The Given

by Colby R Rice

  "Sairen's closed file didn't seem to save him, either. So I guess I have nothing to fear."

  "I admire your passion. It has always been your saving grace. But you do know what the original meaning of 'passion' is, do you not, Proficient?" Persaud said, smiling. "Suffering."

  The Vassal left just as quietly as he'd come, and Caleb breathed out, long and slow. The pain in his abs finally subsided, and looking for further relief, he cast a glance at his bookshelf. An old picture was tacked to one of the shelves. Three boys, all different ages, were crowded into the frame. Caleb was one of them, at a ripe and dirty 18 years old. The boy on the right was eight, bookish and serious-eyed. And smack in the middle was the oldest. He'd been in his late twenties then, porcelain-faced, long hair, dark sloping gaze. His cocky smirk balanced an unlit cigarette. Sairen.

  He was rustling Caleb's hair with one hand, and with the other, he yoked the pre-teen up by his suspenders. The whole scene had caused Caleb to scrunch his face in annoyance right as Mom had snapped the photo.

  You always were an asshole, Sairen.

  And to his surprise, he felt a sting at his eyes. He tore his gaze away, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a box of Wren Silvers. Sairen's favorite. He put one in between his lips and lit it, taking a long draft before he picked up a file for a missing ghost, all the while wondering who else was out there making it alone.

  Xakiah went to the back of the semi and lifted up the metal door. All eleven pieces of Muirgin's merchandise recoiled as he shined a light in. He smiled, allowing his gaze to crawl over the first one.

  Beautiful.

  The Messhe were such splendid creatures, unable to hide the soft luster of unspoiled skin, rich with energy. They were so very unlike their Ninkashin brothers, who were so bereft of their own energy that their bodies fed on themselves until wither and decay settled in, down to the bone. But not the Messhe. Sixty percent First Matter, forty percent human, they were perfect living engines for the alchemic arts and for Alchemists as well.

  Heart: three million dollars. One million for each lung. Ten million for a kidney, if you were a woman who needed it, but twice as much if you were a man. Any Messhe was a one hundred million dollar jackpot, but the females were far more valuable; they yielded riper harvests. Millions of joules of First Matter energy, then millions of dollars per internal organ. And when their bodies couldn't take anymore manipulation, they reduced into cumaji, a rich silt that could reinvigorate the most barren of soil, make cornucopias of the driest desert sands. That, and they could be enjoyed in other ways.

  He smiled, letting his gaze fall on the one he had already picked out for himself. The slope of her exposed back had betrayed her. Muirgin's idea probably. As much of a slimy-skinned rat Muirgin was, he knew how to tip for good service. He tipped well, and while Xakiah himself had alternative preferences, he'd never deny himself the pleasure of making acquaintances with a Messhen woman. "Do not let a simple thing like body composition interfere in your own alchemic ascension," Vassal Moss had once said. Xakiah agreed.

  "Vassal…" he whispered, remembering that they hadn't spoken much lately. So busy with work, all they had left for one another were memories to fill the downtime, and even then, Xakiah had put all his focus into his own affairs. He hadn't made time to reflect, to let thoughts of his Vassal fill him—

  But maybe now. I have a little bit of time now.

  He leaned his brow against the cool metal and flipped through his mind's eye for the right memory. And he found it, his favorite.

  The eve of the Collapse, year 2045. He and Vassal had been stockpiling for their repose. They had shared them, the Messhe that they'd captured. One had been a beauty of olive skin, brown eyes, and long black hair. Young. "A weaning age", Vassal had said smiling.

  Xakiah ran his thumbs over the chilled metal of the truck door as he relived her, the smooth, glowing, unspoiled skin, until the energy had been drained from her flesh. Her shrill screams had melted into ashes with the rest of her, making lullabies of the whispers of her embers. Lullabies that had soothed his dreams over the slow crawl of a century-long slumber.

  The pleasure had been profound, more than just physical, as he had evolved from Man to Alchemist. With each siphon, vestiges of who he was had been drowned in the tides of a new consciousness, his old world eclipsed by the new; and no matter which Messhe it was, man or woman alike, Vassal would always have to touch the top of his hand— lightly— to remind him of temperance. Vassal Moss had done so that night as well, and Xakiah remembered looking him in the eyes, feverish and rapt. The touch had ended the siphon, but he knew that his Vassal understood him. Knew him.

  Xakiah opened his eyes, marking the Messhe he wanted.

  "You." He nodded at her. "Step out."

  The utterances from his mouth were Messhnai, the native tongue of the Messhe, but he barely even noticed the switch, so intent he was on the movements of his target as she came towards him. Short, pixie cut hair, doe-like green eyes. She'd barely crawled to the front before he reached in and dragged her out into the sun, already trembling with anticipation.

  "Stay," he commanded.

  He reached to close the door of the truck, but when something in the back of the trailer winked in and out of view, he froze and took a step back. There was a little girl among them. In a frilly pink dress.

  Against his will, the flip book of his mind flew back open, different memories coming back in jagged pieces— dirty knuckles flying at him, knocking him to the ground. Heels coming down hard on his body, tapping blood, salty tears, screams, all of which had stained the front of his smock… a pink one.

  "You two," he hissed between clenched teeth, pointing at the pink-clad girl and the woman clutching her. "Get out."

  The two Messhe looked at him, recoiling.

  "Out! OUT I SAID!" And he snatched his gun from his holster and pointed it at them to drive home his point.

  Peeling themselves from the group, the mother and child scrambled out of the semi. The mother held the girl close to her, shaking as she looked at him.

  Xakiah looked away from them, his jaw clenched. "Go."

  He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the truck, finally realizing that he was breathing hard. What was it that he was feeling? He had taken care of the ones who had burned the pink dress into his mind, many years ago before the world had been reborn. He had watched them die, and had harbored a pleasure too deep to manifest, one that should have buried his hate. So what was this? Compassion for the Messhe, maybe. A pang of conscience, for those poor delicate creatures—

  No. That pink dress.

  Vassal Moss was right. Xakiah needed more time to adjust. He hadn't divorced himself from his past as cleanly as he wanted, not yet. He thought of the dress clinging to his wall amidst the white Koan masks. Not yet.

  "Go, Mama, please. Take her away."

  From far, far away, Xakiah somehow heard the plea of his Messhe. Sobs broke up her words and bounced around his head, chasing the memories that he'd just forced back into the corner of his mind. The Messhe kept him rooted, and he gripped her, knowing that if he let go, he'd get lost in his own head again. He needed her now, more than anything.

  The sudden rustle of grass softened the ragged screams in his head, and through blurry vision, Xakiah watched the two Messhe— and millions of dollars— run off into the distance. The mother looked back over her shoulder with tears in her eyes, but she never stopped running. Xakiah swallowed down a painful welt in his throat, understanding that for the first time in a long time, he had failed.

  Doesn't matter.

  Muirgin would accept the loss of his shipment. The Messhe were a boon to the Order, not a necessity, and therefore, the loss of but two were not a priority. Yes, that is what he would tell him. The Alchemic Order— and more importantly, the prosperity and equality it had brought with it— was worth any sacrifice. No one, not even a slimy rodent like Muirgin could argue against that much.

  This is why he was
here. It was why his Vassal had entrusted the safety of the Order to him. Moss and the rest of the Executive Board knew that only he remembered so freshly what hate and discrimination had felt like in the old societies. Only he could muster the ardor, the memories, needed to forge a new and better world. All they had to do was let him be who he truly was. Then he could bury those memories beneath the accolades of his Vassal as they welcomed their new world with open arms. Together.

  But until then…

  He closed the truck door, grinning as he gazed at his Messhe, the one thing that would bring order to his world. He stepped forward and touched her face, once again feeling whole.

  Even in the closed phone booth, the high-tide hum of the Guild washed over their conversation, almost muting what Caleb was saying. Zeika had to press her ear into the phone and cover her other one, but she thought she'd heard clearly enough, and she couldn't believe it.

  "I checked the facilities and the worker dispatches on the Island, and I couldn't find a single trace of your parents. Even the satellite Guilds there said they hadn't admitted anyone by the name of Mikaela Anon. Are you sure she was sent to the Island and not one of the mainlands?"

  "I'm not sure where exactly Baba is, but I know for sure that Mama got transferred to a drug rehab place on the Island. They would have registered her in the system that very day."

  "I'll check again, and I'll look around in the Seventh too. I'd go to the Island myself, but I won't be able to until I can get special clearance. Should I try to reach you at this number if anything comes up?"

  "Yeah, or you can just call the front desk, and they'll page me. Listen. Thanks. For everything. For looking for them, for the food, I mean, you do not have to do this for us."

  She could hear Caleb chuckle softly on the other line. "I know what I have to do. Don't worry about it."

  "Not to sound ungrateful, but I have to ask: what are you looking for in return? What do you want?"

  A pause. Zeika cringed. She knew she shouldn't have introduced such a thing into the conversation, but she didn't like surprises either. If she was racking up some sort of debt with him, she wanted to know about it. The pause was only a few seconds, but it dragged. He was going to ask for something terrible… a cut of their bartering profits, maybe. Or perhaps something up Sal Morgan's alley.

  "I want you to live," he said finally. "I'll be in touch."

  The busy signal in her ear ended the conversation. Zeika hung up the phone, and for a moment, she stood in the public phone booth, unable to move her hand from the receiver.

  "Zeeky? You okay?"

  She felt a tug at her sweater, and looked down. "Yeah, baby. I'm fine." She ran a hand through her braids and then forced a smile. "Hey, I'm gonna get a snack, you want one?"

  "Yeah! Her Highness wants beleh!"

  Dates.

  "Anything else, Highness?"

  "Nope! Thanks, Zeeky! I'm going to go pray now, okay?"

  "Yeah, and hey, you think we should do something nice for Caleb? Maybe some bread pudding?"

  Manja's face brightened by 100 watts. "Oh yes! And I'll draw him a picture too!"

  Zeika smiled. "Sure, kid. You keep thinking about it, okay?"

  "Yup, and I'll pray about it, too!" Manja twittered, and Zeika watched her skip down the hall until she disappeared into their gym.

  The first floor was in the thick of its usual bustle. The foyer was packed with refugees and wolf-moons, but as she walked by it, she noticed that someone had closed the door behind the teeming crowd. Not only that, but the heavy wooden bolt was locked across the door, sealing the Guild closed. The Guild never locked its doors.

  She craned her neck to look at the front secretaries and social workers. Many of them were doing in-take; others weaved in and out of the long lines, encouraging refugees to sign petitions for the protection of the Articles39. Sal Morgan was up to his worst, apparently, running all around town to get as many supporters of the repeals as possible.

  Zeika was glad to join the countermovement. The political pushback was spearheaded by the Guild itself. Ken Taitt had already left town to lobby on behalf of the Protected Demesnes. Along with hundreds of others, Zeika and Manja had already signed petitions and written letters to their councilmen. They weren't old enough to vote, but they still volunteered when they could by hitting the streets, getting signatures, talking to local Civilians. This had already become a daily habit, rolled into their circuit. They didn't have a dollar to their names, but the importance of the issue couldn't be overstated. If the repeals of the Articles39 passed, they'd all have a lot more to worry about than staying fed.

  Maybe that's why no one paid the front door any mind. Either they didn't notice it was closed and locked, or they had done it themselves. Maybe the Guild had finally decided to put a cap on social services or something.

  Not bothering to unravel the mystery, she headed to the caf, seeing more lines for meals. Zeika by-passed the queues, heading to where the wolf-moons had (with much indignation) set up their own members-only pantry. Waiting at the end of long lines for the past few months had worn them thin.

  She walked by an adjacent table, where she glimpsed a small crowd of exiles— six old beggars— who seemed to be waiting for the lines to shorten. The six sat, silent and immobile as statues, not even bothering to acknowledge one another as they waited. There was no demesne insignia on the backs of their robes— no wolf-moons or otherwise— nothing. The pale sallow faces beneath their hoods seemed to droop down further to the table with each passing second. They looked so much like rotting trees that she half expected them to grow roots.

  Creepy.

  She raised a brow as she walked past them; one had just spasmed violently, as though he'd just gone cold-turkey off a kunja binge. Then, he seemed to ease back into his silent sit. None of the other beggars at the table seemed to mind or be concerned with the near seizure this guy had just had. A familiar feeling of flight began to rise in her gut, similar to what she had felt at the diner on its last day.

  Yeah, and how are you expecting to feel around them, Z? No k-head has ever given you the warm and snugglies. Get real, and stop being paranoid. This is Guild Five for Pete's sake. They're probably just some random addicts.

  Sighing, and realizing that she needed way more sleep, she turned towards the pantry— when a high-pitched scream snapped her calm in half.

  She jerked her head up just in time to see that a pale and lanky blur had just flown over the table of six and jumped on a passing refugee, knocking him and his food tray to the ground. It was one of the old rotting beggars, and he was fighting, attacking, biting the refugee who was clearly no match for him, even though he must have outweighed the beggar by at least fifty pounds.

  In the wild struggle, Zeika could only see bits and pieces, including the bull-and-rock insignia of the Third Civic Demesne, which stretched across the broad back of the refugee's robes. Her vision was quickly obscured again as the beggar and bull rock tumbled.

  "THIS IS MY FOOD! GET THE HELL OFF OF ME, MAN!" The bull-rock snarled.

  But from what she could see, the old beggar paid no mind to the food on the floor. The two were brawling now, and Zeika thought she could even hear animal snarls rising up from the brawl, curls of mammalian fury not at all human— and as the beggar's cloak fluttered to the ground, it revealed him in all his unholiness, revealed something so disfigured that it had to be a rejection of Nature.

  Stringy hair clung to the man's head in plaid patches, and his skin was badly lesioned, decaying even. Long gnarled fingers dug into the bull-rock's neck and shoulder as the creature clamped down with its teeth. The tears it took from the man's flesh sent mists of blood into the air, speckling its jaundiced fish-eyes, which waxed wide as the man screamed. The beggar fed in grunting jerks, and the refugee's skin shriveled in almost instantly, like a tomato in summer, his flesh stripped— sucked— out of him until the ridges of his cheekbones poked through, sunken.

  Zeika froze, and it took everyth
ing in her to not piss her pants as flight crashed up against fight, making her too afraid to stay, even more afraid to turn her back to it.

  Crashes and screams of terror reverberated through the Guild. Her wide fearful eyes caught similar blurs of cannibal fury, saw people buckling to their knees and being dragged away screaming, but somehow she couldn't get her legs to move. There were more of those things, but she couldn't turn from the man who had just stopped struggling in the jaws of the human demon.

  When the last twitch eked from the man's body, the thing dropped him, almost with contempt, and it roared, fonts of blood drizzling down his chin and throat, the sound not quite human, not quite animal. His own gaunt frame was increasing in bulk, plumping, replenished— and just as quickly, the bulk receded as though seeping out through some invisible sieve.

  The creature looked across the caf, his gaze glazing into beige cataracts, once again knowing hunger. For the first time seeing her.

  MOVE!

  Her body fled, her arms pumping as fast as they could even as she heard the monster sprinting after her on two limbs or four, interchangeably, tearing down the hallway.

  "Zeeky?"

  Zeika rounded the corner just as Manja poked her head out of the gym. The little girl's eyes buzzed with curiosity and then shifted, eclipsed by sheer terror.

  She snatched Manja up by her robes and threw her into the gym, closing the double doors behind her just as the monster slammed into them. She whimpered as the thing rammed into the doors again, parting them just slightly. The monster was strong, and it screamed with animal rage as it slammed into the doors again. It was all Zeika could do to keep the doors closed.

  "Zeeky!" Manja ran up to the door.

  "Get back, Manja!"

  Manja ignored her, and instead, she took off her hijab and tied it through the looped handles of the double doors. Zeika forced her powers through it, and the black linen turned into a steel knot around the handles. Then she fell back, breathing heavily.