by Tim O'Rourke
“You keep talking about this Kiera Hudson and Sean Potter in the past tense,” Annora said.
“Do I?” Noah said, somewhat wistfully. He turned his head and looked out of the carriage window.
Annora followed his stare and wondered what Noah was looking at. As far as she could see, there was only darkness beyond the window. There didn’t appear to be the walls of a tunnel flashing past, no more underground cavern, nor any kind of moonlit landscape. It was like there was simply nothing—like the world outside of the train had ceased to exist.
“What happened to Karl’s parents?” Annora asked.
Noah turned his attention back on her. “There is too much to tell you about them, and our time is short, but I’ll tell you as much as I can. Karl’s father, Sean, was a Vampyrus. You asked me what kind of creature that is, so I will tell you. They are human in so many ways—in appearance, shape, and size—but they have wings, claws, and fangs. They come from The Hollows, the place we have just passed through. For years, they lived in secret below and above ground. They are very much like vampires, but different. Some of the Vampyrus hated the idea of having to live in secret beneath the humans, just like some of the werewolves did. One Vampyrus named Elias Munn—although he used many different names and disguises—tried to get the Vampyrus and wolves to rise up against the humans. The story is long, but Kiera and Potter, along with their friends, eventually managed to destroy Elias Munn. Once they had defeated Munn, Kiera, Potter, and the rest of their friends pushed back through the layers to the late 1800s. It was here that Kiera and Potter believed they would finally be able to lead a normal life—as normal a life that can be led by supernatural creatures living above ground in the human world.
“And for a time they were happy. Kiera and Potter finally got married and they had the daughter they had both longed for. They named her Cara. But sadly, Kiera and Potter’s happiness was short-lived. Cara tragically died in her teens. Unlike Potter, Kiera wasn’t a pure Vampyrus. She was a half and half. She was part wolf, too. Cara was born a half-breed. Such creatures rarely lived out their teenage years. Only a few have managed to survive. It broke Kiera’s and Potter’s hearts. It nearly destroyed them. I tried to keep Kiera’s mind occupied by putting together a small group of likeminded women, who became known as the ‘Six Clicks’. They had many great adventures as they pushed back and forth through the layers, but I knew that Kiera’s heart wasn’t in it. So she left with Potter, and I didn’t see them for many years. It was like they were running from their unhappiness. I think for a while they both tried to live very human lives, but it is never easy pretending to be something you are not. Denying who and what you are never leads to happiness. You have to be true to yourself—always.
“Anyway, I got wind that there was trouble brewing in this layer—in this where and when. The war between the humans, the vampires, and werewolves had long been fought, and the humans had won. But it was in the future that the vampires and werewolves would again rise up against the humans. Knowing that Kiera and Potter had quelled such an uprising before in a different layer, I sought them out and asked for their help. So they agreed to travel into this layer—push into the future. Here, they became law enforcers, a role they had undertaken before. So it was perfect. And for a time, they seemed to be happy once more. Then their happiness turned to utter joy when they had a son—Karl. But they kept secret from him that he’d had a sister.”
“Why?” Annora asked, pouring herself a fresh cup of tea.
“Because they also kept secret the truth about what they really were. Karl had no idea that his parents were supernatural beings,” Noah said, his voice now hushed as if he were keeping a secret, too.
“So is Karl like his parents?” Annora asked, it finally dawning on her that her future lover might have wings, claws, and fangs.
“Nobody really knows if any of his parents’ supernatural traits have been passed onto their son,” Noah said. “One thing is for sure, Karl Potter isn’t a half-breed.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because he is currently twenty-five years old,” Noah said. “He lived through his teen years.”
“But you said there were a few exceptions,” Annora reminded him. “You said that only a few of these half-breeds had survived beyond their teenage years.”
“But those half-breeds showed signs of what they were much earlier on—when they were still quite young,” Noah explained. “No one really knows what Karl is. He has no idea, either. As far as he is concerned, he is human.”
“But surely he must have suspected that something wasn’t quite right?” Annora said, wearing a frown.
“How so?”
“Well, you make it sound like you knew Karl’s parents for years—many hundreds of years. Didn’t they look kind of decrepit by the time Karl was born?”
Noah smiled. “Supernatural creatures like me don’t age in the same way that humans do. We’re immortal—to a point. The last time I saw Kiera and Potter, they didn’t look a day older than the day I first met them. Both of them looked as if they were still in their early twenties.”
“But didn’t Karl wonder why his parents weren’t looking any older as he grew older himself?”
“In the future, people can pay to be kept young,” Noah explained.
“Like some kind of advanced plastic surgery?”
“Nothing as crude. They call it tech upgrades,” Noah said. “Anything or anyone can have a tech upgrade in the future if you can afford it. No one has to get old.”
Annora sat thoughtfully for a moment as she finished the rest of her tea. Setting the cup down, she looked at Noah and said, “You never explained why you keep referring to Karl’s parents in the past tense.”
“Because they are both dead,” Noah said.
“That’s terrible,” Annora gasped, “after everything they went through. All the heartache at losing their daughter, then to find happiness with their son, only to die. What happened?”
“If you don’t mind, I’d rather not talk about it,” Noah said, before turning to look out of the window again.
Sensing that the subject of his friends’ deaths was still very painful to him, Annora racked her brain for another question to ask. But before her mind had the chance to conjure one, Noah was facing her once more and shouting, “Brace yourself, Annora. We’re going to crash!”
Chapter Thirty-Six
The year 2067…
Placing the small umbrella the Bot had given to him into his pocket, Karl Potter left the Night Diner. It was dark outside, and although it was cold, it wasn’t raining for once. As Karl set off in the direction of the vehicle port, where his battered car waited for him, he heard a commotion over his shoulder. Stopping midstride, Karl looked back to see the bartender ejecting a drunken customer via the exit of the Night Diner. Karl watched as the drunk trotted around on unstable legs and then raised his fists, as if preparing to box the bartender.
“Get the fuck out of here,” the bartender groaned, before shoving the drunk in the chest and knocking him easily to the ground. “You don’t come back until you’ve settled your bill. I’m not running a charity here.”
As the drunk continued to flounder about in the dirt, the tattooed bartender glanced up to see Karl watching him. With his hands still curled into fists, he said, “Talking of unsettled bills, have you got my fifty credits yet?”
Undeterred by the bartender’s confrontational posture and tone of voice, Karl headed away from the vehicle port and back in the direction of the Night Diner. Standing his ground before the bartender, he said, “I didn’t have sex with that Bot, and you had no right to embarrass me like that in front of my friend today.”
“You embarrassed yourself,” the bartender said, the scowl now becoming a wry smile. “You took the Sexbot up to your room, not me. And besides, what’s a young guy like you doing with that Bot when you keep the company of the hot-looking chick I saw you with today?”
Sensing that the bartender�
��s quarrelsome demeanour was partly an act, Karl relaxed a little. “That hot-looking chick, as you call her, is just a friend—a work colleague—nothing more.”
“So if you’re not getting it on with her or the Bot, how are you getting your kicks?” The bartender grinned, his facial piercings glistening in the glow of the pink neon light above the bar door.
Ignoring the bartender’s remarks, Karl said, “If I’m being honest, I did invite the Bot up to my room the other night, but not for sex, there was a different reason—something I’m now regretting…”
“Regrets, huh?” the bartender cut in, “that’s not my problem, and you still owe me fifty credits.”
Karl was growing impatient with the bartender’s constant reminder that he was owed credits. He stared at him and said, “Look, you can have the credits, but you need to get that Bot fixed, because it’s beginning to get on my bloody nerves. Every time I turn around, it’s there, haunting me.”
“Haunting you?” The bartender grinned, showing a set of teeth that had been capped with silver and gold. It was like he had been chewing on a mouthful of metal. “That Bot isn’t a ghost.”
Karl knew the Bot wasn’t a ghost, but every time it revealed Annora’s face to him, he did feel as if he was being haunted by it. By Annora. Karl wasn’t willing to explain to the bartender that he had shown the Bot a picture of Annora, but knowing that he had to give some explanation as to why he believed the Bot was broken and needed to be fixed, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the umbrella. He showed it to the bartender.
“The Bot gave me this tonight,” Karl said.
The bartender glanced down at Karl’s open hand then back at him. He shrugged. “So what? Perhaps the Bot thinks it might rain later. It’s always bloody raining around here.”
“Yeah, very funny,” Karl replied with a scowl. “I think the Bot is trying to give me some kind of warning.”
“Warning?” the bartender asked, his unkempt hair bristling in the wind, revealing the shaven side of his head and the tattoos printed there. “What kind of warning?”
Placing the umbrella back into his pocket, Karl said, “I think the Bot’s memory banks are fucked. I think the Bot believes the world is still at war with the vampires and werewolves. It tried to warn me about ‘Night Diners’. That’s what those creatures were called, weren’t they?”
“The Bot was probably talking about the club and trying to warn you about some of the fuck-head customers we get around here,” the bartender said.
Karl wasn’t so sure the bartender was right. “I don’t suppose you know if the Bot was around during that period of time—during the Third War? It looks like an older model—”
“I don’t know anything about that particular Bot,” the bartender cut in. “It only showed up here a week or so ago. There aren’t too many working Bots in this part of the world. Some of my customers were intrigued by it, but as far as I know, you’re the only one who has fuc… invited it up to your room…”
“Hang on,” Karl said, cutting in. “Are you telling me that you don’t even own that Bot?”
The bartender nodded his head. “Yep, that’s right. Nothing to do with me, so I ain’t paying to have its memory banks fixed.”
“Then in that case, you can stick your fifty credits where the sun don’t shine,” Karl said. “It’s bad enough I have to pay fifty credits for the services of a Sexbot I didn’t even get serviced by, then to find out you don’t even own the damn thing. If you think I’m gonna give you fifty credits…”
“Okay, okay,” the bartender said, raising his hands as his grin widened. “You got me, you got me. You can’t blame a guy for wanting to make a few extra credits here and there.”
“I should lock you up for attempted fraud.” Karl glared at him.
“Look, I think you and me have gotten off on the wrong foot,” the bartender said. “You can keep the company of the Bot, if that’s your thing, and I promise I won’t say anything to little miss hot-chick next time. We’ll keep it our little secret. Do we have a deal? What do you say?”
“I say we have a truce if you fill that vending machine in there with some decent-looking food; those sandwiches look like shit. And while you’re about it, get the jukebox fixed, I’m sick of listening to the crap that gets played in that bar,” Karl said, his face rigid and mean-looking as he stared into the bartender’s eyes.
The bartender stared right back. There was a tense moment, before the bartender’s face broke out into a wide grin once more. Karl’s face broke into a smile, too, as if both men had found a truce. As if they both now had an understanding.
“You’ve got yourself a deal, Karl Potter,” the bartender said, thrusting one large hand toward him.
Karl gripped his hand and shook it. “I didn’t catch your name?”
“Hex,” he said, letting go of Karl’s hand.
“Okay, Hex, I think we have ourselves an understanding,” Karl said, turning his back and heading in the direction of the vehicle port. Then looking back, he said, “Peanut butter.”
“What about it?” Hex asked.
“That’s what I like in my sandwiches,” Karl said, before turning away again.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
The year 2067…
Karl closed the door of his car. Not knowing if Lisa had managed to fix his vehicle or not, but hoping she had, he gripped the joystick slowly and squeezed down on the trigger. He heard the engine beneath the bonnet rumble into life. So far, so good, he thought to himself, as he pulled back on the joystick. The car began to reverse out of the vehicle port. Once clear of the overhanging canopy, Karl flipped several of the switches on the dashboard and sat back in his seat. Holding his breath, he pulled up on the joystick, and to his relief and amazement, his battered old car began to rise up from off the ground and into the air.
“Lisa certainly knows her stuff,” he whispered to himself as the thrusters hummed beneath him, and the car continued to rise up into the air.
Glancing out of the side window, he could see the Night Diner below. The drunk that Hex had run out of the bar was still sprawled face-first in the dirt. The grit Karl’s vehicle was now blowing up into the air engulfed the unconscious man. Pushing the joystick to the left, Karl banked the vehicle in that direction. When he was high above the buildings that surrounded the Night Diner, Karl pushed forward on the stick, heading in the direction of Outpost 71.
As he flew in the direction of the Temporal Station, the clouds that dominated the night sky opened up, releasing a torrent of rain. Karl switched on the wiper blades and they squeaked noisily back and forth across the windshield. He was now grateful to Lisa more than ever for fixing his car, as the thought of trudging through the rain and the cold didn’t inspire him. He owed her one. As the outpost stretched out before him, his mind turned once more to the Bot. Discovering that humanoid machine had stepped out of the derelict districts that stretched far and wide around the edges of Outpost 71, only convinced him further that the Bot was faulty and malfunctioning. It was the reason why the Bot kept imitating Annora’s face and had warned him about Night Diners and bizarrely given him an umbrella. But as Karl aimed the nose of his car in the direction of the Temporal Station, he had still yet to come up with an explanation as to how the Bot was able to mimic Annora’s voice. Had it really sounded like her? Had he been mistaken? The Night Diner had been full of noise, so he could have easily been mistaken.
With the Temporal Station in his sights below him, Karl eased gently down on the stick. As the thrusters began to whine, the car gradually and slowly dropped out of the night sky through the rain. He thumbed another switch on the dashboard, and the wheels beneath the car slid out from the chassis. Karl landed his car with a gentle thump outside the front of the Temporal Station. After pulling up the collar of his jacket, Karl climbed out. He watched rain splash off the battered and rusty body of his car. Next to his vehicle was parked the black and white patrol car. Despite the bad weather, the bodywork was slee
k and shiny.
Wet through, Karl ran toward the station door, his boots sloshing through the puddles that lined the street. Shaking rain from his coat and hair, Karl stepped into the station. Sergeant Shaw, Selena, and Lisa were gathered about a workstation. On hearing him enter, each of them looked up. Karl noticed that Lisa had been sitting in front of a glass terminal, and was quick to turn it off and jump up from her seat. The three of them stood staring at him.
“What?” Karl asked.
“You’re late,” Sergeant Shaw said, stepping away from the workstation and toward him.
“You said ‘after dark’,” Karl quipped. “And it’s dark outside, isn’t it?”
Shaw narrowed her piercing blue eyes at him. “Are you trying to be smart with me?”
“No,” Karl said. “Last night you never gave me an exact time to show up for work, let alone tell me where this place was. If I hadn’t bothered to come by here earlier today…”
“You came here earlier today?” Shaw asked, sounding a little breathless. “I thought I told you not to show up until tonight. Do you have a problem following orders, Officer Potter?”
“No, I was just using my initiative,” Karl said, standing his ground. Unlike his father, Karl didn’t have a problem with authority and those who outranked him, but only if their orders made sense. Sergeant Shaw seemed to be chewing at his arse because he was late for duty, but he would have been a lot later if he hadn’t bothered to stop by the office earlier and find its location. “How was I meant to find this place…?”
“You have a mobile comlink, don’t you?” she asked him, sounding impatient. “It has a mapping system, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, if I could get the goddamn thing to work,” Karl said. “I haven’t been able to get a Net signal since arriving in this godforsaken place.”
“Are you unhappy with your posting, Officer Potter?” Shaw asked him, tucking a cigarette into the corner of her mouth and lighting it. “Missing the comforts of city life, are we?”