Nomad

by Jamie Nash

  Phantom’s attention returns to the large window and our impending doom. He nudges the pain dial to seven. “We have to move this along. Time is of the essence.”

  I doubt I’ll survive this blast. Level seven is probably intended for that monster-worm or Godzilla. Not humans. Not me. I blubber like a little kid who just lost their favorite stuffed bear. I tried. I tried harder than anybody could ever dare ask. No regrets.

  That’s bullshit. I’m not the ‘how hard you try’ girl. I like to win. All of this can’t be for nothing.

  “Wait!” It’s Shaft. I forgot all about him. His voice is slurred from the torture, still, he’s better off than me. He can at least talk. “I’ll take you to her. I’ll show you where she is.”

  Phantom rips the samurai sword from his back and jabs it at Shaft’s neck. “You’re lying.”

  Shaft’s eyes shift to me. He’s giving up and wants my approval.

  Well, he can have it. I’m ready for this to end. I close my eyes, hoping it passes for a nod.

  “The Sick Bay,” Shaft says. “She was hurt.” He’s still fighting, scheming. I know what he’s thinking. We get the bastard to the control room and sick the giant slug monster on him, or dissect him with the surgery robot, or we can jump him in the ladder when his hands are off the rifle.

  Phantom wallops Shaft in the face with the blunt end of the weapon, sending blood and teeth everywhere. I’m too weak to protest. Besides, better an old-fashioned beating than the torture machine. He shoulders the weapon and turns back to me, grabbing a fistful of my hair and dragging me toward the door. I guess we’re going for a walk.

  “Wait!” Shaft shouts. “The ship. You need to turn it around.”

  Phantom stops at the door, catching his breath, considering. He has to know there’s no way we have time to get upstairs and then come back. I pray there’s a tiny bit of him that doesn’t want to die in an epic spectacular spaceship crash either.

  Nope. He steps toward the door.

  “Wait!” Shaft cries. “She’s not there. I lied.” His head droops in surrender. “She’s in the Cargo Room.”

  “Ah.” Phantom releases me and rips his sword out with two hands.

  Metal flashes. The sword knifes straight through Shaft’s heart. Phantom’s no samurai. It’s more brute force and a ton messier than in the movies. He jams the thing deeper and deeper, twisting and turning it inside Shaft’s chest. He doesn’t stop until the hilt presses against Shaft’s sternum.

  “No …” My voice is less than a whisper. My heroine vibe is long gone.

  The sword is the only thing holding Shaft upright. His hands twitch. His lips quiver. His life leaks away. His face settling. His arms dropping. His body silencing. Phantom lets go. Shaft slumps to the ground with the sword still in him.

  Phantom grabs my ankle and tows me into the hall like some deer he’s murdered on a hunting trip. “It’s okay puppet. It’ll all be over soon.”

  Not soon enough.

  He pushes ahead. “I’m not just another one of her bodies. I’m not just empty flesh for her to wear.”

  “I’ve seen your file,” I say, though it takes effort to summon the breath. “I know exactly what you are.”

  He yanks me up and slams me against the wall. His red face pushes against mine. A pulsing vein bulges in his forehead. “You know nothing.”

  On the inside, I’m smiling. I got him. “No. You’re a car thief. An armed robber.”

  “No!”

  “You murdered an old woman. You’re not special. You’re pathetic.”

  “No! She chose me!” He smashes a fist into the wall beside my ear. “You think you’re better?”

  “If I wasn’t, you wouldn’t be so scared.” I’m overreaching. He hasn’t seemed too scared of me up until now. But I’ve survived his torture gun. I stuck my teeth in his brain. He’s been begging Taylor to finish me off for the last couple of hours. He’s got reason to be afraid.

  “You’re just younger. It likes young.” His angered spittle mists my face “But it won’t like you. You’ve seen too much. It can’t lie to you if you already know the truth”

  “Then tell me.” I’ve given up on living. I just need to understand. “Ruin me.”

  He slams me to the ground. Extra hard. It hurts, but compared to what I’ve been through, tis but a scratch. I’m starting to feel my limbs again. My muscles. My pulse. Maybe it’s just my naturally defiant self.

  Maybe it’s just the urge to kick this guy’s nuts straight into his face.

  But I’m coming back.

  In a huff, he lugs me down the hall. I watch the flickering lights go by. There’s smoke in the air. This thing is a few minutes away from the apocalypse. He stops at the cargo hold and hits some buttons near the bulkhead. It’s pure frustration. Nothing is working for him. The bulkhead stays closed.

  I smile. A big wide ass smile.

  He beats the locked metal box with a fist in anger and screams to the walls with every ounce of breath he can muster. Finally, he turns to me. “Where are the keys?”

  I cackle like I’m mad. I am. It’s a blessing. I can feel the indentation of the key still tucked into my sleeve at my wrist.

  He kicks me in the ribs. My lungs belch air. He shoves his foot on my mouth and leans all his weight down on me. My jaw cracking underneath his heel. I still don’t tell him shit.

  “Stop protecting her!” He stomps on my face. “She’s not your friend.”

  I close my eyes. All this insane gibberish. But something still drives me. I need to know the answers. I’m betting he does too. “I know everything. Your name. Your education. Your wife.” I study his face. He’s buying it—hook, line, and sinker.

  His jaw is slack. He leans down and raises my head with his hand. “You lie.”

  Maybe. But he’s not sure. I can tell. If he knew, he’d be beating the truth out of me right now. Instead, he’s looking me in my eyes. Negotiating. “I need to know,” I say. “What is she?” It’s more than curiosity. I still want to live. I’ll never trust him. But Taylor might still be reasoned with. She’s the one that saved us after all. I need to know why.

  Phantom straightens, leans on the rifle as a crutch. “That dark-haired girl, that’s not it. That’s just the outside. What it wears. It lives inside, in our brains and in our thoughts.”

  My eyes narrow on the scar in Phantom’s skull. “It controls us?”

  He sags. He has zero patience for my ignorance. “It’s a parasite. A bug. It wears us like a cheap suit. Once it gets inside our brains, it plants thoughts. You think they are your ideas, your intuitions. That’s why it erased our memories before it locked us away. Without a past, it gives us one.”

  “I remember things.”

  “Small things. Disconnected. Small memories. Not the big picture. It leaves just enough so we have our skills. Our desires. Our buttons.”

  “The files?”

  He double-takes. He’s surprised I know about the files. “You’ve seen mine?”

  I nod. “She didn’t let you see them did she?”

  His head shakes ever-so-gently. “No. It held back. Dangled answers like a carrot. But before it pulls us out of the pods it studied us. Learns what makes us tick. Then uses our young, able bodies, then tosses us away and moves on to the next.”

  I get it. It’s crazy. It’s impossible. But I get it. The Nomad—the bug—was inside Phantom, but now it’s in Taylor. Phantom is old news. Yesterday’s model. He’s ready to be recycled for spare parts. “What about the monsters? The beasts?”

  “Their bodies can do things ours can’t. Survive in space. Fight wars.”

  “More suits.”

  “Without us, it’s nothing. But it tries to make us think it’s the other way around.” He softens like we’re buddies. The enemy of my enemy, I guess.

  “My name!” He grabs my neck. Squeezes. “Tell me my name!”

  I can’t breathe, let alone talk. I have him. I finally have something he wants. He knows his time is com
ing to an end. He’s lived a life without being anything but a slave to that monster. He’s a sad sack. A victim. But victim or not, he killed Hero, Crazytown, and Shaft.

  “Your name …” I wheeze. He relaxes his grip just enough to get the rest. “It’s Dick … Dick Hurtz.”

  He pulls the rifle’s trigger. Again, the pain floods through me. It’s probably a five or a seven. I’m getting used to it. It’s making me stronger. Normal human pain and suffering is nothing anymore.

  I’m post-human.

  I’m becoming my own monster.

  Next thing, I’m staring at ceiling lights. The pain lingers. Everything around me quakes and shudders. Lights flash. Klaxons and sirens scream out all around me. We’re crashing, no doubt about it. I can hear the last song on the album. Purple Rain. It’s so sad and beautiful. The words underscore the explosions, and concussions, and straining metal—the soundtrack of what is likely our final moments.

  A smashing sound stirs me from my thoughts. Phantom slams his sword down on the lockbox trying to get in. He’s doing more damage to his sword than the box.

  I waggle my arm. The key rattles against my wrist. It’s still there. Through whatever hell I just endured, I never surrendered. Damn. I’m tough. Tougher than I would have imagined. Tougher than that sad kid in the mug shot.

  Phantom is an idiot. All he had to do was search me. Instead, he chose the torture path. Wrong choice, dickhead. No wonder Taylor wanted to trade up. He shifts to using the butt of his rifle to break the lock.

  Now’s my chance.

  I grip the back end of the dart stuck in my shoulder and pull with all my might. I can feel its tips needling the underside of my flesh. Anchoring. I clench my teeth. My muscles flex. I give it everything I have. It doesn’t come easy. I wiggle it, twist it, give it a steady pull, ripping it out of my skin. I worm the projectile out like a fish trying to rip free from a hook piercing its mouth. The pain is incredible. But I’m different now. After what I’ve endured, ripping a hook through my tendons and muscles is a walk in the park. With a final flesh-tearing jerk I tear it free.

  Phantom is still at the door. He’s given up on the sword and the lockbox and is now pounding the bulkhead in frustration with his fists. “Open up! Open up!” He bends at his waist. Coughs. He might puke, but I think it’s more heartbreak he’s suffering from. His voice cracks with emotion. “I just want to talk. Please. Don’t lock me out. Please.”

  “Hey,” I call over to him.

  He turns. Disbelief paints his face. I’m a ghost to him.

  I toss the key his way. It lands on the floor with a soft clank. It lies just a few inches from my face. I’m luring him in. I lie on the loose dart, hiding it.

  Phantom walks my way but stops a few feet short, still trying to figure all this out. It’s pretty obvious what I’m up to, but he’s more desperate than cautious. He’s all out of Prince tunes and has no choice but to take the bait if he wants to see his precious Taylor again.

  “Please,” I croak, trying to sell my feebleness. “Save them.”

  He takes a long look at the key. Then me. Then the key. He reaches for it.

  I slam the dart down, letting my momentum and rage do the work. I aim for his throat but between my fatigue and my awkward attack position, I bury the projectile into his back, right by his spine. He whips backward crying out. He flails for the stuck dart, but my errant attack has lodged the thing in an unreachable spot.

  “You flea!” He blasts me in the gut with a kick. Every ounce of air is smashed from my lungs. He snatches the key and raises his calloused heel over my face. I never see it come down.

  Darkness swarms me.

  A woman’s voice whispers in my ear, “Don’t open your eyes.” It’s not Taylor, but it’s familiar. It feels like home.

  “Mom,” I whisper, or maybe I just think it. I’m pretty sure this is a dream. Or a memory.

  “Honey pot.” The familiar nickname is an emotional dagger to the heart. I can’t remember her name or what she looks like, but it’s her. Honey pot. That’s what she called me.

  I try to open my eyes but can’t. Sirens fill my ears. I’m in an ambulance. I’m ten. I was riding my bike in the street in front of the house, the Huffy. It’s a boy’s bike, but somehow that’s cooler. I hear a scream. A scuffle. I ditch the bike on the lawn and sprint inside.

  Mom lies crying on the kitchen tile. Buddy stands over her. His knuckles bleed. He reeks of Jim Beam and Marlboros. Buddy is Mom’s new boyfriend. He’s not my dad. He doesn’t pretend to be. I call him Buddy, and he calls me “the little bitch.”

  The kitchen looks tidy as usual. Nothing out of place. The table has wrapping paper, and ribbon, and a pair of Barbie dolls. It’s my birthday. Today I turn double digits. A big girl. I grab the scissors off the table and place myself in front of him.

  It’s all instinct. I’m defending Mom. He’s not gonna hurt her on my watch. The last thing I remember is the blur of Buddy’s fist, the flash of pain, and the quickest of thoughts, “my head is going to hit the wooden floor.”

  I try to move my arms, but I’m pinned down. I’m strapped to a gurney. Again, I try to open my eyes. They’re swollen, and pain shoots through them into my temples. “Don’t look, sunshine,” my mom instructs. “Keep your eyes closed.”

  Something horrible has happened. I’ve lost my legs, or my guts are sprawled out over my chest. She wants me to die instead of endure some horrible life incurred by my injuries. I listen to her anyway. I’ll stay here, trapped in a time when the future might still be bright. I’m ten, and there’s nothing that can’t be fixed by cartoons and a trip to Baskin-Robbins.

  “It’ll all be okay,” she says in a quivering voice that suggests otherwise.

  Damn. What if I never open my eyes? What if it all ends like this?

  What a chicken shit way to check out.

  Death is part of the fun. I’ll only get one chance at it. I want to do it right. I want the full experience. I want to do it with my eyes wide. Screaming, and crying, and clawing while death drags me into the great beyond.

  Some people might pray they slip away in their sleep. Never knowing. Easy-peasy.

  I’m not ‘some people.’

  My eyes flash open.

  The cargo bulkhead is up. The key is still in the lock. Phantom’s inside. A loud klaxon rings out. A calm, but loud female voice calls from the wall speakers, it sounds like a phone operator. “Hull breach in corridor seven. Radiation detected. Please stand clear of the bulkheads.”

  Smoke chokes the hall. A symphony of whining steel soundtracks the unnerving scene. We’re moments away from smashing into that looming planet. I turn to the corridor that leads to the bridge. It’s shrouded in smoke and sparks. I can only see about five feet in before it’s just a wall of living gray.

  Suddenly, the bulkhead door slams down, sealing it off.

  That can’t be good.

  We’re locked out from the navigation. We’re completely cut off from steering this thing to safety. Taylor could probably override it somehow. But what good would that do? The corridor was sealed off for a reason.

  We’re done. Once and for all—it’s game over.

  Bah. Fuck it.

  I should’ve died ten times over. I’m on borrowed time. Let’s disco.

  I lumber to my feet and stagger past the open bulkhead. The lit panels of the cryopods cut through the smoke, tiny lighthouses on a foggy night. I duck into the back alley behind the pods, tiptoeing over cables and pipes that service the sleeping prisoners. My legs are stubborn puppets. They slumber like wooden beneath me. Every step a battle of wills.

  Phantom is shouting over the cataclysmic sounds. He’s in the back, near where we left Taylor. He’s finally found her and is having his heart-to-heart. I slide ahead keeping the machinery between him and me, stabilizing myself on the large cylinders just to stay on my dead feet. Near the bulky buckets that likely house more deadly worm-beasts, Phantom looms over a prone and battered Taylor. He still has t
he dart stuck in him. Ha. Sucker.

  He’s different. His confidence has eroded. He’s more Kermit the Frog than Miss Piggy. A child desperate to convince his mother he can stay up past bedtime to play another round of Pac-Man. He’ll do anything—lie, threaten, beg.

  Taylor is calm in the face of it, measured. I can’t hear a word she says over the Klaxons. But I’m sure she’s trying to convince him that none of this bullshit matters if they don’t stop us from nosediving into Planet Whatever.

  “Not until you’re back with me.” Phantom’s voice rises over the rattle of cryos and gadgetry. He raises a large hunting knife and perches it at Taylor’s skull. The high tech pain rifle lies behind his heels like a discarded toy.

  “No.” Taylor holds up her hands in defense. I move closer to catch her words. “We need the robot. You’ll kill us both.”

  “No.” Phantom’s crying now, he leans close to her. His knuckles white around the knife. I begin to realize his plan—he wants to carve the bug out of her head. He’s beyond insane. “You can walk me through it,” Phantom says. “Tell me how.”

  Taylor pleads. “Put down the knife.”

  But he doesn’t. He’s not letting go, almost steeling himself to the task at hand—a little do-it-yourself brain surgery.

  I stride out in the open. I pick up the discarded rifle and glance at its handle. The analog pain level is still dialed up to level seven. Fuck me.

  Taylor’s eyes find me, then Phantom’s. He’s not happy to see me. There’s no little laugh. No quick quip. I’m the rat that keeps showing up no matter how many traps or how much poison he puts out. I have one play in this—I have to get him out of the way so Taylor can save us both. It takes two hands and some extra muscle to hold the rifle. My balance what it is, I’m teetering on my two feet. I’m the opposite of threatening.

  He pokes the knife in my direction. “I’ve had enough of you, pest.”

  “Ditto.” I nudge the pain switch to ten and squeeze the trigger.

  An apocalypse of agony fills me. On the inside, I’m screaming, writhing, seizing. I’m pain’s instrument, and it strums me like Eddie Van Halen playing “Eruption.” But deep down I’m smiling, because I know Phantom has one of the darts stuck deep into his back, and if I’m in this much agony, so is he.