Relics, Wrecks and Ruins

by Aiki Flinthart

  TWA Flight Center

  Beijing West Railway Station

  Pulau Ujong Space Elevator

  Each of the points of light speeding toward those structures is a human consciousness, a telepresence being shuttled across the FTL network that bonded all the human island-ships scattered across the universe into one.

  Children of the cosmic summer, humans loved to wander far, to live in places where their parents never lived, where their children will grow up only to depart again.

  Yet, there are times—when they are about to start a new venture, when they’re feeling the weight of age, when arbitrary marks in the cycles of their ancient calendars come around—when they wish to return to the places of their origin, the ancestral island-ships they only vaguely know through half-memories, the places where their parents waited for them with reminiscences sweet and bitter, so that they could give thanks, so that they could share a meal with family, so that they could be rejuvenated by gazing upon the past.

  At this moment, most of the shooting stars are coming from or heading toward Beijing West Railway Station. It is as bright as the very beginning of the universe.

  “Heading home?”

  “You got it.”

  “Where are you from?”

  “Off the shoulder of Orion.”

  “Safe travels, and happy spring festival!”

  #

  The shapes of the telepresence hubs in that memory were inspired by actual buildings on the Earth that had long since crumbled into oblivion. They were icons whose forms told stories about their origin.

  But it goes deeper than that. The spider with the tall hat was built at a time when humans traveled by cramming into boxes that levitated on parallel bars, like some tangible geometry proof. Millions went through that station to go home to celebrate the coming of spring.

  But that swooping hat on top? It served no purpose except to remind humans of an even older time, of a time before the city had people-moving boxes on parallel rails. It was an icon embedded in an icon.

  The ancient roof led to a train station that led to a virtual imitation for a galactic network that was recreated in the quantum memory banks of a memorial island-ship that might or might not be the same place as the land on which that train station had once stood.

  And so I speak of years and trains and spiders and hats and islands, things I have never seen and have never known, constructing the Beijing West Railroad Station of my imagination with sounds and symbols invoking outdated definitions recalling semi-reliable memories wrapped around mythical truths.

  If you follow the trails of icons all the way down, you find out where you come from.

  You get to go home, even after it no longer exists.

  #

  No one has spoken for a long time. The star is only a few kelvins now, a black dwarf that is just barely visible. Soon, all of us on all the island-ships will be dead.

  Ancient myths speak of the universe as clinging to one of two parallel branes separated by dark energy, like the two parallel tracks on which those human-moving boxes had once ridden. The two branes collide periodically to crunch and bang out the universe, rejuvenating it in endless cycles.

  If winter has already taken away everything, can spring be far away? I seem to sense the approach of the other brane—the way I imagine one would hear an oncoming train.

  I pour my last energy reserves into maintaining the integrity of the memory of the glowing hubs. The myths say that the shapes of the sprouting structures in the next cosmic spring will be determined by the seeds of the quantum fluctuations planted this winter.

  I am doomed to never see the new cosmic year. None of us will. There will be a brilliant flash, a trillion trillion baby stars, and new island-ships and unimaginable beings of wonder who will be born on those ships and fill the cosmos once again with wonder, beauty, light.

  If I give it my all, perhaps one day, on one of those island-ships, someone will sit up and see a pattern of stars in the sky in the shape of a rectangular bridge topped by a multi-storied tower with layers of swooping roof-skirts, and they’ll name it Squat Spider Wearing a Big Hat.

  Because they deserve to know something about those who came before them, something about where they come from.

  Happy new year, universe

  Dreams of Hercules

  By Cat Sparks

  Kanye aims his dad’s nocs at the big, wide open sky. Some folks reckon birds are lucky. Birds mean you can make a wish. Kanye always wishes for another Hercules plane. His vision sweeps in a wide arc, past the stackbots in a blur, past the dump and the concrete buildings, comes to rest upon the Hercules’s sand-scored wreck. Not much left of it, or all the other good things he remembers back from when his mum was here.

  He squints at the sky again. The black smudge in the far-off distance might be another Hercules; so hard to tell, with heat haze blurring the edges. Most Hercules turn out to be scrawny birds—occasionally an eagle, vultures mostly, now and then a lost and battered drone.

  Kanye raises the nocs to double-check, holds them steady just in case. So much sky, not much of anything else—which is how we want it—his dad reckons. No one tells us what to do out here in the Woomera Badlands.

  Kanye’s boss of the compound while his dad’s on R&R. He put Kanye in charge; said they’d only be gone a couple weeks, long enough to get the shit they need, which means he’s due back any day now.

  Any minute.

  His dad knows all there is to know, like programing the stackbots that are building the ziggurats from crushed-up rocket cubes. Kanye’s dad and his mates built BigZig where Kanye’s sitting now. When they get back, they’ll build a tower and maybe a mighty bridge.

  When they get back from the Ram-and-Raid.

  If the arseholes messing with the ’bots don’t break them.

  One ’bot’s extended arms stack metal cubes like sun-dried bricks while another one injects sharp blasts of spray glue. Gellan’s built a second platform up since yesterday. He must have figured how all on his own.

  Another ’bot throws rocks at BigZig.

  The persistent slam of stones against BigZig’s side shreds Kanye’s nerves.

  “Leave it off!” he hollers down. Gets no answer. Gellan, Slate and their dickhead buddies will keep chucking rocks at BigZig’s prison slits until they think of something else to do. Not much happens in Woomera, especially not with his dad on R&R.

  Not since that time Kanye tracked along the railway line, dug under the fence and followed the Chinook trail.

  That day still makes him want to puke.

  He picks at blister scabs along his arms, sniffs and wipes his nose against his hand. Air smells worse than usual, on account of stackbots stirring up thick dust.

  Kanye stands to stretch his legs as another stone clangs against BigZig’s metal hide.

  “Give it a rest, ya morons!” he shouts.

  Slate yells back, drops his dacks and bares his pasty arse. Others copy, like they always do.

  Stackbots screech with random bursts of groaning, grinding metal. His dad’s gonna chuck a fit at all this mess: goats running loose and dogs tearing up the chickens. Nobody gave anyone permission, just like the time those guys built a trebuchet and started flinging cubes at the astronauts.

  Still, dry air reeks of diesel and burning plastic, bright sun makes his sweaty skin itch bad. Hot air thick with fat blowflies—the only things that ever get fat round here—comes off the garbage, still piled up to mountain height even though the trains stopped coming ages back. Scavengers rooting through the filth rock up regular enough. Kanye’s dad doesn’t give two shits, so long as they keep away from the big machines.

  And BigZig too, goes without saying. His dad says his future’s invested heavy in cash-cow reserves there.

  Prison slits were cut to let in air for the cash-cow crop. Kanye’s only been in once—and not for long. Double dared, he’d entered BigZig, then stumbled out pretending he’d seen stuff.

  Corrido
rs stank of shit and piss, and rats ran across his foot. Swore he’d never go back in again.

  Kanye watches the stackbot’s arm unfurl like a creepy bug antenna. It’s not supposed to be doing that. Those drunken arseholes got no fucken clue. He takes a swig of water, warm from his canteen. Flat and stale, it greases his mouth with petrochemical taint.

  He can’t visit his secret place while those drunks are messing with the ’bots, so he aims the nocs at the long, straight stretch of rail. Just checking. Hasn’t been a train forever, not since that one piled high with yellow barrels that had propellers stenciled on the sides. No Chinooks either. No shrieking grind of hot metal at velocity; no Black Hawks buzzing high over the tracks. All of them plowing straight through, never stopping, full speed all the way to the astronauts.

  #

  He’s back to scanning the sky for birds when something red-hot snickers past his ear. No wasps left so it can’t be one of them. Fingers come back bloody from his head. One of those drunken fucks is shooting at him.

  Not the first time shit has gotten wild and drunk and random. Gunfights have been on the rise, ever since that army convoy—trapped and herded into the BigZig compound. When his dad gets back Kanye’s gonna tell him all about it. Those guys get way too shitfaced to be bosses.

  Another bullet scores the ledge. Kanye halts, lost without the Smith & Wesson Uncle Jaxon says he should be packing always. Kanye slings his nocs and canteen, scrabbles on all fours in search of shelter. BigZig’s exposed on every side, making him an open, easy target, the only thing protecting him is the fact those arseholes get too pissed to shoot straight.

  Snatches of howling laughter carry on the breeze.

  “That’s not fucken funny,” Kanye shouts. Anxious, seeing Gellan’s second level near complete. Thick black smoke belches from the place they toss the giant dump truck tires. None of this is supposed to be happening.

  Blur of metal, whizzing close to his bleeding ear. He ducks as bullets ricochet off cubes. He trips and scrambles, arms grazed and stinging against sharp edges.

  Amidst a sloppy hail of bullets, he rolls and drops down another tier. Landing forces breath out hard. Hip hurts when he tries to get back up.

  Bright blood smears and stains his shirt. Everything is happening too fast. Slate keeps firing, hooting and hollering whenever Kanye jumps.

  Gotta hide. Guns are going off like crackers, bullets peppering metal all around. Kanye whimpers as a squirt of warm piss dribbles down his leg. Scrambles for the nearest prison slit in BigZig, prays to Hercules for luck, holds his breath, sucks in his gut and wriggles on his belly like a lizard.

  Sharp things stab and snag his skin. He makes it through, landing on his hands, curls up tight until the shots subside. Even Slate’s not dumb enough to shoot dead air. Kanye sits up, sniveling and tasting sticky dust.

  Bright light spears in from outside. Everywhere else is dark. A foul stench—something’s died in here. Something big. But everything hurts and all he can do is wipe his nose and work out what the hell to tell his dad. How Gellan thrashed the fuck outta that stackbot, messed it up, shooting guns and people just for kicks. How Slate is getting too big for himself, all the stackies reckon he’s crazy, reckon he’s dangerous, what with all the home-stilled booze he chugs.

  Something stirs in the pool of darkness just beyond the slit window’s bright glare. Kanye stops, strains to catch a glimpse. Prays to Hercules it’s just a rat, but when it moves again, he knows it isn’t.

  Cries out as something emerges from the stinking, shadowy, all-encompassing dark. Kicks, propelling his body back until his spine slams against the wall. “Don’t hurt me!”

  Stays put, stares at the emerging figure. The oldest woman he’s ever seen up close. Long fingers, bony like talons. Gray trousers and a shirt that badly needs a scrub.

  “Are you ok?” she asks.

  “Get away from me!” Tries to inch back on his arse, forgets he’s up against the wall. “Touch me and I’ll kill ya!”

  She smiles. “No you won’t. Give us a look at your arms and that ear. Caught yourself a nasty scrape, looks like.”

  Kanye whimpers; all the fight’s spooked out of him.

  “I’m Judith,” she says softly, kneeling down and reaching for his arm. “Call me Jude—everybody does, or at least they used to.”

  She curls her fingers around his wrist, prods him gingerly in several places. Checks his other arm and then his ear. “Nothing broken.”

  Kanye snatches his arm away.

  “So, what do they call you?” she asks.

  “Shut up. You don’t get to talk. My dad’s the boss of everything round here.” He gestures broadly at the bright and spearing light.

  Old woman uses her knuckles to push herself to standing, then steps back, swallowed by the gloom.

  Kanye keeps his back against the wall, remembers the words his dad uses—cash-cows—words he’s never thought about too close. In his head, he’d pictured actual cows. Wouldn’t even call this one a cow, she’s skinny as a line of pipe.

  “Please,” she says, stepping back into the light, “I’m starving. The girl who brings me food hasn’t come for two days.”

  Kanye stares through swirls and plumes of dust.

  “Tell me your name,” she says.

  “You don’t get to ask me shit. My dad—”

  She clasps her hands and cuts him off. “Of course.”

  Her pants are gray like the suits on TV. Too big for her bony body. Bare feet. Toenails dirty. Pale blue scarf knotted tight around her neck.

  “Your dad’s been gone a while, hasn’t he?” Holds him with her gaze. “That makes you the man in charge—am I right?”

  “Too right.” Gets up and brushes dirt off his pants, thickening the dust swirling through the air.

  “Things aren’t going so well with him away now, are they?” she says. “Can’t see much from here, but I hear all sorts.”

  “Shut up! You don’t know anything. You don’t know jack shit.”

  “Thing about ransom prisoners,” she says carefully, “is that nobody pays good money for a corpse.”

  The old woman sways unsteadily. Brings one hand to her head, then hits the floor with a soft thud, stirring up another cloud of dust.

  There’s a chain around her ankle.

  She slumps forward, groaning, head resting in both hands.

  “I’m in charge here,” Kanye reminds her. “You don’t get to tell me what to do. Don’t you forget it, old woman.”

  “I won’t,” she says softly.

  #

  Three days Gellan has that stackbot running nonstop. Smoke pours from its grinding, screeching gears. Nobody knows how to shut it down. Gellan lost his shit and attacked it with a Super Dozer, that only made things worse. ’Bots are programmed to protect themselves—anyone with half a brain knows that.

  What nobody knows anything about is Kanye’s secret place. His dad never goes up top of BigZig, never checked how one cube came out dented. A space where special treasures can be stashed. The place Kanye comes to think about his problems.

  He built a shelf on two red bricks. On it sits a spotted shell brought from a real live ocean, four brown falcon feathers—each one from a different bird—toy soldiers from some war he’s never heard of. A lipstick: stay matte rose & shine. And his favorite thing—the 24-inch, plastic, US Army C-130 Hercules, with its Stars-and-Stripes flag on the tail and muscle-man stickers on both sides. The lipstick and a faded photograph are all he has to remind him of his mum.

  The trains are starting up again and he doesn’t know what to do. Rumbling and rattling, shivering through his bones. The ache that’s been there since that day. Dad should be back from R&R already. Should be but he isn’t, like a lot of other things that aren’t.

  Perhaps a lucky bird will guide him, but the sky’s as still and flat as always. Time’s past needing birds to help him. Kanye knows what has to happen next. He waits a while, then stands and tucks the Smith & Wesson into his da
cks, picks up some stuff salvaged from his dad’s office. Loads his pack, climbs down to the prison gate, gulps good air before letting himself inside.

  Not much light in the passageway. Ignores flies buzzing on dead things in locked cells. Finds his cash cow hugging her knees in a single shaft of dusty light.

  “Brung you some food.”

  She’s not half as old as he first thought. Grunts as she rips the MRE in half and scoops mush into her mouth with both her hands. Like she expects him to change his mind. Like she isn’t taking any chances.

  Random crashing from outside and bullets plink against BigZig’s cubed sides.

  Fucken tools have started up again.

  The woman licks the last smear from the plastic pack and belches.

  “You saved my life,” she tells him. “And I’m grateful. Really grateful. You have no idea—you really don’t.”

  Kanye sits, placing the gun just beyond the reach of her rusty chain. So she knows he’ll use it if he has to.

  “Nice boots,” she says.

  Kanye sits a little straighter. Black crocodile-belly boots cost more than sacks of marijuana. Only worn when he needs extra luck.

  “They’re all dead, aren’t they? The other prisoners,” she says.

  “Not much value in them,” he says, scratching his scabby arms. “Not like you. Slate reckons you’re worth heaps.”

  She tries to clean herself with a corner of her filthy shirt.

  “How about more water? Bucket’s nearly empty.”

  He sniffs.

  “And how about you tell me your name?” She crosses her legs and folds her arms in her lap. Chain clanks every time she moves.

  “What’s so great about you anyway?” he says. “Why are you worth big bucks? You don’t look like a queen or anything.”

  She pushes greasy hair behind her ear. “You haven’t exactly caught me at my best. I’m the federal minister for environment, infrastructure and sustainable futures.”