Ronin

by Tony Bertauski

  Gallivanter wasn’t on ice or looking up at the sky and watching the reindeer pull the sleigh. He was bound to a hard chair in a small surgical room. BG sat in front of him, his grin polluted with bad intentions.

  He turned to a computer. The table was littered with equipment, none of which Ryder recognized but struck him as oddly detailed. This is a memory.

  “Do you know who I am?” BG said.

  A pang of fear flooded the dream. For a moment, Ryder thought he was talking to him.

  “Tell me what you are.” BG looked at the hairy feet. “I don’t expect you to answer, given how I’ve brought you here. You’ve evolved in a harsh climate, likely the Arctic. The enlarged feet allow for snow travel, the soles built for sliding. The short and wide body, the layers of insulating fat. If I’m not mistaken, I’d say you’re an elf.”

  The computer distracted him for a moment.

  “Don’t worry, I won’t expose you to the world, if that’s what you’re thinking. Your secrets are worth more than gold, my friend. I saw your reindeer.”

  BG leaned in and whispered, “He was flying.”

  Gallivanter’s expression changed. His rosy cheeks blanched into gray planks around widening eyes. Somewhere beneath the thick beard, he swallowed a knot. Being captive had not worried him, but the mention of a flying reindeer struck him with terror.

  “All these years, you and your kind have been nothing more than a child’s secret. Presents under the tree, cookie crumbs and stuffed stockings.”

  He wagged his finger. Tsk, tsk, tsk.

  BG punched a command and retrieved a tiny disc. There was something wrong. He picked up the disc with his right hand, pinching it between finger and thumb.

  He’s missing two fingers.

  “I’m a man of science and I’m very good.” He took a deep breath. “I’m going to decode your genome, Mr. Elf. I’m going to read your past and download your thoughts. I’m going to know your secrets. All of them.”

  “What we know,” Gallivanter croaked, “is not for you.”

  BG sat back, slightly surprised. It was the first time he’d heard him speak. It was gruff and grave. But it didn’t wipe away the smile. He checked the computer one last time then placed the disc on the elven’s temple.

  Gallivanter didn’t resist.

  BG wasn’t interested in gold. What the elven possessed was beyond any currency invented by humankind. BG was going to siphon out the real value Gallivanter possessed.

  The secrets of the North Pole.

  The elven’s crisp silver-gray eyes turned into foggy orbs. Ryder saw BG’s reflection in the engorged pupils. He leaned back with a curious smile. He was replaced by the memories pulled through the disc. Images spun like a top—a flash of a man in a red coat, reindeer harnessed to the sleigh, cheering, Northern Lights, an endless landscape of white ice.

  Images sped across the dream fabric. Days turned into months then years. BG laughing as the room spun into an expansive and elaborate laboratory. His beard thickened and his hair grew. He worked tirelessly with the knowledge he stole then announced his retirement from Avocado, Inc., declaring he would begin his own research in a private lab. And when the world was ready, he said, he would reveal his own discoveries.

  My discoveries, he said with a slimy grin.

  It was years later when BG stood over Gallivanter, looking like the man Ryder had come to know—the red beard, the leathery complexion. He was wearing a thin, beige gown. The kind of gown a hospital patient would wear. Gallivanter was wearing one, too. It was dark green with red trim, a cheery mix of Christmas colors. The elven, however, was deflated and weathered.

  His spirit punctured.

  “I promised not to harm you. You’ve given so much, it’s the least I can do.”

  Gallivanter’s expressionless gaze did not change. He was depleted. Nothing his captor could say would change that. He was prepared for the end. Perhaps his only regret was that he couldn’t stop him. He hadn’t given BG anything.

  He took it.

  BG pressed his hand on a wall panel. The black surface glowed around his fingers. A window popped out of the wall. It slid out like a filing cabinet. Inside was a thick cushion. With great effort, BG lifted the elven out of the chair. Gallivanter sank into the cushion. Wires and tubes slithered from beneath it and wrapped around his short arms and spread across his head.

  “No more wandering.”

  Toenails clicked on the hard floor. Figgy trotted to his side, tongue wagging. It looked like Figgy—the eyes, the noisy collar—but her muzzle was dark and shiny. Teeth white. She had looked so old when BG first captured Gallivanter. Her muzzle had been white fur. It must be her pup.

  It looked exactly like her.

  BG touched the black panel again. The drawer began sliding back into the wall. Gallivanter didn’t resist. The time to escape had long passed. BG watched it click into place, the transparent door sealing shut. The soles of the giant elven feet blocked the view inside. Cold steam curled around the hairy toes and frosted the glass.

  The light dimmed.

  BG stored his treasure in a cold tomb. And whistled while he did it. When the door was fully opaque, he bent down and scrubbed the dog’s ears. The dog wagged her tail.

  There were more transparent doors on the walls. They were empty and waiting. The dog trotted ahead of him, head down and sniffing. Her nose led her to one of the transparent doors. There was a dog inside.

  “Come.”

  The dog obeyed immediately, running to BG’s side and sitting exactly where he was pointing. Ears perked and eyes on his master, she waited. A good dog.

  BG walked with a distinctive limp that Ryder had seen before. He closed the door and entered the lab. It had grown in size and complexity—banks of monitors were on the wall; strange equipment and endless conduit on the ceiling.

  Whistling, he went to a smaller room with a pair of what looked like MRI machines. He was barefoot in a gown, legs exposed beneath the beige hem. He sat at a computer nestled between the machines and spent half an hour with the dog at his side. The whistling had subsided. He stood up with slight hesitation and knelt down. The dog licked his outstretched hand.

  “Here we go.”

  He shed the gown. Completely nude, he climbed onto the thin-cushioned mat and lay on his back. A deep breath, he stared at the ceiling. A mechanical whirring began drawing him inside. His breaths shortened as he clutched his sides. Once he was fully inside the narrow tube, a door sealed shut.

  This isn’t an MRI.

  It began to rev up. The engines vibrated the floor and windows. The dog had been watching him slowly get swallowed by the machine. Now she turned to the machine’s twin, where the door was already closed.

  Wump-wump-wump-wump.

  Time sped up. The dog lay down to nap, sat up when new sounds occurred and lay back down when nothing happened. Sometime later—days, maybe weeks or months—the engines slowed. The clanging died.

  The computer monitor woke up.

  Data scrolled across the screen. When it stopped, the silence stretched out. The dog fidgeted, whining with impatience. He wasn’t staring at the machine that swallowed BG.

  The door on the twin machine opened.

  Tendrils of steam snaked out and slowly revealed a pair of bare feet. The soles were pink and wrinkled. Beads of condensation clung to them. More data ran on the computer.

  The twin machine began moving.

  A thin-cushioned panel like the one that had supported BG was sliding out of the claustrophobic tunnel. A nude body was slowly revealed, damp and dripping. BG was staring at the ceiling. Unblinking, his chest slowly rising and falling. The dog’s whines grew louder, but she didn’t leave her place. BG appeared to be sleeping with his eyes open and his hands at his sides.

  The computer emitted a sound.

  He jolted up, gulping air. Tears streamed into his whiskers, and the dog began barking. He stared at his hands, clenching and unclenching. Laughter bubbled up and let loose.<
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  He pulled a gown over his head and looked at himself in the machine’s steel reflection. He stretched and flexed, pulled at the flesh beneath his eyes and wiggled his toes. All while laughing.

  The dog sat at his side and watched. It remained quiet until the door on the first machine slid open. Steam didn’t waft out. The feet, however, were still there. They weren’t damp, pink or wrinkled. The thin-cushioned platform hummed out of the tunnel to reveal a pale body. The chest was rising and falling, the eyes closed.

  It’s him.

  There were two Billys. One was at the computer. One was exiting the first machine. There was a long pause, a surreal moment of contemplation before BG picked up his gray and sleeping body and carried it out.

  He walked without the limp.

  “Life.” Gallivanter’s voice entered the dream.

  The body was limp and awkward in BG’s arms. The head craned back, the mouth hung open as he carried his sleeping form like an overgrown child. A drawer was open in the same room where he took Gallivanter. He placed it on a thick cushion.

  “His quest began,” Gallivanter said. “Misguided.”

  Steam licked the transparent door as it sealed the body inside like it had done with Gallivanter’s body. With the dog by his side, BG watched the light inside dim and the frost spatter the glass.

  The dream sped up. Time raced through days and weeks. The lab evolved and the wall filled up. Feet were pressed against the glass doors, lights dimming on window after window.

  “Bodies,” Gallivanter said. “They are only vehicles. A body is not who we are. It is not who I am. It is not you.”

  The maze of conduit on the ceiling pulsed with energy.

  A presence slunk into the network of cables that interconnected computers and equipment, the rooms and the morgue that monitored the sleeping bodies. Something seeped through the circuits and worked into the software.

  When the lab was empty, data would scroll as if BG were sitting at the keyboard. Words and symbols raced across a monitor. The lab would come to life when no one was there. Monitors on the wall watched everyone aboveground.

  “I’m ready to wake. For that to happen, you need the truth.”

  The activity in the lab reached a fever pitch and suddenly stopped. A phrase typed out on a black screen. Who are you?

  “The messages...” Ryder’s eyes snapped open.

  He was back on the table, staring at the ceiling. The smell of the lab had returned. Along with a sound.

  Wump-wump-wump-wump.

  ***

  It was a long crawl from the bottom of a slurry dream.

  Numbness ebbed like a receding tide, leaving a dark slate of discomfort. An ache in his ribs. His brain sloshed like wet sand.

  The lights were bright white and the room small. This wasn’t where Arf had put him. There were other tables in the room with electronic lights beneath them. Slowly, he lowered his feet and waited for his balance. Somewhere a mechanical beat played long strokes. He opened the door.

  The lab.

  This was bigger than the one below the cabin, but the equipment, the computers, the smell... it was all the same. This was where Arf had put him the first time. Monitors on the wall displayed drone feeds of sleeping boys and girls. Arf was on one of them, nestled into a fat pillow with his arms at his sides. Mouth closed. Even without volume, it was obvious.

  He’s not snoring.

  Suddenly, the air felt thin. Ryder took long gulping breaths and grabbed a chair to keep from falling. It was the chair where BG had been talking to... Gallivanter.

  There was a curtain in the corner. That wasn’t in the dream, but the doors along the walls were. The steady rhythm played from one of them. Through a glass door, he saw exactly what he had dreamed.

  The MRI machines.

  Outside the glass door, he pulled the curtain aside. There were tables with people behind them, hands at their sides, eyes closed. They were naughties. The last one flushed cold fear into his legs.

  Cherry.

  “Hey.” He shook her gently. “Wake up.”

  She jostled in place, her lips parting, but her eyes stayed shut. He whispered in her ear. Was she in the same place he had been, that deep, dark place of nothingness where time was absent and space was endless?

  Is she dreaming about an elven?

  There were computers on each table. He reached for the keyboard, hoping to find something. Words appeared on the monitor.

  DO NOT WAKE.

  It was the same font as the message that had appeared on his laptop. The words remained for several seconds and vanished. A second message appeared.

  BEHIND YOU.

  Another room was beeping. When he opened the door, the lights flickered on. Cool air exhaled through the doorway. The floor was empty. There were windows along the walls in columns of three.

  He’d dreamed of this room.

  The transparent doors were mostly empty in the dream. Now they were frosted and filled with bare feet. Various colors were vaguely visible through the cold haze, people clothed in thin gowns, asleep in a space no larger than a coffin.

  The top row was at eye level. To his left, he peered into the one where BG had carried his own body in the dream. The door was clear and the padding was empty.

  It was just a dream.

  Below that was where the dog had stopped. She’d been sniffing at the seams when BG had called her. It was thick with frost, but there were no traces of bare feet. Ryder took a knee and looked closer. Farther back, he saw a dark form.

  A muzzle of white fur.

  It was the older version of Figgy, the one he’d seen in the dream, the one curled up and groaning when BG had first captured Gallivanter. Ryder went from window to window, feet only inches from the glass, the details foggy. There were tattoos on some of them, scars on others. The toenails needed clipping. They were pale and ashen. Their faces cloaked in darkness, he didn’t know all of them. But he knew who they were.

  The naughties.

  The most disturbing drawer looked empty at first glance. There were no feet, but there was something deeper inside. It wasn’t a dog this time. Tiny fists were curled and the eyes squeezed shut.

  It was an infant.

  Three short beeps nearly stopped his heart. They came from the far wall. A dark panel lit up. It was the same panel where BG had placed his hand, where he had loaded the elven’s body. Unlike the other windows, this one wasn’t frosted. Condensation streaked on the inside and beaded on oversized feet. They were almost twenty-four inches long and half as wide. The soles were rough and gray.

  Scaly.

  Steam snaked around a round body and legs that were short and knobby. The chin was hidden beneath two braids of frayed whiskers. Steam hissed from the window’s seams and billowed near the ceiling. The room suddenly smelled like old skin. Tendrils of mist crawled over a green and red smock.

  The big toes twitched.

  The second toes followed, bending at the knuckles and popping. Each toe did the same all the way to the little one. They were hairy and long.

  The drawer began to move.

  Ryder stepped back as it slid out. The elven was almost as round as he was tall, his hair longer than it was in the dream. His equally white beard hid all of his face except for a slender nose, slices of cheekbone and the sunken eyes. The braids were coming apart.

  He didn’t look alive.

  Steam spread across the ceiling and slipped into a vent. Now the fingers began the slow dance—popping and curling. They looked like tiny mittens when fully clenched.

  The eyes opened.

  Ryder bumped into the wall and slid along it, the edges of the transparent doors dragging against his back. The elven didn’t move. He stared at the ceiling with silver-blue eyes as icy as the Arctic Ocean. A groan escaped him like a waking giant.

  Ho-ho-ho.

  He pulled wires off his forehead and arms. The feet wagged in unison. Back and forth, the momentum carried into his legs. Ripples shook hi
s belly. The entire body rocked back and forth, reaching a tipping point before falling over the edge.

  He didn’t splat but rather bounced like an exercise ball filled with jelly. Another groan escaped him, the air punched out of him. He lay facing the floor, his giant feet keeping him from rolling.

  Ryder watched from the doorway.

  The green and red smock had folded over the elven’s clenched bottom. His right arm reached back to cover his buttocks then reached toward Ryder. The fingers wiggled impatiently. He cleared his throat. It sounded like grinding ice. Ryder looked back at Cherry still sleeping behind the curtain.

  “If you don’t mind.”

  Unlike the dream, where the elven’s voice was deep and resonant, this sounded raw and swollen. Ryder stayed near the wall as he approached. The pudgy fingers continued to beckon. His hand was cool to the touch. Ryder pulled and the elven began to spin. The toes grabbed the floor. Ryder pulled harder, tipping him onto wide feet. His balance teetered, but his build made it unlikely for him to fall. Frizzy white hair hung over his face. A swift exhalation blew it off.

  Ryder stepped away.

  The elven reached back and twisted the hair into cords then knotted them behind his head. A pained smile was hiding in the whiskers and crinkling around his eyes.

  “You dream about me,” the elven said. “You did.”

  He waddled like a penguin, throwing his weight side to side as he shuffled tiny steps across the room—feet that weren’t made for walking but scaly soles designed for sliding. Gallivanter lifted a short finger on the way to the lab and pointed at a chair.

  “Could you?”

  Ryder helped him climb onto the chair and watched him balance a keyboard on his belly. His fingers were too short to type, but his hands darted at the keys with musical rhythm, all while he grunted and muttered.

  “Keyboards.” He grunted. Or maybe he laughed.

  Whatever was on the monitor leaped into the center of the room. A three-dimensional display of data rotated from floor to ceiling. Gallivanter hopped off the chair and stood in the middle of the data storm, pointing and moving packets with hand gestures.