Nighthawks at the Mission (The Long Preview)

by Forbes West

  “I’m really, really happy to move off-world with you, Jaime,” you say, nodding away, and then beginning to tear up a little.

  “By the way, how did you know how to work the lock?” Jaime says, before you shoot him a look that tells him very clearly to stop talking.

  “I’ll tell you later.”

  “You are full of surprises, Sarah Orange.”

  “We have only your bag with some of my stuff, Jaime. They burned all the rest.” You think of your whole history burning up in minutes. All of your past burning up, leaving you with nothing to tie you back home. You are a ship without an anchor in a unchartered sea.

  “Oh, I know. Sucks,” Jaime says, touching his bag. “Well… Your computer is here.” You swallow your anger against Jaime for ignoring your pain.

  The train lurches forward and starts to chug its way north into another Nemo Gate at the edge of the statue’s palm. After an explosion of white light and a thunderclap, you find that the train has passed through the Nemo Gate and has appeared somewhere farther away from the statue city of Solomon’s Bay. As the car is completely covered in clear plexiglass, you can see Solomon’s Bay drift away behind you.

  After the train travels at thirty miles per hour for two hours, you start to see the great, green expanses of The Oberon and the white- and iron-colored mountains. Pine trees and odd rock formations jut out of the land like knives stabbing at the sky. A green reflector sign, like something you’d see hanging on top of an American freeway, states from its position above the train tracks that you are entering the Super Sargasso Sea region, with its three Antediluvian cities and its prohibition of Ni-Perchta alcohol use. No Night Salvaging Permitted is splashed across the sign in bold white letters, as well as No Unregistered Firearms.

  Jaime has fallen asleep already and his head rests your shoulder. You stare out the window, a little shaky still from the whole possible-decapitation-then-escape thing.

  The train’s chugging motor runs and runs and you feel increasingly sleepy. Outside, bugs splatter against the glass walls of the mono car. You can see a long black highway covered in yellow Xs far away from the train tracks you are traveling on, running over the next hill and beyond. Each yellow X is flashing under the overcast sky, and you see a single yellow car, a small one, traveling in the same direction as your train. Thick and dark clouds stream across the sun-filled sky, casting long shadows onto the grasslands your train is passing through.

  The radio being piped into the car from unknown speakers keeps you occupied for a while with its selection of “old man rock ’n’ roll”. Dull, flat news is reported every two hours. The opening bars of the ELO song Here is the News plays as its opening theme.

  A random person is reading off the news in an over-professional and over-cultured voice. Fireworks and festivities are still permitted until a week after Bonfire Night and the Network warns yet again that alcohol is illegal in The Oberon unless you have a personal liquor consumption license. Failure to pay the license is punishable by fine or a stay in a Witch-Lord Temple and eventual LR-ing. By the sixth reading of the same report you have memorized every word.

  The train travels for hours in the high grass along a large river. Chunks of rock and little mesas dot the plains, breaking up the land into large bits. The river is wide, blue, and almost surreal. Its current is impossibly quick. It is as if it is being forced out of a water cannon; there has to be something artificial for it to be churning as quickly as it is. Every inch of its flow is like the worst rapids you can remember from back home. Little canyons are cut into the land, this way and that, breaking the ground up here and there.

  You start to nod off, little by little.

  The radio plays an old song:

  “My love is a-miles in the waiting

  The eyes that just stare, and the glance at the clock.”

  You fall asleep to Robert Plant’s melody.

  ~~~~

  THE cool air of the underground along with a smell of moisture and mold flows into the car, waking you up. Jaime is already awake. Somehow almost everyone else in your train car has gone, although the Englishman and the girl he is with are still on-board. The train car is ablaze with light; hidden lights in the glass frame of the steam mono illuminate the interior. The train is going through some sort of giant subway tunnel filled with looming statues. The statues look over everything that is bathed in constant shadow. You are pretty confused as to where you are in particular. Jaime looks very happy.

  “Just went into an old subway tunnel for Sargasso-uh, Sargasso-3. Thousands of years old. Pretty nuts, huh?”

  As you pass through another tunnel, your train has switched tracks. You see a giant hole in one side of the tunnel that leads into a greater darkness. You look out of the window into the dark of the tunnel, and you are scared by what you see.

  Tens, if not hundreds, of deep green eyes watch from the deep shadows. They’re far away, maybe a few hundred yards away from the train you are on, which you notice has picked up steam and is now going faster. In the gloom you can see shadows with green eyes moving and then nothing—blackness again. You hear a howl and a moan as the train pulls forward.

  “Mummies. The Antediluvian people weren’t all wiped out. Some got into shelters and, unable to feed on any fresh blood, all those human turned vampires went feral and turned into sort of mummified zombies. They just go on and on unless someone puts them down—just forever mad… They are desperate for other humans’ blood,” Jaime says, way too matter of fact and way too happy about the subject matter he is discussing.

  “Your sister died of Bevan’s disease, isn’t that right? That’s basically what these guys have,” Jaime says quite innocently.

  “No, she went missing but had the symptoms of that disease before she went missing…” you mention. “And thank you for reminding me.”

  Suddenly you see a surge of green eyes rush forward from the side, coming closer and closer to the train itself and its plexiglass casing.

  You see them rush forward as Jaime is looking in the other direction. In the light reflecting off the monorail train you see one of them up close for a second. The thing’s features, once human, are grotesquely pale; deep, dark shadows ring this female mummy’s eyes. The eyes themselves are bloodshot and as yellow as custard, filled up with complete and hateful rage. The tears are of blood, dribbling down the ragged remains of whatever clothing the mummy had been wearing. You are too scared to even scream—you sit there and shake. You reach for your crucifix, which is long gone, and feel nothing but thin air.

  “Another two hours to Mission Friendship.” Jaime yawns. “Two hours! I can’t believe it!” The train pulls out of the tunnel and back into the light of day, passing through another round of grasslands. Only the occasional tree, like one of those out of an African safari picture or documentary, breaks up the endless plains ahead of you on either side of the river. Each tree has a wide, umbrella-like canopy which is the hiding place for things that could be mistaken for birds.

  The Englishman with the red beard sitting in front of you turns around, saying, “Did you just- I’m sorry, Miss, did you see that?”

  You nod up and down as Jaime pipes in. “I saw it, too! This is the greatest trip I have ever been on! You know this is the most exciting thing—we got a story for you guys…”

  The English punk nods vigorously. “Actual zombies, Lord above, I have been waiting for this my whole life! I said to myself back in Liverpool, I said, ‘Well, now, John Boston, here’s-’ Are you crying?”

  You are. This little trip is turning into an unmitigated nightmare. You’re finding things out that perhaps you should have researched before you left. You didn’t because you were, well, under the weather emotionally.

  John puts out his hand, a little nervous around you. “I’m John Boston.” You shake hands with Red Beard.

  “Keira Love.” You shake hands with the woman.

  “Anyone else want to do a Valis wheel? Hmmm? Got off a dealer in Stonetown,” Bos
ton says, taking out a silver pipe that has what looks like a miniature electrical fan set into its end. The strong odor of ozone and sound of atonal music start to fill the train car as Boston sucks at the end of the tube. Blue smoke comes out of the fan as it whirls around.

  John takes out a match, lights it with his thumbnail, and puts it inside the silver tube. John offers the tube. “This’ll help calm you down. You want it?”

  As Jaime looks on, you decide to take a hit, your hand shaking. You decide that anything that helps you relax and forget what had just happened is worth it. You have smoked pot a couple of times before; this would not be a real change in pace. You take a hit and shake your head, feeling as if you are light-headed and happy, and also sort of scared that reality has suddenly become a little more real all at once. You start to cough after taking another drag off the Valis wheel. Your coughing barely obscures the atonal music coming from the pipe. “Oh shit! That was—hoo boy.” You give the pipe back to John. Jaime pats you on the shoulder.

  “This is fun! This is what couples do!” says John, then he offers the pipe to Jaime.

  Jaime shakes his head. “No, no, I couldn’t. I’ve read three online accounts about doing a Valis wheel. One post said that you feel very relaxed, and the other two said you won’t stop screaming for the next forty-eight hours.” You look at Jaime in horror.

  Keira Love takes a hit and then starts screaming loudly for a long, uncomfortable moment, before giving the pipe back to John. “Always good.” The sound of her voice is a little strange, as if she is oddly trying to mimic an English accent.

  It is dark now, and through the soft illumination inside the monorail car you see for the first time the seven moons of The Oberon. The white forms peek down from high above in the star-filled sky.

  There is a slight rumble of thunder, perhaps the beginning of a storm coming out of the Sargasso Breaks, perhaps something else. Dry lightning plays out against the western skies, illuminating at times a flock of luminescent manta ray-like creatures, their tendrils drifting behind them in the wind as they make their way back to the Sargasso coast for the winter.

  You are very close to the Mission Friendship/Funeral Breaks. Regular pine trees are now making their appearances, and the mountains seem to be closer than ever, crowding out the rest of the land. Your train begins to ascend a little bit, going up the single track.

  “Up.” Boston laughs to himself. “Spelled backwards it’s fuck you.”

  The train begins to slow down as you hear the Ni-Perchta begin to sing something, a cappella, in almost funeral dirge tones, somewhere off. You can hear this music thump through the monorail.

  John and Keira are passing the Valis device back and forth. You are feeling more than a little light-headed at this point. The world is beginning to run a little on the slow side. That ozone smell and atonal music sound from the Valis wheel are getting to you. It is fully dark now, the only illumination comes from the seven moons and what you begin to see in the distance.

  First, you see a stone palace in the middle of a green grass field. It’s large and looks like it should be somewhere like Tibet or Bhutan. It’s a large, Dzong-style fortress with high, windowless walls, a Chinese-style rooftop, and two massive doors made out of what looks like wood and iron. The Dalai Lama probably had a place like this once upon a time.

  Connected to it is an apartment tower; a good-sized one, maybe twenty stories tall give or take. Lights are on in some windows, and a couple of swirling searchlights reach into the heavens above, painting the sky over and over with small circles of light. It is made out of concrete and stands out significantly from the rest of the land around. Balconies jut out from the sides; the top floor has one wrap-around balcony that isn’t separated like the others. “I think that’s it,” you say, taking out the small brochure that was stuffed into your pocket. Mission Friendship—A Place of Warmth and Protection states the front page of the brochure, next to a painting of the Dzong and apartment tower structure.

  You notice another, thinner, tower is connected to the building by three concrete walkways, and looks as if it is set up as observation point—glass windows jut around the topmost part of the slimmer tower. Farther away is a large and walled village; it looks like something out of The Lord of the Rings or another fantasy novel. Wood-timbered homes stick their heads out over the walls. You also see a large wooden bridge spanning across the rushing river that separates you from Mission Friendship. A lumber mill building also spans the entire river and is right next to the bridge.

  The train begins to slow. “And here we go,” Jaime says in a guttural voice before coughing a few times to clear his throat.

  “The Joker said that before he blew up a building in The Dark Knight,” you retort, seeing double. “Nerd.”

  “That’s the joke…” Jaime says.

  “I think this is the best capital D drugs I’ve had since I was thirteen at that Prodigy concert at Glastonbury.” John Boston coughs again. “You ever seen that old movie, The Jerk? Remember that cat juggling shit?”

  Jaime looks confused and you have no idea what John Boston is talking about. “Was that about cats being juggled, or a cat juggling shit?” you ask with a slur.

  John Boston shrugs and then after a moment calls out, “These cans are defective!” Silence. “Steve Martin—it’s a funny film.”

  No one laughs. “Was Steve M-Martin the guy in The Blues Brothers?” you ask.

  No one says anything for a long moment. Keira laughs, stoned. “I should really slap you hard.”

  You laugh, and so do Boston and Jaime.

  Keira slaps you hard enough, stunning you.

  Boston laughs, and even Jaime laughs a little, nervously. You are startled. Then you hit back once, twice, and three times, making Keira almost tear up. Her face is really red and starting to look swollen. Boston stands up and stretches out the ori-baton he had hidden on him. He snaps it out with such force, and then points it at you, lifting you up and out of your seat without using a single muscle, but rather through telekinesis. Invisible strings seem to pull you out of your seat.

  “Hey-hey, now girl. All quiet on the Western Front…” Boston says, a scowl on his face. He looks like he is about to do something else just as a Ni-Perchta monorail attendant in a shimmering rainbow-colored tunic walks into the car, having seen what has happened. Boston drops you, right back onto your rump.

  You have arrived at your new home, after almost getting into a full on fistfight with strangers who were once friendly. “Last stop,” the overhead speakers say. “Funeral Breaks village. Mission Friendship. Star in the Mountain.”

  Near tears, you get off the train and step onto the very empty stone platform.

  Boston and Love walk over, looking sheepish. Love also looks a little angry. Boston speaks up. “Look, my friends, I think that, back on the train, things became a bit heated. A bit strange. Drug use makes these situations happen.” Boston snickers, and Love and Boston laugh together.

  You and Jaime look at each other. Boston and Love put out their hands to shake with you and Jaime, and you gingerly do so. “We’ll be working on-site in Sargasso-3, out in near the old boat quays. Our radio frequency is Quay-256.”

  Boston hands you his powder-white business card embossed with the words Boston-Love Dayhawk Co-Op. “We check up on the world around 4-6:00pm each evening. Give us a call if you are in the area. Stop on by.”

  Jaime nods and says, “We may just do that. The old boat quays in Sargasso-3, that’s about a mile or two from the Nemo Gate that leads to the old reactor, right?”

  Boston nods slowly. “Yes, if you can get near the place—the wreckage and the machines down there… You don’t, don’t own that site, do you?” Boston says out of curiosity.

  Jaime smiles a little. “Oh I wish. But no, no, just read up about it. Sounds neat.”

  Boston blows out a raspberry. “That’s a bad deal friend—that’s a death zone, ask anyone. I mean that whole defense system is up and running. It’s
very strange. It’s more than a reactor should be. That place is locked down, shut down, do not enter… Unless you’ve got a defense key.”

  Jaime shakes his head. “Uh, no, no, just curious about it.”

  Boston shrugs his shoulders. Love speaks up, in a sort of stilted speech, changing the subject quickly. “I’m sorry about the- what happened back there. Have a better one. Radio us.”

  You and Jaime thank them, though a cold feeling is running up and down your spine. A place that is considered a death zone does not seem like a place Jaime should be working in. You laugh and laugh, making everyone uncomfortable, and then start to tear up again.

  Boston says something about maybe being wrong, but you take it as him trying to downplay what he just said.

  You wait and listen to Jaime talking with Boston and Love for a while; he is giving them your new home address at Mission Friendship and telling the couple to come by whenever they have the chance. Boston and Love are picked up by what looks like an old Pontiac muscle car being driven by a Ni-Perchta male in dark war paint. They drive off and down a dirt and cobblestone road that leads into the mountains at the far end.

  You see Mission Friendship and hear the rushing water of the river very close by. You can hear the songs the Ni-Perchta are singing somewhere in the distance; they are echoing in the valley. It’s very cool out and a breeze is blowing down from the mountains all around you. Everything smells fresh and of pine. It’s about a fifteen-twenty minute walk to Mission Friendship from the station’s platform.

  You look to your left, up a snow-capped mountain on the other side of the river, and see something you’ve just heard about on the monorail train. Star in the Mountain.

  Jaime is nervously blathering on. He’d probably mentioned it before, but you hadn’t really bothered to ask him what it meant, figuring it was self-explanatory—which of course, it is.

  Over two hundred stories tall, Star in the Mountain is a glass and steel “star”, a single giant building in the shape of an actual multi-pointed star. Its mid-section is like a glass bowl and its points, which are dissimilar in size and length, stretch upwards and outwards. The star is set into the side of a mountain, like God’s own Christmas ornament.