First Contact: Book One in The Deepening Series (A Space Rock Opera Romance Adventure)

by Kelly Brewer

  “Once mixture is ready… I bottle it.” He suddenly gained his composure at great effort, and poured into a small, dark, glass bottle. “No lid… it’s gotta b-b-breathe… can’t taste a new batch though… best let it sit through a new moon… Best to make it on a full moon.” He set the bottle down gingerly, in a row of others. “Makes a sweeter batch.”

  The thought excited him further. “W-w-w when the Mechanix played on the moon, it was a full moon. I made a big batch. Gonna call it ‘step out of shadows’… like that band’s old song… my favorite song. D-d-d-don’t care for their new music much.”

  He pulled another bottle from a row on the top shelf and drew some into an old, crooked, browning syringe. Still moving with gravest purpose, he shot between his forefinger and thumb. The arm was streaked with needle tracks. He inhaled and dropped the needle with a gasping spasm… which gradually slowed. He paused then exhaled easy. The drawn face and neck seemed to fill with air, the eyes seemed to retreat from bulging and bouncing. The man’s skeleton pushed out into a more natural shape. Doc could finally see what he really looked like once the muscles relaxed.

  He, the old man, was a child. Simple and pure. His now-focused eyes sparkled relief out of a genuine smile. “See? It makes me happy… and still.” He held out a steady hand.

  “Happy… still.” Hadjii adjusted his glasses and approached slowly, looking at the old hands. He reached out and took them gently, examining. The doctor began inspecting the patient and found him calm, breathing normally, the contractions subsided.

  Shug let the man examine him. It was a familiar routine. Shug closed his eyes and recited the recipe for him. “Glycerinated asafetida, croton oil… very toxic… muriate of cocaine, sedative, belladonna berries… good stuff, but just a little, also very toxic… and a goofball… angel dust keeps the dark matters… away.”

  He looked down, reverently touching the little bottle of homemade cure, street name Happy-stil. Darius smiled again. There was a kind, intelligent man inside this damaged body. The transformation was heart-warming.

  Hadjii finished his exam and folded his arms across his chest. “Remarkable. Genius, in fact.”

  “I help… others, too.”

  “How did you distribute this across the country?” Hadjii asked.

  “I didn’t.” The man turned away quickly, cursing some unseen antagonist.

  “I showed my cousin Steve how to make all my medicines, in case of an emergency, in case I was too sick and someone got the dark shakes. That thief stole all my formulas. Him and that weird friend of his… he would hang back when they was here.” Shug squinted, biting his nails, remembering the man. Darius looked out where the thin man always stood when he was there, out under the big live oak.

  “The dogs watched him too and never barked. He was always hovering there, watching… give me the creeps. Sharp, piercing white eyes that never blinked. I never got close enough to really see him. I could see he was skinny though, thought he musta been sick too, reason he was here with Steve. They been gone for months. I only used Happy on me first, then a few others. Nobody else. Weren’t for them. It was for us. It works for us. I got lotsa remedies. I make different ones for ones that’s… different.”

  Doc was amazed at the change in him since he’d injected. Almost normal. Hadjii respected and pitied the handicapped medicine man. He next spoke from hope instead of caution.

  “You have done some amazing work here, Darius. I want you to come back with me, to help develop an antidote… and possibly… other medicines. I can treat your defect with modern methods!”

  Shug stopped and turned. The doctor just then noticed the slightest hint of Down Syndrome around the eyes.

  “I cain’t go nowheres! I’m happy now. I done Stepped out of Shadows. You ’member that song? And I cain’t leave my dogs. No sir! I ain’t going back anywheres. Y’all jumping around out there in space… ain’t natural! Everybody knows you don’t jump sick through the dark matter! I thought you was a doctor! I seen them boys that went to your school. If they was sick going in, they come back worse than when they left out. They got… scrambled… darker. I won’t go in the dark… I’m too crooked… you have to go in straight… boys coming back from there is turned crooked worse… you have to be straight going in.”

  He was giving his medical opinion. A slight twitching started again, and pacing. Doc reassured him. “You don’t understand. We would drive you to Dallas just a few hours from here. You would never have to jump, you would never even have to get in a ship.”

  “Sure… my cousin Steve, and that one other fella took the formula after I showed him how to cook it. I trusted him… he stole it and making big money! I ain’t seen a dime!” He paced faster, arms crossed tightly, chewing a tuft of beard. “Now look … now look what they done… y’alls are here! At my house! And wanna punch me through the dark. I ain’t a’goin!” He stepped away from Hadjii. “I…I won’t… I can’t leave m-m-m-m-Mother Earth.” He faced Hadjii and started walking backwards, fear now in his eyes.

  “It’s ok, it’s ok! You don’t have to go. I’m going to leave now. Thank you for…” Hadjii was backing away too.

  “Gonna die right’cher, where I’lI was borned! I will drowned out there!”

  Hadjii saw him tightening up. And he was afraid. The doctor continued to reassure him, backing away, but in his agitated state Lathrop couldn’t hear. He began humming his favorite Cosmic Mechanix song, fiddling with his right ear, backing up faster. “Sun is shining out today, there’s no reason to hide your face… step out of shadows, step out of shadows, step out, step out…”

  He tripped over the forgotten shotgun, then remembered it, picked it up and leveled it at the doctor’s head. “I got nothin’! Just my medicine! For me and my darkened friends! I ain’t goin nowheres!!” He stretched out his arm.

  “Ok, hit him!” Hadjii addressed those listening, stepping back.

  A purple glow lit Darius up. Ol’ Shug froze, then dropped the gun, unused, on the floor. His thin body hardly made a sound when he crumpled down unconscious on the well-papered, wooden floor.

  Hadjii bent down and checked for a pulse. It was rapid and faint. He checked the gun. It wasn’t loaded.

  He had only a few seconds left in this squalid space before the directors stormed in. He looked around the dilapidated house to see if there was something that could help him find Steve Lathrop. There was.

  Several old photographs were hanging on the rusty refrigerator. One was a picture of a contorted Darius standing next to a guy with the name Steve on the front of his shirt. Heavy boots stomped up the front steps of the shanty as he grabbed it. Pocketing the photograph, he met two armed directors in the living room.

  “Leave a medi.bot here to make sure Darius recovers. Set it to fly south to Dallas Centre after he awakens and is cleared by Dallas.”

  The directors grabbed the doctor and rushed him into an SUV, passing the medi.bot headed up the steps. The vehicles fled down the dusty driveway, hounds baying in protest at their speedy retreat.

  A fast exit meant Shug’s on-site security had been disarmed by his team while he was inside. The townspeople would have all been detained by the second team of directors he left stationed at the rest area a few miles out of town.

  The doctor had come in peace.

  He tried to leave that way.

  There was just not enough time.

  CHAPTER 53

  Shady

  In a bar in New York City.us, another disfigured man muddled over his sixth drink, alone. He watched uncensored footage of “The Mars Shot.” One eye squinted as his friend’s head disappeared off his shoulders, his athletic body crumpling forward. The news at 1700 rewound it tightly several times in slow motion. A voluptuous blonde newscaster pointed out the flying bits like a weatherman pointing out scattered showers on a green screen. He saw footage of Kyle and Moore, prancing and jumping
about in those ridiculous rock ’n’ roll outfits. Then a faded photo of Kyle as a teenager, holding the antlers of a big buck he had killed in West Texas.

  He looked down into the amber liquid and asked, “How have you failed?” The ice clinked softly against the glass.

  Swirling amber liquid soothed, “Drink me, I can help.”

  He did.

  It lied.

  The back of his head tensed, more on one side than the other. The shooting pain would travel down to his bowels if he did not take a pill. His last nerve was the one doctors advised him against surgically severing. It would stop the pain, yes, but he would go completely numb. Pills were obediently popped.

  The stabbing pain was a constant reminder of the injuries he’d received working for that ridiculous band of muppets. When the pain resurfaced, so did anger and confusion. He had worked hard for them to prepare for this grand space tour. The band’s road manager, Tarzan or Lamer or… cannot remember the bastard’s name… had reassured him and his stage hands before they’d started the complex preparations for an event never attempted before.

  “Everyone and everything will be fine if you just do your job the way you were trained. Work together. Safety first!” Lamer had promised.

  Three years of intense preparation were completed. Those three years were gone with the wind. His accident was eighteen months in. Was it three years? It was hard to recall anymore. Hell, maybe it was four. All he knew was those boys needed to be taught some manners. He heard they’d forgotten him like shit down a toilet.

  Everyone at the launch party had raised a glass in anticipation of the first band to tour the inhabited solar system. One of the safety inspectors had uttered a strange phrase as a toast that kept resurfacing in his huddled mind. Why did it keep repeating? Over and over and over. He hit his crumpled forehead with the heel of his paralyzed hand. Please, shut up.

  The diminutive Safety man in the Co-exist T-shirt had raised his glass. “Salute. May we all strive to be intolerant of intolerance.”

  Balding, be-speckled little prick! The kind of abrasive, cluckish personality no one liked. Everyone grumbled varying degrees of response. Some turned heads, uttering vague vulgarities. The small man blinked rapidly, smiled nervously, and sipped champagne.

  “Champagne gives me a headache. Why did I think of that?” he groaned. His head pounded. Pop another pill pleaze.

  But the phrase “intolerant of intolerance”? What the hell did that mean? We must hate those who hate? Hate hate? Hate haters? Haters hating hate?

  Could that trite bullshit have saved his body from all this damage? This irreversible damage? He hated himself in this condition! Hate hate hate. Intolerant of intolerance! WTF!

  Did everyone hate him??!!

  Yez.

  Why!?

  If he could just think straight, to be free of the throbbing pain in his soul!

  He was the one damaged. And now Kyle was shooting people! He must have hated Chica Boom too. He killed his friend. Hate hate, hate hate, hate… yes he did hate them.

  Yezz.

  Idiots! Fools, all of them! They lied so they could steal! They lied to him about being rewarded for his hard work and had destroyed his life! They “intoleranated” against him.

  Zay that three timez faszzt! Ha!

  The memories would not be muzzled, neither his anger and resentment. The medications finally began to exude their molecular numbness. His fog cleared for a moment.

  Sure, the lighting truss crashing down on him was a million in one accident. Wrong place at the wrong time.

  Yeah, he had union insurance.

  Yeah, they’d spent millions half-ass repairing his damaged body.

  Yeah, they restored vision partially in his left eye.

  Yeah, he could walk again, with a cane and artificial knees and hips.

  Yeah, the lawyer made sure he had a fat bank account.

  Yeah, yeah yeah yeah… So what?!

  The rejuvenators did not work on him. Doctors said it was a one-in-1.5 million recessive allele.

  hate.

  hate.

  intolerants.

  hate.

  intolerance.

  Tolerance won’t rejuvenate your frick frackin’ FACzE!

  Happiness and peace had left him. Life’s nectar was lost to bitterness. His tongue was thick and dry. And his glass was empty. He rattled it on the bar for someone to help.

  Only a furiouz, buzzing bitternezz remained. And that strange, hateful, unintelligible phrase repeating… kept repeating…

  His days as a stage manager were finished. He had no power to reach people anymore. It was all he had ever done. He used to be a boss, loved pushing a crew, building the fantastic sets, night after night, loved watching the fantastic audiences from just offstage. He loved the crowds, the noise, the young fawning girls singing along with the band.

  Wanting.

  Believing.

  And he alone had had control of the coveted backstage access. Sometimes a band member would pay him to funnel the most beautiful wannabes to the dressing rooms. Occasionally, he would comfort one who got turned away. But he could not touch them anymore.

  He was missing the prime of life. The band had paid a healthy severance but it was not enough. He’d lost his freedom… and his manhood. No one cared. No one called him anymore.

  So… someone needed to feel the way he did now—useless, powerless, confused, deeply pained.

  Someone to share your losszz.

  The brain injury pained again his mind. The meds were becoming useless. The red ones made him sick and hardly helped getting up mornings. It was a tough choice every day between misery and paralysis.

  Oh, his rocks glass was full! Here’s to alcohol. He threw back another bitter memory. He was not really sure whose fault it was, honestly. The lawyers, the failed surgeries and painful rehab remade him angrier and more depressed. Swallowing a wave of nausea, he closed his eyes and searched his cloudy soul for any clarity. White light flashed in his mind. An idea that he had been forming for a while now resurfaced with hope.

  Those Co-exist visitors that had come to the brain hospital when he was there revived a spark of purpose. A sense of repurpozing. Do unto otherz az they have done unto you, friend. He knew he was mixed up a little, but the visitors helped him straighten it out. Hey, that’z a thought. You should begin preaching Co-existence. You will be intolerant of intolerance. You will only hate on the intolerant onez.

  “Ok, whatever!! Damn, just shut up and get on with this inevitable death, I’m tired,” Shady, the newly recruited hit man argued with his empty glass.

  Hey! Guess what? Coincidentally, a Co-exist church sprang up overnight just across the street from your favorite watering hole.

  Yez! Your favorite bar, home away from home, ziz right across the ztreet! Very convenient.

  Pious, aloof, and thin, the visitors entered the Cognitive Hospital and told him and the others about how you cannot co-exist with intolerance. But be careful. Being tolerant of the “tolerant” cannot be tolerated. Tolerants were weak and zubversive.

  The thin Co-exist man agreed with him convincingly.

  “We know who they are, right?!”

  Yes, he knew. Them.

  The thin man had been so encouraging of his new spiritual awakening.

  The holy men buzzed in his subconsciousness, commanding, “You will be Heavenly Karma, when that zinful band zufferz for your righteouznezz sake.”

  Seek balance. Seek karma. Seek intolerance of intolerance.

  You will become Balance.

  I will become Karma.

  Eye for an eye. Head for a head.

  He was reminded that the Co-exist visitor had even invited him to a service, giving him his card and some literature. When he’d touched him he’d felt warm all over, and the deep pain in
his guts relented. It felt better when they were talking with him. He remembered something odd. The counselor’s mouth sometimes did not move when he spoke. What a weird senzation!

  Sure, he would go to a meeting!

  “It would be balm for your injured soul,” they had thought to him. ‘It would bring healing to you, and then you must take it to the world.” Sure. Yes! A new purpose, he thrilled.

  “Everyone will soon call you… Reverend Shade Tree.” The waif-like visitors had plucked the nickname from his head at the first meeting.

  The Right Reverend Shady had a ring to it. When he was a young man (and whole), his close friends had nicknamed him Shade Tree because of his increasingly large presence with the ladies. His special ladies called him Shady. Indeed, they would gather under the wings of the Right Reverend once more.

  He pulled out the colorful pamphlets they had given him and the others in the brain hospital. He could make out smiling faces, holding hands, two piercing eyes in the background and the words in bold, “Yes you can!” But without his glasses, the rest was a blur. He crumpled them back into his pocket.

  Wouldn’t take him long to learn the right slogans, the right catchphrases. Grow a ponytail. Buy a Cadillac. They had better drugs too, the visitor confided. Healing drugs. He was desperate to be healed, to be a man again.

  He knew preachers. His brother was one. It was just a matter of balancing the correct amount of self-righteous condescension on the tip of the nose. They would call him Shady once more. He would always be a boss. Then he could… would… touch them again. The visitors promised it. “It iz your right.” He would dress nice and go soon. He shot back another drink. God damned right he would.

  But first some unfinished business needed tending. Chica, his dead friend, had just lost everything to the same people he had lost everything to. The Reverend still had his union all-access pass. They had let him keep it after the accident.

  He was done waiting.

  Paying the tab, he left a generous tip. The pretty female bartender had played a note of sympathy in her eyes when she’d filled his glass for the eighth time. He was not sure she was human until that moment.