't have a choice. I didn't think you'd volunteer them.”

  I pull on my restraints, slowly reacquiring my strength. “I need water,” I say, quietly.