The Time Tribulations

by Travis Borne

  Kim couldn’t help but absorb the reality pelting her like the slow explosives of a fission bomb. She was astonished by every detail. And as the backlighting abated, the silhouettes gained color and texture. Joints possessed scant bulging, they had heads, large empty impressions for eyes, a mouth dent, even smooth lumps where the ears should be, human in general form. Except for their skin; it was as if, worn by a gym rat who’d skipped every day but chest day, then was pulled long like a rubber stretch doll. Face to feet was seaweed-green, and animated too. A percolating teal glow made their vertically lined texture glimmer like an electrostatic haze. The iridescent energy moved about their graceful form like a force field.

  Aliens, Kim thought. We’re on another planet.

  She turned her head back to the others still obeying her orders. All maintained the safe distance, just watching, waiting. Sheep—the word just popped into her head and she almost felt bad for thinking it. Being a direct and common-sense person, she propped herself up. Kim, the botanist, was going to find out what was going on.

  As Kim took a second step away from the ramp, toward the beings, the first of the nine went slow then halted before her. Those who trailed him, having had the formation of a bird-flock’s arrow, moved forward now, fencing in both her and the open ramp. The center creature finally lowered its long arm. She did her best to portray a lack of fear, as well the compressed diamond of anger she’d molded because of being confined to a dark room for twelve—she thought of Jim, cursing, and doing what he did so well—twelve fucking hours!

  The submarined bubble of air had a cold and wet metal floor but the atmosphere quickly became warm and inviting as if a blow dryer was working on it. Curiosity won over, pulling others from the ship like an invisible lasso: Joey snuck out first, followed by Crisp, Big Jake, then Lion with his overly tired eyes and curly yellow hair; the view captivated everyone’s attention.

  “Our savior?” Joey asked.

  “I don’t like this,” said Rick Crisp. His pessimistic thoughts trampled already agitated nerves. But this had to be them, the saviors who’d rescued them from certain death—and this was their new home to be? Many questions: Why did the ship suddenly desert the others? Had the drone army returned? But more oddly, not even a smidgen of hospitality thus far? No food, no water, no bathrooms… People had shat on the floor for shit’s sake!

  Kim had her own doubts. And she felt her hope being extinguished like trembling digits holding a match in a cold, cavernous labyrinth; and now the damn thing was burning her fingers. She’d been one of the last to enter Rescue Support #486. And they’d seen the door close abruptly, tossing other anxious boarders aside. As well she’d caught the petrified gaze in Abe’s—Rob’s—eyes; she knew him better than anyone: it wasn’t good. Rob was tall enough to see over the scurrying crowd that’d been frantically attempting to board, and his expression was the last relatively normal thing she’d seen. She read his eyes, those wide, shocked eyes—they haunted her for the past twelve hours. Something, wasn’t right. She knew it was much in part her fault: wanting to exit that claustrophobia-inducing safe room. She jumped the gun, assuming the ship was friendly. Well, now it was time to find out.

  It’s all because of me, she thought, my impatience. I am the reason they had prematurely sent the runner. Joey, so quickly he'd volunteered for the part. So, this time she told the others to stay back as the door had cracked open, declaring that she was in charge, and to herself: that it was her turn to be the runner. She was the ranking member of the town panel and her order was obeyed—for about a minute or so.

  The world outside of the ship was hypnotizing, and the beings just stood there, silent. Their heads turned, curiously, feeling her like a shopper does packaged meat. She couldn’t help but do the same. She looked them down, then up, then way, way up.

  The skin of the bubble above was immense; akin to being in the stomach of a world-sized jellyfish. The interior had to be as large, or at least close to, the size of Jewel City. The transparent layer somehow held out the pressing sea. It fluctuated slightly, again with the same exotic teal static, illuminating marine life which could be seen curiously stealing a glance as they grazed the clear membrane. Whales swam by nudging the skin like a statically charged balloon; they rotated to the side, fixating an eye. The bubble gave way to the rub and bumped them away as if they’d encountered a kinetically charged trampoline. Then, sharks! Big ones. What else could they be but—Megalodons! Just like the those in the old yellow magazines stuffing the town library. They forced their way down from the light above, dispersing whales this way and that, as well myriad others. Jellyfish the size of city buses fell onto the bubble as if to siphon some warmth; they gripped then pulsated, gracefully splaying long transparent tentacles. Goliath starfish came, enwrapping themselves as well; some were missing limbs and their broken fragments sparked when prodding the field. Odd reptilian fish floated along, lizards of the deep, and plesiosaurs! As well, there were the more familiar species: orcas, dolphins, fish like millions of autumn leaves, even dinosaur-sized turtles descended for a visit. Prehistoric beasts were silhouettes in the distance, fighting, or playing; the ocean was stuffed, jam packed with the known and the unknown, historical and extinct, and next to implausible types of marine life, and the skin of the bubble magnified all of it like a nerd’s thick glasses.

  She brought her eyes back to face the creatures. “What is this place?” she asked slowly, trembling a little. She’d wanted to sound forceful but the awe of it all made her feel tiny.

  “I am Boron. And welcome,” said the being gently, “to my world. May I ask your name?”

  “My name is, Kim, Kim Mills. I am a botanist.”

  “Nice to meet you, Kim the botanist. This is a brief stop for repairs before we continue. I apologize for the long ride but I had taken much damage and my vessel was unable to take to space—it would have been a relatively short journey.”

  “But, where, what are we doing here, are we under—”

  “You will soon join the last of humanity.” The being’s face portrayed human expressions as if he was trying too hard. He spoke English well, but the inside of his mouth was merely a depression of the green skin, no hole. His countenance did seem friendly as the lumps of brows moved about on his tall forehead like wormy parasites under the first layer. His greeting was amiable and his words elegant and smooth, his tone gentle and somewhat reassuring.

  But she felt it Iike a cold glass stone in her stomach, somehow, like a new type of mental wind. Intuition. She knew the word yet not the tug of its power—until now. It was that something, a something, that just wasn’t right.

  People continued to creep out from the dark insides of the ship. Heads wandered about. Boron waved his head at the others of his kind like a gentle wave flowing to one side and then the other, and the fence they’d created retreated invitingly. Hypnotized by their surroundings, the humans meandered off in different directions while Kim conversed with Boron. Crisp, Jake, Lion, Joey, and a few others arrived to accompany her. Boron nodded a single slow nod and said loudly, “Welcome, feel free to stretch your legs a bit.”

  With a hushed tone she said, not wanting to alarm the others, “Boron? You, you kidnapped us? Last of humanity? But I thought we were—”

  “Your town had little time left. And I had waited, I waited for years, Kim the botanist. Beyond your outer perimeter, far from your magnificent wall, I remained hidden from the Moribundians, as I have aptly named them, all and the only others of this era. I had to, until your oddly and remarkably powerful defenses had weakened. It was only a matter of time, even for the best of you. Then I was able to employ my technology, combined with The Special, to exploit your weakened state. I penetrated your defenses by creating a friendly signal. So, as you might interpret my feat in that guise, yes, you could say I kidnapped you—better than death, surely…perhaps. And you will work for me. I need to maintain, you see, The Special.”

  Kim knew about the broadcast feed in detail due to he
r longtime relationship with the head of the town panel, Rob Price. Rob regularly communicated with Rico and Ted and was one of the few in Jewel City who did not work at the lender facility yet still knew of its inner workings. He was in the loop, per se, and by means of their trust, so was she. She replied, curiously, but still only half getting it, “The Special?”

  “From others we’ve taken—those who had been neglected by that special savior of yours—you might know it as the feed, the broadcast feed as I believe some of your kind have referred to it. There were other towns, strongholds, once. They were all different, some weak, and few, like your town, extraordinarily strong. You were the last.”

  “You want us to…lend?” Kim asked. Behind her others were exploring, walking around, mesmerized by the skin of the bubble which was like a giant projector delivering unimaginable imagery: the ultimate show of marine life. Some walked around the ship—and none were halted or bothered by Boron or the eight others who stood in his company.

  “I consider you, well, pets, in a sense, but I am not totally inhumane. You will have your time off-duty, although you will find most of my methods far different from yours. But it is better than a death at the hands of those hacking drones, the Moribundians. They are perversely evil. Even, they enjoy making a show of the kill. Useless really, such a waste—if they only knew, like I had found out... So perhaps, you might even thank me for giving you this ride.”

  “What? We can never—” Crisp blared. Big Jake crossed his arms.

  “Oh, you will,” Boron interrupted slowly. And the others behind him took one imperial step forward.

  An identical being two spaces over said, “That’s enough for this moment. Now, are you the leader of your group?” His voice was exactly the same.

  A fear pinched her spine like a cold pair of tin snips. Kim looked at Crisp and Jake, who portrayed anger in hearing the last parts of the conversation. Lion, like a man who had never slept, shook his head slowly—and Joey bounced away. Her fears had been realized: the savior, was not a friendly after all.

  Word filtered into the crowd by means of a bolt of energy, the start of a fast-growing, far-reaching grapevine: young Joey, the new security guard. Like dominoes falling into each other, faces changed from awe and possible relief, to dismay—some with attitude. Still hesitating to answer the question, Kim looked around, checking. Being the highest ranked among three others who also retained a position on the town panel, she finally replied, “I am the leader, yes.”

  “Okay then. Lead your people over there,” Boron said, then raised a lengthy arm and extended an eight-inch, pointing finger. Another of the domes opened in response to his gesture; a triangle peel of the exterior slid aside, revealing a large interior that emitted bright-yellow, warm and inviting light. “There is food, drink, and you can use the facilities. Feel free to take what you need, and by all means take a walk around. Venture if you will, try to relax your nerves. In approximately two hours we will be descending to the last civilized city on Earth. Extarion.”

  6. The Descent

  Kim was last to reenter the green goliath, and the most reluctant. But they had no other choice. She took a seat on the cold metal bench next to Rick Crisp, the town fix-it-all, who simply went by Crisp. He was long-faced both figuratively and literally, obviously tired and frustrated as most. He had his elbows on his knees and held his head up by grasping his curly black noggin full of hair. Before the war Crisp had been a prestigious inventor, even during the rise of myriad robotic machines. He assisted the artificially intelligent bots for a short time until nearly all inventions had been discovered and exploited, and eventually realized he was no longer needed. His once lifetime passion to create, invent, and inspire, had been fully and finally squashed. Movies, even books, all art had become the work of machines: more efficiently and expeditiously they generated anything and everything for the pleasure of humans, minute by minute of every hour. Yet, he continued to tinker, as if there might still be something new, and he hoped—fruitlessly in vain. And he never managed to invent a single new thing, was always beat to the punch and had settled on becoming a fixer like most humans. “Volunteer work” they called it: billions of volunteers, like flies buzzing about the skin of a new world. Populations pretended to be needed for something, out and about hollowly proffering or living vicariously through the constant outpouring of mind-gouging entertainment and pleasures that had become readily, and too conveniently available.

  The ramp door sealed. Dim lights lit the barren hull of a container. Across from Kim on a parallel bench sat Lion, the weed puller; he still had on his green uniform, as usual with yellow chest hair curling out from the neckline. Next to him was Joey, his young friend and newly appointed member of town security. Joey was the over-anxious runner Kim had ceded to before all of this had kicked off—and off he sure had gone. She looked at him and forced a smile. And it ripped at her, her own overanxious decision to send someone out; he became the chosen volunteer. She should have waited.

  Also, in her close company was the massive Jake Toll. He was hairless and fearless, a satin-smooth black man built like a furniture delivery truck. He stood short at only 5 foot 9 but had the muscles of a Belgian Blue. Pre-war DNA modifications had turned him into a lumpy hulk, and he’d also decided to add another feature to his tailored physique: a permanent full-body shave; he grew not a follicle, no eyebrows, not even nose hairs. Jake was the king of fitness, put in charge of physical well-being within Jewel City. Few could rival him in terms of brute strength—save for Abell. Perhaps, Kim thought, glancing around Rick and over at him, Jake would be a reliable chunk of muscle to have around in these uncertain times.

  Beside Lion, who looked exhausted and in serious need of sleep (his eye bags were like shopping bags that could hold vegetables), was short little Ivy Vancleef. They were both donning the safety harness. Ivy had kinky-curly, vividly-red hair. Kim looked into her eyes. Usually a bright popping green, the dim gray of the closed metal hold, and their situation, left them dull and olive. Hope, Kim thought, for a dab of the usual cheerfulness that had aided in keeping the town optimistic; not this time. Ivy looked sad, finally; she’d overheard just enough. She was the town optimist—a career once titled, psychiatrist—and in charge of searching out anyone who reflected even a glint of sadness. Simply, it was her job to cheer people up when they were feeling down. Like Crisp and Jake, she was also a member of the town panel. Today she was not her usually cheerful, energetic self, having had been in Kim’s company during the latter half of the conversation with Boron.

  But thanks to Joey most knew by now; rumors had spread like an unwelcome dog fart. He’d zigzagged around like a paper boy, delivering the news to as many as he could: their savior was not what they'd imagined. Questions abound, and fear, a deeper fear that seemed to penetrate faces to the bone…and people soliloquized: What are we going to do? Nothing, what can we do? You saw them. We have to stick together. Did they say what kind of work we’d be doing? I thought—but I thought we had been rescued? Most were silent, however, deeper in thought than they had been in a long time.

  The bubble of air deflated and within a matter of minutes stretched itself around Kraw’s hull like a plastic-bag around a murder-victim’s head. It disappeared altogether with a crescendoing slurp and suck. The force field re-energized and all aft engines lit brightly except for one. Below, the city-sized platform fell slowly into the abyss like half of the Titanic. The human passengers felt the ship repossess its fluid wobble. And this time all knew well to buckle their safely harnesses; some were still cleaning shit from their clothes.

  No longer smoking like an underwater Tim Tench, Kraw sped forward and rapidly overtook the repair station with a spiraling drop into pitch-darkness. Boron gunned the engines; it was responsive with pep, powerful again. Marine life stirred and three Megalodons gave chase but quickly abated as the depths grew frigid and pressure increased to level: crush-a-numbskull.

  Silence.

  Suffocating darkness save f
or stifled lights radiating from the ship itself; the yellow glow seemed to hit a wall lined with the substance of a black hole. Marine life had ceased too, but as Kraw neared the destination, oddities once again fluttered by; some smacked the frontal viewports like dragonflies to the windshield of a semi. A lamp-dangling freak hit and his bubble splattered like a zit that’d lost a war with pliers; the phosphorescent lime slime rolled away as fluorescent oil globules. Closer now, and swarms of wormy glowing fireflies filled the void as if Kraw was falling into a maggot-infected lower intestine; ahead, the anus, and beyond, as if the anus was nervously throbbing open and shut, was a pink twinkling light. The faint glow was an orb of light, miles below, expanding, getting larger, faster, and so did the abnormal ocean life that seemed to be attracted to it. Soon it fluxed with purple, light blue, and turquoise, as well the pink. The face of a jagged cliff became visible and spewed gray clouds of gas; soon, another cliffside, far across the way. And the suffocating darkness surrendered to a new world of light.

  Boron guided the ship with ease. He leveled it out by making a sweeping arc toward the bubble; almost home…

  Joey blurted, “They’re all green. Weird. Skinny like—”

  “Like seaweeds,” his friend from school said: Macy, on the bench across the way. Joey smiled at her, she back at him.

  “Where did that lanky airbag say it was taking us?” Crisp asked, pulling at the side of his thick black mustache.

  “A city called Extarion,” Kim replied. “He said it’s the last civilized place on Earth, and that he had done us a favor by taking us.” She didn’t want to further unsettle the others by relaying the totality of his disclosures, that they’d be, pets, and they’d be, lending. She knew that none of the others—except maybe for Lion, if he retained anything, and possibly Joey, vaguely—knew of the lending process.