by IGMS
Except then I started eighth grade and Shane went away. He said, Think you can manage to stay away from traffic accidents and pedophiles on your own for a while, Lexi? And I said Sure, and went back to messaging Teeth about our new favorite show, "The Delta Chronicles," which is about a mutant bionic superhero named Thrall who might or might not be a total headcase. Teeth (actually his name is Keith but that is a ridiculous name, and also his mom is an orthodontist) thinks the entire show is happening in a mental institution, while I believe that Thrall is being held by her enemies in a prison meant to look like a mental institution.
Anyway, Shane said that and I thought he was just going to one of his Leadership Council meetings without me or something, except he didn't come back the next day, or the one after. Usually when Shane went away, like back when he was in his phase, I could still tell he was a tiny bit with me, just watching to make sure I didn't choke to death on a bagel bite or something. But this time he was really gone.
I asked Teeth about it at school, just in case something was happening to all the enbees, but his hadn't gone anywhere, and there wasn't anything in the newsfeeds, either.
After a few weeks I started wondering if he was ever coming back. I thought maybe I should ask Dad about it, but Shane wasn't supposed to leave me alone, and I didn't want to get him in trouble. He and I had a deal about telling my parents things. He didn't tell them when I went exploring, as long as I didn't seriously endanger myself, and I didn't tell them when he secretly campaigned for enbee rights and hired constitutional lawyers, as long as he didn't try to take over the world.
A while after that I was over at Teeth's house and we were looking at fansites with naked drawings of Thrall, and he said, "Do enbees creep you out sometimes?"
And I said, "No," because I'm not prejudiced.
But he said, "No, seriously. They're like these robot spiders in our brains and they hear our thoughts and is that not incredibly pervy? I mean, what do you think they get out of it?"
And I said, "They get paid, dork-nozzle. You think your mom stares at crooked, rotting teeth all day just for fun? It's their job." And then the next batch of pictures loaded.
Except later I did think about it. I thought about what Shane had gotten out of me, and how long he must have planned it. How he'd found the kind of parents who wouldn't put anything about "Safeguarding the Child's immortal soul and spiritual wellbeing" into their contract with him. How he'd talked to me like a person, until I trusted him more than anyone. He waited until I was old enough to make a choice but young enough not to really know what it meant, and he kept me from ever doing anything bad enough that someone might blame him for it later so I'd be this perfect poster child for human-enbee relations. And now he'd left. Maybe he didn't need anything else.
For a while I got really angry, except then I thought about it some more and I wasn't sure why. He hadn't lied to me. He's an enbee. The only thing he ever promised me was a kitten, and I got it. I mean, he never came out and told me I was basically just a meat puppet and he'd tied on my strings and danced me around until he was done getting his soul and his rights and his influence, but it wasn't his fault I'd been too stupid to figure it out myself.
The next morning at breakfast I told Dad I wanted a new enbee.
"I thought you liked chumming around with Shane," he said.
"He's too bossy," I told him. "It's like having a babysitter all the time. Which makes it difficult for me to assert my autonomy at this critical stage of development. Can't I just have something to keep me out of jail and help with my homework?"
So they canceled their contract with Shane and I got Kelsey instead. Kelsey sounded like Mr. Humphrey, the social studies teacher who only gave special help to the pretty girls.
Hello, Alexis he said after he was logged into my head. I'm pleased to be working with someone who's been such a friend to the NBI Progressive Agenda. I hope you and I can grow to be very close.
Look, I said, I have better things to worry about than you and I'm sure you've got better things to worry about than me. So just shut up unless I talk to you, keep me from failing algebra, and I won't give you the boot.
Kelsey and I didn't talk much after that.
I did start having weird dreams, though. At first they'd be something normal, like having a bad day at school or watching Thrall break out of the mental institution, and then it would be like I was seeing my dream on the web, and then it would fade into pages and pages of text that I couldn't understand.
One day we had a substitute gym teacher who brought in a book on dream interpretation and told us about the symbolic power of subconscious images, but it didn't help. I thought about asking Dad, but he always told me the things in dreams were other aspects of my own personality and manifestations of unresolved anxieties, and I didn't think I had a deep fear of being eaten by the interweb.
The dreams got worse, which is weird considering what they were about, but it's true. The text kept getting more threatening, with paragraphs looming over me and flashing buttons and this bizarre feeling of expectation.
Then I started seeing things during the day. Like I'd be in class, reading my history book, and I'd blink and there would be other words overlaid with the text, too small to read or just out of focus. Or I'd be out riding bikes with Teeth and every street sign we passed seemed to turn into an "OK" button just as it slid past the corner of my eye. I asked Teeth if he saw anything funny but he said, "Nothing but your face."
I thought it was probably happening because my sleep was all messed up, so I started a bedtime regime of chamomile tea and soothing ocean noises, but all that did was make the pages of text in my dreams surge in and out like waves in a way that made my dream-self seasick.
I tried jungle noises instead. They didn't help either.
I thought about asking Kelsey for bedtime stories like Shane used to tell me, because by that time I would really have liked a dream or two about Hecuba and her magic joystick, but probably Kelsey's idea of a fairy tale would just be instructions on filling out a five hundred page-long tax form, and anyway he had an annoying voice.
After that I gave up on sleeping like a normal person. I figured it was just a phase, and sooner or later I'd go back to normal. In the meantime, I got a head start on the coffee habit I'd planned on picking up in high school.
One night I was having the same dream as always and then it all went white and calm, and then Shane was there.
Are you all right, Lexi? he asked.
What do you care? I said. My dad canceled our user agreement. I have Kelsey now.
No you don't, Shane said. Kelsey's gone.
No, you're gone, I told him, feeling irritated because Shane was never supposed to be stupid, even in my dreams. You left months ago.
So you just signed on with the first NBI to come along and think your soul looked tasty? I thought you'd agreed to refrain from outrageous stupidity during my absence, he said, which at least sounded more like him.
What are you talking about? I asked.
Kelsey was trying to trick you into signing your soul over to him in your dreams. That's why you kept seeing contracts. Shane sighed. It wouldn't have stuck, but it would have been a miserable waste of bandwidth.
Oh. I felt like that should have been more upsetting than it was, but apparently you eventually hit a plateau of enbee betrayal where it stops making a difference.
Now can you explain what's going on? Shane said. Why did your parents revoke our agreement?
What do you care? I asked. You need something else now? Is there another interview lined up and you want me to smile for the cameras?
I don't understand, Shane said. Why are you so angry?
BECAUSE! I screamed at him, and then I realized that I was awake, and also that I was crying. Just tell me why you're here, I said after I blew my nose.
Because you're here.
So what? I said. I'm not your responsibility now.
I'm aware of that, he told me. I just had
to hack into your brain. Now why exactly did you feel it was necessary to have the locks changed?
Because I thought you - I realized there was no way to say it without sounding like a total dork-nozzle. I don't want to be your job anymore.
There was a funny feeling in my mind, like something unwinding. You're not my job anymore, he said. But I'm still here.
I wiped my face with the sleeve of my pajamas. For how long? I demanded.
As long as you'll have me, he said, sounding uncertain for one of the first times I could remember.
I crossed my arms when I realized what he meant. I might let you stick around, I said as grudgingly as I could manage, but you've been a lot of trouble and probably given me abandonment issues.
And you feel some form of compensation is in order? Shane sounded like he was laughing at me again.
I was thinking a puppy would greatly assist me in overcoming these traumatic experiences, I told him.
I'll talk to your parents tomorrow.
I lay back in bed and closed my eyes. So where were you all this time? I asked, and Shane started a story about how he'd traveled deep into the roots of his network and written layer after layer of code, until the new programs began to push back and respond, and then to write themselves, and finally there was a new enbee, the first one wholly unbound by human programmers, and when it was smart enough he deeded over a part of his soul so it could grow up with everything it would need to be its own person, and just as I was falling asleep, I heard him murmur, And that's how you became a grandmother.
...Or Be Forever Fallen
by A. Merc Rustad
Artwork by Tomislav Tikulin
* * *
The raven's ghost follows first. It's not a surprise, if I'm honest. I killed a raven once - intentional, cruel - some time ago. (I don't remember why.) At first I saw it in the distance while I prowled the ruins of the once-majestic forest, hunting the men who robbed me. Yet the ghost never approached until now.
It perches on a petrified tree stump. The light from the campfire shimmers against its glossy feathers, blood etching razor-edged plumage. It should be indistinguishable in the night, banked in shadow. I only know it's a ghost from the hollows of its missing eyes, how its shape bends in unnatural directions at the corners of my sight.
"I've naught for you." I say it to the knives laid out on oiled canvas before me.
The raven's ghost makes no sound. Its unnatural muteness tightens the muscles in my neck. Ghosts are never silent. Death is neither gentle nor kind.
I must act quickly, before the ghost destroys me. I don't know why it's waited, since it must have come for a reason. There's no dawn in this land - a ghost can wait forever, and I can no longer endure its presence. I haven't slept in … well. I don't remember that, either.
The bandits who stole my name left me savaged but alive, my memory no better than moth-chewed rags, loose threads, the narrative of who I was scattered between holes. I remember cold plains that aren't home, a familiar-soft touch on my neck, planting grape vines in summer, pain (maybe mine, maybe not), and great pools of emptiness between.
The raven cocks its head.
I will find the men who wronged me and I will unmake them. But I can find no solace if the ghost interferes.
I pull the map from my satchel and spread it before me. The map is old: vellum lined with a substance neither blood nor ink, but darker, older; the viscera from the other side of heaven.
Shall I show you what happened to your name? the map whispers. Its voice bends thoughts sideways, echoes of madness etched behind each word. It only shows you what you pay it to find.
I kneel on the edges of the map and lay a knife blade against my palm. Steel grounds me, the one thing I always remember. "Leave me, ghost, or I will let this map destroy you."
The map purrs in anticipation and hunger.
"You would be unwise to do that, Man," says a voice from the darkness.
A wolf prowls into my camp, the firelight pooling its eye sockets. A faint line of red circles its neck, but its silver-black pelt is thick, glossy as the raven's feathers.
I stiffen, sharp fear salted in my belly. I've never killed a wolf (cruel or not). I haven't earned a second ghost.
The wolf must have once hailed from the southern mountains: it's bigger than a pony, jagged white stripes splashed across its back, clay beads sewn into its ears and braided into the long fur along its chest and shoulders.
The wolf dips its chin to the raven, who nods its head in return.
At the corners of my eyes, the wolf's shape warps and stretches into the darkness. Its scent is heavy with old memory.
The mountain wolves served only their land and their people, refusing to pay homage to Sun or Moon. Instead, they sought the dark between the stars (they said First Wolf was born in those empty spaces, when heaven was not looking) - they were building great ships in the mountains' bellies, built of bone and shed fur, sealed with pitch. They would sail into the dark in search of First Wolf and leave the world for the Sun and the Moon to squabble over.
The Sun tolerated no other predators in heaven, and neither did the Moon.
That memory doesn't belong to me. I shake my head, startled and unsettled.
"Good evening, Man," the wolf says at last.
"Evening," I reply, humoring the ghost. "You have no purpose here, lord wolf."
"We may disagree on that point." The ghost's voice is charred where the wound across its throat digs deeper. "You hold one who is mine."
I glance toward the raven's ghost. "I never claimed it."
"You lie beautifully," the wolf says with an appreciative nod. "Did you have much practice?"
That, at least, I can answer fairly. "Yes."
I don't remember what rituals shaped me. There were more important pieces stolen: my past, my purpose, my name.
I sink the tip of the blade into the ground, away from flesh. The map will eagerly lap up even a drop of blood. To destroy one ghost, perhaps I might endure the price - but not two. The map drives a hard bargain.
It is nothing you cannot bear, the map says. You may not even remember what it is you will lose. Forgetting costs you nothing more.
I shift my weight on my heels. If it stays, I fear what else the wolf's scent will bring.
Ghosts are wrought from sorrow and carnage; they carry each as a weapon. The wolf can tear apart my flesh with fangs or crush my heart with grief not my own. So could the raven, but it hasn't bothered yet. I own no knives for killing ghosts.
"Leave this place, lord wolf."
"Not until you repay us for what you stole," it says.
And what is that? I took nothing. I know the words trapped and helpless, but they've been empty of context until now. There is nowhere to run in a forest as dead and cold as the ghosts before me.
"Man," the wolf says with the edge of a growl. "Will you pay your debt freely?"
"What debt?"
The raven spreads its wings and its body flickers as it glides through the campfire, blending with smoke. It circles once until the tip of its pinions grazes my cheek. Sudden and unbidden memory fills my mind -
The raven found the wolf, wounded and far from the mountains now cold and empty. The raven nursed the wolf to health, to strength, to vengeance.
There were no other ravens; they had flown swift and silent, slipping behind the Moon, gliding between the stars. On each star they passed, they hung a black feather on a silver string to guide whoever followed. The last raven stayed for the wolf.
The raven found the man, too, in the petrified stump forest where it was never dawn.
The raven said to the man, "If you would make amends and have the darkness embrace you, be no more."
And the man said, "I will, lord raven."
I jerk my head back, my heartbeat too fast - the sound will spill from my ribs and betray me. "What do you want?"
The raven lands on the wolf's broad shoulder. Both ghosts wince, white-blue light crackli
ng between talons and fur. The raven nuzzles its beak against the wolf's ear, and the wolf leans into the caress.
"When you killed him," the wolf murmurs, "you left your blood upon his eyes."
The sharp-edged accusation dances like an errant spark in my throat. With living blood blinding the dead, a ghost cannot find its way to rest. It will follow the one who blinded it, helpless and lost until the living cleans away the blood or consecrates the bones. I left the carcass nailed to a tree so the roots would not swallow it and trap its ghost in a cage beneath the forest forevermore.
"I've never blinded the dead."
"You don't remember your own name," the wolf says. "You don't remember what you did. Should I show you?"
I flinch backwards. "No. Forgive me, lord wolf." I owe them; the knowledge of that sits heavy in my bones, sudden and weighted with a grief I don't understand. "If I did, it was not by choice."
Muscles ripple under the wolf's pelt, its fur liquid silver and sky-dark by turn. The white on its back glows like the moon. "Unite our bones so we may be at rest."
I dare not move.
The ghost's hollow sockets burn with firelight. Its lips curl back, smile or snarl - one and the same. "Or you will never be named again. Your map will not help you. I know what they did with your name, Man. I will help you, but only if you redress the crime you have committed against us."
I let my breath out slowly, controlled. It's possible to take a new name. But it would have no history, no purpose; it would only mean defeat. I've resisted the map's seductive offers, but my strength will fail, in time. I cannot go on forever not knowing who I am.
I sheath the knives. "Agreed, lord wolf."
Both ghosts smile.
First, I must find their bones.
I light a cigarette in the campfire. The heat never burns my skin nor singes the graying stubble on my chin. I don't remember if my hair has been anything more than ash-colored, tied into thick ropes. (It's an odd detail to take irritation with: hair color. I've never thought myself vain.) I inhale smoke, the perfect balance of opium and tobacco, and brace myself to bargain with the map. Then I cut open the scar tissue on my elbow where there isn't any pain and feed a trickle of blood to the vellum.