by Jerry
“How do you know he’d want a cleric?” shouted a voice in the crowd.
The cleric didn’t look up or answer, but somebody else said, “Either way, he shouldn’t be alone.”
Yaran looked up through the curtain of rain at the shapes of lighted windows in the nearby buildings. Faces were appearing in them, drawn by some intangible sense that there was something to see. All looking down in his direction.
“Anybody know what happened?” asked another voice. “Who did it?”
Above the thunder of rain hitting streets, buildings, vehicles, people, he heard the angry shriek of a security siren.
“Just go back to your routine,” Kerfed had said. “Carry on like nothing happened.”
That was impossible.
Yaran pulled his cap over his face as he stepped backwards, pushed his way through the watching bystanders, and hurried away. He went straight to his apartment and filled a bag with clothes, screens and drives. He left no message; spoke to nobody. There was nobody he wanted to say goodbye to, and there were many that he wanted to avoid.
The university had negotiated a limited permit for him to travel and pursue his studies: he could only learn so much from the geology of Linvana itself. It was enough to get him off-continent and then off-world.
“I told myself I ran away from Kerfed, and the Liberation, and the government. Like I told myself it wasn’t my fault that they . . . But I knew. I knew.”
“Your communication has low force,” said Pak. “I do not understand what you talk of.”
Yaran’s head had slumped on his chest, too heavy to lift. The sun was bleaching colour from his overalls as far as his waist now, but the pain hadn’t changed and nor had the thirst. He could escape them by staying here a little longer. He could wait while everything else became smaller and smaller, until there was just him. If he still wanted to, he could finally, truly, leave everybody else behind.
“Do you understand what I talk of?” asked Pak. “I value to help you. But I will not attempt if you do not choose my help.” The sand flattened around the voice box and rose into a small balanced heap beside Yaran’s foot.
Doing nothing would be easier. Safer. Wasn’t that why he’d always kept himself apart? Why, for one thing, he never offered to speak with Professor Shayzikara himself, or did anything else to change things on Linvana? Why he stepped backwards and hurried away?
His arm had flopped limply across the wound in his side. Blood was seeping into the fabric of his sleeve and dripping into the sand. Glistening red and impossibly intense for a few centimetres; baked and dull as it dried. Go on alone and finish; or go on? Time to choose.
He drew as much breath as he could, shaped his chapped lips and blew out.
“Help me.”
The sand pile collapsed over his foot.
A wave of stinging cold rushed up his body as if he had been dropped into icy water. He gasped hoarsely. Muscles clenched tightly around broken bones, and the ragged edges of his wound pressed together. The desert was no longer blurred and indistinct. Its glittering tones and colours were sharper and more precise than ever. He smelled sweat and blood and hot fabric.
He reached down, intending to drag together a handful of sand, but his fist closed so suddenly and so firmly that it squirted a plume into the air. It scattered around him and into the sunlight, a momentary rainbow flickering across the grey. As the particles settled, he waved his hand through the light and found he had the energy to do it. But it still rasped the edges of cracked bone, and dust still caked his mouth and throat.
“Move,” he mumbled. “That’s the point.”
He pushed over onto hands and knees and levered himself to his feet against the side of the escape pod. He was able to do it. His body screamed that his bones were broken, his muscles were torn, that he was dehydrated and overheated. But a cold framework of energy, outside and within, held him upright and held him together.
Squinting against the glare, he waved a vague arm towards the horizon as if setting a direction.
“Okay. Just need to think about where we’re going. Don’t need to think about anything else.”
He staggered a few steps and bent to scoop up the voice box. Then, lurching and swaying, dragging unsteady legs and wincing at every step, he set off.
He’d estimated that the float was thirty minutes’ walk away, but the journey took three times that.
He thought he’d made it when he crested the last dune and saw the float, sitting like the dot of the exclamation point that its landing has carved in the sand. It looked pristine. Only the gaping maw of the blown escape hatch, and a trickle of greasy smoke from the flight drive, indicated anything amiss.
But the farther he dragged himself, the slower his progress became. Staggering down the final bank of sand, keeping himself upright as if wading through a swollen stream, almost defeated him. The heat weighed on his shoulders, and each breath was a new effort. His vision blurred again, and the float smeared into a grey haze. The dark smudge of open hatch was a target to aim for. His only thought. He sensed Pak’s energy starting to fade. Or rather to retreat and concentrate. Into his legs and around the fractures and wounds.
When he stumbled against the hull and fell through the hatch, it was a surprise. A reminder of where he was and what he was doing. For minutes, he lay half in and half out of the hatch, blinking at the emergency kit hanging on the bulkhead.
At last, he pulled himself up and wrenched the kit free, digging inside for all the hypos he could find: rapid rehydration; coagulants; pain relief. He leant against the wall and raised them over his arm, but stopped, swaying his head. He threw one foot over the rim of the hatch so that it touched the sand.
“Pak. We did it. Enough.”
He crashed into a heap, like a puppet with broken strings, and his scream emerged as a thin wheeze. He felt as if gravity had suddenly increased and slammed him into the floor. As if his ribs and leg were shattering anew. He was still clutching the hypos and, with the last effort he could muster, he stabbed them into his leg. This time, when the floor lurched, he fell into the darkness.
When he regained consciousness, he sat without moving, slumped against the interior bulkhead, for a long time. The pain was a dull ache. Bearable, but enough to remind him of his injuries and that he should not move too quickly or too much. He could swallow and lick his lips, but his tongue was still swollen and raw.
He turned his head and looked through the hatch. The desert just outside was in shadow as the sun started to fall behind the crashed float. There was a small, lopsided spiral in the sand, like the misshapen spider webs he’d seen in the forests of Linvana, distorted by wind and rain. He pulled the voice box from his pocket and dropped it over the threshold.
“Thank you. For bringing me back.”
Minutes passed, and Yaran listened to the wind and sand whispering. Then the voice box droned, “Thank you for this experience. Thank you for this intersection.”
Yaran pulled off his glove, reached out and clawed together a handful of sand from beside the voice box. He raised it a little and let it dribble through his fingers to join the spiral pattern.
“Query. Do you have water now?”
“Yeah.” Yaran looked at the scatter of depleted hypos. “Another chance.”
For a moment, there was only background hum. Then Pak said, “I understand rain.”
Yaran didn’t move.
“Rain?”
“Water falling from above,” continued Pak. “Query. You need water. Rain was where you were. Why did you move to here?”
Yaran frowned, then began to laugh. The laugh became a hacking cough, but he was still smiling as he asked, “That’s what you learned? About the rain on Linvana?”
“The other offworlder in the rain was damaged,” said Pak. “Did rain help him? As water has helped you?”
Yaran’s smile faded.
“No,” he said, his voice becoming even hoarser. “No, it didn’t.”
Across
the cabin, Yaran saw the pale glow of the systems screen. He had the strength now to drag himself over to it. Soon, he’d talk to Admin, and the others, and he’d ask for help. He’d go back to Base, but he wouldn’t stop there. He’d go further. There were people he should speak with on Linvana. There were steps he could take there.
He remembered something he’d once read. “What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well.” Pak had helped him find the well that was hidden from him.
It was time to leave the desert.
THE PORTAL
Anthony Engebretson
145 pounds.
Up one pound from yesterday.
What did I do wrong?
There was a body mirror right next to the scale. I checked my naked form for what would be the first of many times that day. My upper body looked slender enough: my shoulder blades protruded and my ribs were slightly visible; in general, my torso was on the level of an athletic 12-year-old despite me being 25. My face was gaunt and boyish and my skin pale brown. My curly hair was thinning; since high school, I used to be able to grow one hell of a goatee, but now I was only able to get a barely noticeable five o’clock shadow.
My lower half told a different story. My legs and thighs appeared massive to me and my stomach looked bloated as it always felt. I could swear those old white stretch marks from years back were expanding.
I felt an uncomfortable hum in my gut. These brief hums were the only way I could tell the portal was there.
I slipped on my white tank top and grey sweatpants and sat on the sterile twin bed to check my phone.
No new texts. The night before, my buddy, Brandon, was giving me updates on the Chiefs vs. Raiders game since I had no other way to follow it here. The damn Raiders won. I looked at the last bit of our exchange.
Brandon: If we had an actual fucking defense I dunno
Me: We gotta go down 2 a game again someday. We might be good luck charms LOL
He didn’t respond. I wished he did.
I left the tiny room and made my way down the hallway. The building reminded me of an orthodontist’s office. It had a woody, Home Depot smell from remodeling and tacky tan walls with paintings of bowls of fruit and vast green pastures. The doors to the other bedrooms were always closed; I never saw any other subjects around, even in the cafeteria. In fact, the halls were almost always empty. I wondered if staff came in from a different entrance. I made my way toward the office of Emily Andre, the project director.
Her door was wide open. She sat at her two computer monitors; the one on her right was facing away from me. The larger one on her left was slightly turned so I could see the scenic Grand Canyon background. When she saw me, her crooked mouth stretched into a broad, warm grin.
“Good morning, James!” she said in a sing-song tone.
I nodded silently. Today she wore a silk grey dress that showed her defined and toned body. The woman looked like Serena Williams. I always felt inadequate around her, and the portal let off a hum that made me queasy.
She stretched her arm to the chair in front of her. I declined.
“I went up a pound.”
She stood up. “Have you been sticking with the diet plan?”
“Yeah.”
She nodded and gently stroked her silky black hair, thinking.
“Well, you know, what we could do is turn up the intensity a bit.” She put her hands on her hips, which complemented her talk-show host tone. “Totally up to you, of course. But if you want to, we should probably do it before you eat breakfast.”
I could smell breakfast from the small cafeteria near her office: pancakes and hash browns. My stomach grumbled before the portal overwhelmed it with a sickening hum.
“What’s a bit?”
“Let’s see, right now the portal consumes about 1/5 of your caloric intake. Maybe we can bump that up to 2/5?”
She shrugged and puffed out her lower lip in a playful frown as if it was no big deal. Without thinking about it, I copied her mannerism. “Okay.”
She smiled and strutted past me, motioning for me to follow behind her. We made our way down the hall on the opposite side of the subject quarters. At the far end were double doors leading to the portal development lab.
In my freshman year of high school, I was overweight and well on my way to being obese. While I got along with a lot of kids in school and was generally well liked, there were still enemies who’d called me “tubby” or “fat ass”. Even my buddies affectionately called me “big boy” and in JV football, I was nicknamed “The Rhino”.
I decided I didn’t want to be fat. This is America; land of the obesity epidemic and the rest of the world utterly disgusted by us. I couldn’t be part of that statistic.
So I dieted and exercised religiously and got myself to a healthy weight. But I was always terrified of becoming fat again. I became a vegetarian and tried diets like the Paleo, Atkins, Dukan, Weight Watchers, Volumetrics—you name it. My friends heckled me for every one. I never stuck to them, mainly because they were just too expensive and complicated.
Besides, all I wanted was to get myself to a point where I could live my life not having to worry about my weight or food.
One day I was looking through the newspaper trying to find a job. I had no heart or energy to continue pursuing a master’s degree and I needed money. My parents cut me off; they wanted me to come live with them for a while. They never failed to express concern whenever they saw me. They thought I was depressed or worse. Those discussions would always end with me telling them to drop it or I’m leaving. I figured, when the hell did they decide to be supportive?
When I was overweight, they were the ones who made me feel the worst. There were too many dinners where Dad took a look at my plate and muttered, “Don’t you think that’s a bit much?” Or Mom would prod me about how I was “getting a bit big”. The worst was when they bought me an exercise ball for Christmas.
The paper flashed disgusting ads for “Cheeritos - Cheeto stuffed burritos”, “Chocolate pancake sausage burgers” and “triple berry blast soda”, paralleled with pictures of chiseled men and women in ads for fad diets and exercises like “500 calorie diet!”, “Make your food look gross with the vision diet!” and “Go to bed hungry! Wake up beautiful!”
The ad that really caught my eye was beneath an article about a Chinese Multinational Food manufacturing company, Huàn Xióng, which was developing some new nutritional paste called ReFo. It was a cheap, slimy substance that would be distributed worldwide.
The ad was small and far from flashy and read:
“Want control of your weight and your life? Subjects needed to test a new weight management procedure.
Must be at least 18 years of age and in a normal to overweight weight range. Subjects who successfully complete this trial will be paid $10,000.
7221 Yankee Hill Drive. The Delambre Corporation. No More Questions.”
The whole operation was located in a mini-mall toward the outskirts of the city. It was a ‘70s era brown brick building. I had to sign 15 different liability forms after they explained the procedure.
The company was developing portal technology. Emily felt they could combine this technology with her dream of a new weight management system. They explained everything to me. Miniature portals were deemed safe enough to sit within a human stomach. The portals functioned similarly to black holes, in that they used a miniature pull to consume food particles. These particles were then transported and processed elsewhere.
They showed me videos explaining the process, showing imagery of beautiful and thin people playing on the beach; they also showcased successful animal subjects like a dog that never gained weight despite being given dozens of treats as well as meals. I was also shown an illustration: Picture A depicted one portal snuggled inside a stomach consuming little cubes to represent food particles, and Picture B, where those particles were dropped into a processing chamber. Emily went out of her way to convince me this is exactly what I
want, what I need; without this I’ll have to spend the rest of my life fretting over what I’m eating. I even failed to question the legality of such a program, as Delambre seemed to be a private organization rather than government-funded.
The little voice that told me this was a terrible idea sat in its corner like a good boy.
The procedure went smoothly. I’d had the portal for a week. I thought progress was being made, my weight was going down! But now I was up one pound again. It was time to turn up its intensity.
We entered the Lab, where the white-coated technicians were tinkering with the massive laser gun-like machine, as if they expected me. They sat me in the chair and stuck me with a needle. I dizzied and blacked out. They needed to put patients to sleep because, while quick, the portal procedure could be painful and even traumatic. After what felt like two seconds, I woke up groggily to Emily’s grin.
“Success!”
Fantastic.
I went on to gobble down my breakfast: fruit, hash browns, and pancakes with plenty of butter and syrup. I downed it with a sack of milk with the raccoon-faced Huàn Xióng logo on it. That company probably provided all our food. I was ravenous until I saw Emily watching me from the doorway with her “Good Morning America” smile. The portal gave a queasy hum and I pushed my plate away.
A couple weeks went by and my weight went down to 135 pounds. Even though I was getting thinner, paler, and weaker, my heart leaped every time I checked it. The portal gave off a warm and ticklish hum.
Mom and Dad each tried to call me about 10 times. I didn’t answer, nor did I know what they wanted as they never left texts or voicemails. They probably just wondered where I was.
Emily looked pleased. I asked her once if I was getting too low.
“Are you consuming the amount of calories we wanted you to eat?” Her tone framed it like a rhetorical question.
“Yes.” I actually wasn’t lying.
“Well, it should be balancing out. Maybe we’ll up it a tiny bit. Remember, how much you lose, gain or maintain is in your control.”
I was having difficulty sleeping, constantly waking up with my mind racing. Sometimes I would get anxiety attacks out of absolutely nowhere, as if an invisible lion was in the room. In other times I would slip into deep bouts of sadness and emptiness. During these times, I found myself hoping I would grow so skeletally thin that I just would die in my sleep. All the while, despite how thin I got, I was still haunted by the heavy bloated gut.