by Noah Fregger
“You have bones that bend, but will not break; wield the strength and speed of an animal whose planet is far larger than Earth; have the nocturnal eyes of a creature several billion light years away, and your healing … the very thing that made it all possible.”
“My healing?” Mohammad asked.
The panther-like image gave way to another, this one looking more like magnified bacteria, an accumulation of several organic, cylindrical shapes. “Much like a cancer, this symbiote replicates within your body until it inhabits every cell. It thrives on your well-being, keeping you healthy, free of disease, infection, and injury. And without it, your assemblage of genes would simply fall apart.” Gabriel stuck a long, pale finger out at the Fijian. “A great war was fought over this symbiote, Mohammad. You must realize that it is an honor.”
Mohammad nodded.
“I only refer to you as Mohammad because that is who you believed yourself to be. The truth is, that man is dead and will remain that way. I have given you his memories and appearance, but you are not him. Do you understand?”
He nodded again, although it hadn’t exactly sunken in quite yet.
“Do you wish for a new name, then?”
Did he? He couldn’t imagine answering to anything else. He shook his head.
“Very well.” The Traveler turned again to the hologram, changing the subject with an extended hand. “In no way does this symbiote make you bullet-proof,” he added. “It cannot save you from everything.”
Gabriel placed the metallic container on the floor, pressing its side, the top of it folding open as Mohammad leaned forward to see. Within the small box, curled up and sleeping, he discovered a tiny, orange kitten. The Traveler reached inside, pinched it by the scruff of its neck and extracted it. Placing the kitten in the palm of his huge hand, he continued, “This is the third life-form I’ve created here, you being the second. She’s a clone of the dead feline you acquired for me, injected, too, with the symbiote.”
“Why does she need the symbiote?”
“Not only will it protect her from disease, but she needed it in order to survive the implant process.” The Traveler stroked her back with the tip of his finger. “If you are my hand, Mohammad, then she will be my eyes and ears.” The kitten twisted, placing her paws atop the Traveler’s finger. “She is a gift.”
“I’m flattered.”
“She’s not for you, Mohammad.” The Traveler smiled. “I would like you to deliver her for me, however.”
Mohammad nodded, unsure of what that might entail.
“It is time you become accustomed to our mode of travel.” Gabriel motioned toward the wall. “Space and time are a fabric. They can be folded. I’ve installed a door here for you. The location has already been programmed.” Gabriel handed Mohammad the kitten, its soft warmth within the palms of his hands. “All you need to do is walk through, and place her on the ground.”
“Where am I going?”
“It is outside the city. You will be safe.”
Mohammad approached the wall, anxiety tickling at his insides as he pressed his hand to it and watched his fingers disappear. It left no sensation on his skin, as if it were nothing.
“Hang in there,” he whispered to the kitten, and stepped through. Night awaited him on the other side, its darkening sky stretching out above him. He found himself surrounded by flattened wasteland, standing within the fenced area of a junkyard. Reminding him a bit of the shipping area, it was another scattered assembly of forgotten equipment.
In no way did it look like the ideal place to abandon a kitten, but he was under Traveler orders. Mohammad knelt, giving her a gentle pat on the head as he set her down. “I guess this is your home now,” he whispered. “It’s really not too different than where you came from though, is it?”
Leaving the cloned feline behind, Mohammad stepped through the fence and back into the factory, finding Gabriel still standing before him. “I don’t think I’ll ever be getting used to that.” He shook his head.
The Traveler only smiled. “You will.”
“Why send the cat there?” Mohammad looked up at him. “What’s so important about a junkyard?”
“Everything, Mohammad.” Gabriel leaned forward. “When we start picking up the feline’s feed, you will see.” The Traveler turned, extending his arm. “Which brings me to the next task at hand.”
Behind him was a long, black, metallic container, much like the one that housed the kitten, only this one large enough to fit a man. Ominous, it reminded Mohammad something of a dark coffin.
His reflection glistened across it as he approached, the first time he’d seen himself as … whatever it was that he was. And he couldn’t tell a difference, relieved to look exactly like the man he’d been conjured to replace. So well, in fact, that he couldn’t yet differentiate himself from the man whose memories he shared. Surely he’d forever think of himself as that man, and yet live to avenge him.
“You might notice I am unlike the Travelers that came here before.”
“I’ve noticed, yes.”
Gabriel created a hologram of one of those Travelers. It came to stand beside him, tall and lanky within its globed-headed suit. “They are called Ramalah,” he revealed, “and they conduct change in a peaceful manner. I was sent here to aid them … although I work more in secret, more discreet.”
The Ramalah hologram disappeared, replaced by that of a female hybrid, her black hair upon her reddish shoulders as she turned to look back at him.
“The Ramalah design is now extinct; however, I am in the process of reintroduction.” The female hybrid slipped from view, and in stepped a new creature. Mohammad blinked, curious.
He was looking at himself.
“You carry the genes, Mohammad. You are a vessel of the Ramalah design … and although none will be made with your advancements, you are still the first of many.”
Mohammad stared at himself. “I don’t understand.”
“You are a seed, Mohammad, a highly protected and camouflaged seed of evolution.” Gabriel placed his large hand on the Fijian’s shoulder. “Were you to have a child, it would be hybrid. But all of your advancements will end with you; they are not traits you can pass on; the fate of the symbiote will be the same, as well.”
Gabriel pressed the side of the large container and it opened, revealing a body within. It was a tall man, blood drenching his front, a hole carving a cylinder into his neck. He was very much deceased. “So you will assist me, Mohammad, in bringing back the dead, in creating more like you.” He then held something out to the Fijian. “But first we need to extract his memories.”
Similar to the device the Traveler was wearing, Mohammad slipped his fingers within it. The device flexed with his movements, articulating with little effort, becoming more like a part of him than a donned apparatus. There were several buttons aligning it at the wrist, along with a vile of silvery liquid protruding beside them. Mohammad, device on hand, rounded the corpse.
“Now place your hand aside his head.”
The Fijian extended his fingers, pressing them to the dead man’s cold, damp scalp.
“Good.”
A small light atop his wrist began to throb in hues of blue.
Downloading.
“He will not remember his death,” Gabriel added, wrapping his long fingers over the edge of the container. “He will return to his life, oblivious, a clone of this man and a bearer of the hybrid design.”
“Not to challenge your plans, Gabriel,” Mohammad started, “but their children, they will only be infants. Who will protect them?”
“Don’t underestimate a mother’s bond with her child.” The Traveler grinned. “And they will have you, Mohammad.”
The light then stopped its blinking, the man’s memories absorbed.
“We no longer have use for his body,” Gabriel said. “His DNA and memories are ready for replication.”
The black container then sealed itself, lifted off the ground, and made its way b
ack toward the wall.
The hyper-wall.
It disappeared into it, swallowed by solid concrete, an act Mohammad was forcing himself to register as actual reality.
Gabriel followed the floating coffin, stopping before entering the portal. “I’ll leave you with the glove. Learn its uses … and never use that rope again.”
Following Gabriel’s departure, Mohammad pressed his palm to the wall. It had fallen solid again. But the glove reacted, spilling an emerald hologram before him. Mohammad, startled, stumbled backward before realizing what it was–a map of the entire city, parts of which detailed in swift strokes of crimson.
Doors, Mohammad realized.
Areas of the city were speckled with dots of violet, some of which moving down city streets, or huddled around in larger numbers.
They were survivors! He witnessed their arms and legs as they moved. This map was tracking every single person left in the city.
He lifted his gloved index finger, pressing it upon a glowing portion free of any inhabitants. It enlarged, allowing him a choice of several red portals. He touched one and the hologram diminished. Mohammad lifted his hand to the wall again. This time it accepted, his fingers piercing it like gelatin.
Unhindered, he stepped through.
The hunter lay awake in his manager’s loft that overlooked the store from its angled two-way mirror. But with the LED lamp blazing beside him, all he could see in it was himself. He never fancied his face with a beard, and the end of the world had yet to convince him otherwise. So the hunter would allow himself a shave on the first day of every second week. Who knew something so mundane, something so trivial as the clean stroke of a razor would offer such pleasure in the cataclysm? Still he would often find himself looking forward to it more than anything else. The following morning would bring with it the first day of the second week, and the thought of a fresh shave could hardly lift his spirits at the moment.
The hunter rested his head upon the pillow, the enigma of the day like a flurry through his mind.
Where the fuck did that body go?
The more he thought about it, the more it drove him insane. He couldn’t explain it, and that remained to be the scariest part. Not that the hunter was scared, of course. But something had snatched that man right out from under him; and the hunter wasn’t used to being baffled beyond all rational thought.
There’s gotta be some kind of a secret door. That’s the only possible way.
Tomorrow he’d return to Cider and start pressing bricks, like in one of those Indiana Jones movies. That’s the kind of thinking he’d been reduced to.
If it weren’t for my vasectomy, I’d swear someone was bustin’ my balls.
Victoria slipped beside him, placing her head upon his shoulder. “Let it go, James,” she said. “Try to relax.”
She called him by name. He hated his name. People used to call him Junior. He regretted having anything more than DNA in common with that man.
“Victoria, it was impossible.” He turned to look at her. “There’s no other way to explain it.”
“Apparently it’s not.” She smiled, trying to cheer him up with the beauty that was her face. But he would not be swayed so easily. She tucked a lock of blonde hair behind her ear, fixing him with what he knew to be the bluest of eyes. But there in the dark, they looked only grey. “Rick hasn’t stopped talking about it,” she said. “How do you put up with that guy?”
“The same way I put up with Saint John,” the hunter answered. “Patience, and whatever it is they say about acquired taste.”
“Some things just aren’t worth tasting, I guess,” she said, inching closer. “That’s a hint that you should kiss me, Stupid.”
“Really? I didn’t notice.”
“Wait a minute.” She twisted, propping herself up on her elbow. “Here you are, with the prettiest girl left on the planet, and you’re not gonna take action?”
“Well, if you’re not the prettiest, then you’re certainly the most conceited.”
“I’m only gonna lay it on so thick, James.” She rolled her eyes. “There is a point when you’re just being an asshole.” She lifted herself from his mattress, but he caught her by the hand.
“No.” He squeezed gently. “I enjoy your company.”
“Fine.” She fell back beside him. “So government territory, huh?”
“Yeah.” He smiled. “It’s about time someone implemented some order around here. We won’t survive if we keep acting this way.”
“You want my opinion?”
“Always.”
“We’re doomed, James. Get used to it. Our time is almost up. Like the dinosaurs, we had our chance.”
“And that doesn’t bother you?”
“It used to,” she whispered. “But I won’t be here, regardless. I’m just happy to be alive right now.” She placed her hand on his face. “That’s more than so many can say. Forget about your legacy, James. We’re only dust.”
“Forgive me, Victoria, if I don’t share your views just yet.”
“It doesn’t matter.” She waved it away. “One day you will, and that’ll be the day that you regret the time you spent racking your brain in here, the time you could’ve spent more wisely.” She kissed his cheek and left him alone in the darkness. And in the wake of her departure, it wasn’t long before the regret she spoke of came to visit, scraping at his sides in the middle of the night.
Mohammad exited the hyper-wall, coming to rest along an old pickup. Sure enough, there were no survivors in the area. He found himself completely alone out in the night. The sidewalk stretched at both his sides, cars sprawled out on the street beyond. He looked again at the mechanical appendage lining his fingers, bringing it before his nocturnal eyes. He counted three buttons atop the device, their purposes eluding him at the moment.
Mohammad held the device away from him, gritted his teeth, and pressed the first button. The silver liquid within the vile vanished in that instant, only to be found crawling along his arm the next. He tried to brush it off with his other hand, but the liquid only spread, beginning to engulf both arms at once.
“What in God’s name?!”
It climbed his neck, stretching over the curve of his jaw and along the top of his head. He tried to tear it off, but it was no use. The thing would be suffocating him soon, possibly sliding down his throat and choking out his newfound life … but it did nothing of the sort.
Mohammad found himself covered from head to foot, still able to see, breathe and hear. He stood straight, inspecting the liquid that covered his entire body.
What is this?
He witnessed his reflection in the pickup’s window, a silver statue of himself, and then he was gone, vanished from sight. Although Mohammad could still see himself quite clearly from within the substance, the pickup revealed his transparency from the outside. This was how Gabriel appeared to him the night before, invisible, coated in this silver liquid.
Finding invisibility rather redundant there in the darkness, he pressed the switch again. It diminished as the liquid returned to the vile. He then pressed the second button and it glowed purple … but nothing else seemed to happen. He turned it off, and back on … still nothing but the glowing button. He tried the third switch. This one glowed orange … but it didn’t do a damn thing either.
Mohammad would have enjoyed an alien briefing, or at least an instructional video on the device.
He turned and stepped back through the hyper-wall, almost yelping when he found Gabriel waiting for him on the other side.
“So what did you learn?” the Traveler asked.
Mohammad pointed back at the wall. “I can choose doors to enter throughout the city, and I can be invisible.”
“What else?”
“There’s two other buttons, but I don’t know what they do.”
“Press the second one.” Gabriel smiled.
Mohammad pressed it again. “See? It doesn’t do any–” A flash of bright blue light hurled toward him,
as Mohammad threw up his hands instinctively. The flash was then followed by a burst of violet surrounding him. Gabriel threw another volley of blue energy, and again it was deflected by the violet cocoon in which Mohammad was encased. “It’s a shield,” he realized.
“Yes,” Gabriel concurred. “This, Mohammad, is what will make you bullet proof.” The Traveler threw another burst of energy at him, again it met the shield.
“How are you doing that?”
“Watch my hand.” Gabriel threw another. The energy was emitted by his device. He’d curled his fingers, then expanded abruptly when he released it.
Mohammad did the same, forming a claw with his hand, then let it go. A blue orb launched from his device, colliding with Gabriel’s shield. Waves of violet tendrils wrapped around the immense Traveler as he grinned beneath them.
“Good.” Gabriel said as he lowered his hands. “Press it again to lower the shield.”
Mohammad did.
“And now the third.”
Mohammad pressed it … nothing but that little orange light.
“This one was designed for damage control,” Gabriel stated. “It emits a sonic wavelength that disrupts all combustible reactions. Fire cannot exist around it.”
“I see,” Mohammad nodded, turning it off.
“Navigating the doors and the invisibility is all I hope you will ever need.” Gabriel turned back toward the hyper-wall. “Remember, we work in secret. We are ghosts, you and I. But if ever you’re in danger, know that you will be well protected.” And with that, he was gone.
Mohammad practiced a bit more with the device, causing a small fire with his plasma weapon that enabled him to use the orange button, or the auto-zero, as the Fijian would later call it. That was a term the operators would use when configuring their converting machines. Mohammad found it fitting. The flame did as Gabriel said it would, extinguished immediately upon Mohammad’s approach, leaving behind a wispy strand of smoke.
He climbed up into his nest later that evening, but had trouble sleeping on account of his racing mind. It went almost directly to Radia, how he could have protected her now, now that he was more like her, now that he’d been … advanced. He still looked human, but that couldn’t have been further from the truth.