by Forbes West
“Why did they let us go? Christ, what was it?”
Jaime speaks in a very serious, very scholarly tone. “We made it past the black band that rings around the Witch-Lord Temple. To the Ephors, who never allow escapes, it means that the three gods of the Witch Lands guided you to freedom. Your escape proves that the gods favor you and is a presumption of innocence. All your crimes are forgiven. Mine too, I guess.” He smiles and pats your knee. “Holy cow, that was interesting. Did you see those cobblestones light up? I think that’s a combination to get in and out. Thank God we got out of there.”
You stare forward, still shell-shocked. “There is no God,” you mutter. Your crucifix is gone.
Jaime breathes a sigh of relief, but only for a moment. “Good move, finding that hidden door and screwing with that lock. When we got past the black band, they had to let us go. The Ephors allow no one to escape, but if you do, it’s the will of the gods and all is forgiven. That’s incredible. That’s really incredible.”
“I’m really, really happy to move off-world with you, Jaime.” You nod and tear up a little.
“By the way, how did you know how to work the lock?” he asks, before you shoot him a look that tells him very clearly to stop talking.
“I’ll tell you later.”
“You’re full of surprises, Sarah Orange.”
“We have only your bag with some of my stuff. They burned all the rest.” You think of your whole history burning up in minutes, leaving you with nothing to tie you back home. You are a ship without an anchor in an unchartered sea.
“I know. Sucks.” He touches his bag. “Well...Your computer is here.” You swallow your anger against him for ignoring your pain.
The train lurches forward and chugs its way north into another Nemo Gate at the edge of the statue’s palm. After an explosion of white light and a thunderclap, the train passes through the Nemo Gate and Solomon’s Bay drifts away behind you.
After two hours, the great, green expanses of The Oberon and the white- and iron-colored mountains come into view. Pine trees and odd rock formations jut out of the land like knives stabbing at the sky. A green reflector sign, like something you’d see hanging on top of an American freeway, states from its position above the train tracks that you are entering the Super Sargasso Sea region and its prohibition of Ni-Perchta alcohol use. No Night Salvaging Permitted is also splashed across the sign in bold white letters, as well as No Unregistered Firearms.
Jaime has fallen asleep and his head rests against your shoulder. You stare out the window, still a little shaky from the whole possible-decapitation-then-escape thing.
The train’s chugging motor runs and runs and you feel increasingly sleepy. Outside, bugs splatter against the glass walls of the mono car. A long black highway covered in yellow Xs runs over the next hill and beyond. Each yellow X flashes under the overcast sky, and there is a single yellow car, a small one, traveling in the same direction as your train. Thick, dark clouds stream across the sky, casting long shadows onto the grasslands as the train passes through.
The “old man rock ’n’ roll” being piped into the car keeps you occupied for a while . Dull, flat news is reported every two hours. The opening bars of the ELO song Here is the News plays as its opening theme.
A random person reads the news in an over-professional and over-cultured voice. Fireworks and festivities are still permitted until a week after Bonfire Night and the Network warns yet again that alcohol is illegal in The Oberon unless you have a personal liquor consumption license. Failure to pay the license fee is punishable by fine or a stay in a Witch-Lord Temple and eventual LR-ing. By the sixth reading of the same report you have memorized every word.
The train travels for hours in the high grass along a large river. Chunks of rock and little mesas dot the plains, breaking up the land into large bits. The river is wide, blue, and almost surreal. Its current is impossibly quick, as if it is being forced out of a water cannon; there has to be something artificial for it to be churning so quickly. Every inch of its flow is like the worst rapids you can remember from back home. Little canyons are cut into the land, this way and that, breaking the ground up here and there.
You start to nod off, little by little. The radio plays an old song, “Big Log”.
You fall asleep to Robert Plant’s melody.
* * *
The cool air of the underground along with a smell of moisture and mold flows into the car, waking you up. Jaime is already awake. Almost everyone else has gone, although the Englishman and the girl he is with are still on board. The train car is ablaze with light from hidden lights in the glass frame of the steam mono. The train is going through some sort of giant subway tunnel filled with looming statues that look over everything. You are pretty confused as to where you are. Jaime looks very happy.
“Just went into an old subway tunnel for Sargasso-uh, Sargasso-3. Thousands of years old. Pretty nuts, huh?”
As you pass through another tunnel, your train switches tracks. A giant hole in one side of the tunnel leads into a greater darkness. You look out the window and are scared by what you see. Tens, if not hundreds, of deep green eyes watch from the deep shadows. They’re maybe a few hundred yards away. The train has picked up steam and is now going faster. The green eyes move—and then nothing. Blackness again. You hear a howl and a moan as the train pulls forward.
“Mummies. The Antediluvian people weren’t all wiped out. Some got into shelters and, unable to feed on any fresh blood, all those human-turned-vampires went feral and turned into sort of mummified zombies. They just go on and on unless someone puts them down. Forever mad. They’re desperate for human blood.” Jaime is way too happy about the subject.
“Your sister died of Bevan’s disease, isn’t that right? That’s basically what these guys have,” he says quite innocently.
“No, she went missing but had the symptoms of that disease before she did. And thank you for reminding me.”
A surge of green eyes rush forward, coming closer and closer to the train and its Plexiglas casing. In the light reflecting off the train you see one of them up close for a second. The thing’s features, once human, are grotesquely pale; deep, dark shadows ring this female mummy’s eyes. The eyes themselves are bloodshot and as yellow as custard, filled up with complete and hateful rage. Tears of blood dribble down the ragged remains of whatever clothing the mummy had been wearing. You are too scared to even scream—you sit there and quiver. You reach for your crucifix, which is long gone, and feel nothing but thin air.
“Another two hours to Mission Friendship.” Jaime yawns. “Two hours! I can’t believe it.” The train pulls out of the tunnel and back into the light of day, passing through another round of grasslands. Only the occasional tree, like one of those out of an African safari picture or documentary, breaks up the endless plains ahead of you on either side of the river. Each tree has a wide, umbrella-like canopy which is the hiding place for things that could be mistaken for birds.
The Englishman turns around. “Did you see that?”
You nod as Jaime pipes in. “I saw it, too! This is the greatest trip I have ever been on! You know this is the most exciting thing—we got a story for you guys...”
The Englishman nods vigorously. “Actual zombies, Lord above, I have been waiting for this my whole life! I said to myself back in Liverpool, I said, ‘Well, now, John Boston, here’s…’ Are you crying?”
You are. This little trip is turning into an unmitigated nightmare. You’re finding things out that perhaps you should have researched before you left, but didn’t because you were, well, under the weather emotionally.
“I’m John Boston.” You shake his hand.
“Keira Love.” You shake hands with the woman.
“Anyone else want to do a Valis wheel? Hmmm? Got it off a dealer in Stonetown,” Boston says, taking out a silver pipe that has what looks like a miniature electrical fan set into its end. The strong odor of ozone and sound of atonal music fill the train car
as Boston sucks at the end of the tube. Blue smoke comes out of the fan as it whirls around. He takes out a match, lights it with his thumbnail, and puts it inside the silver tube. “This’ll help calm you down. You want it?” John offers the tube.
As Jaime looks on, you decide to take a hit. Anything that helps you relax and forget what just happened is worth it. This would not be a real change in pace from the pot you’ve smoked a couple of times before. You take a hit and immediately feel light-headed and happy, and also sort of scared that reality has suddenly become a little more real all at once. After another drag you cough. Your coughing barely obscures the atonal music coming from the pipe. “Oh shit! That was—hoo boy.” You give the pipe back to John.
“This is fun! This is what couples do!” John offers the pipe to Jaime, who shakes his head.
“No, I couldn’t. I’ve read three online accounts about doing a Valis wheel. One post said that you feel very relaxed, and the other two said you won’t stop screaming for the next forty-eight hours.” You look at Jaime in horror.
Keira Love takes a hit and then starts screaming loudly for a long, uncomfortable moment before giving the pipe back to John. “Always good.” The sound of her voice is a little strange, as if she is trying to mimic an English accent.
It is dark now, and the blazing light inside the car has become soft illumination that allows you to see the seven moons of The Oberon for the first time. The white forms peek down from high above in the star-filled sky. There is a slight rumble of thunder, perhaps the beginning of a storm coming out of the Sargasso Breaks, perhaps something else, Jaime says. Dry lightning plays out against the western skies, revealing a flock of luminescent manta ray-like creatures, their tendrils drifting behind them in the wind.
You are very close to the Mission Friendship/Funeral Breaks. Regular pine trees are now making their appearances, and the mountains seem to be closer than ever, crowding out the rest of the land. The train begins to ascend a little bit, going up the single track.
“Up.” Boston laughs to himself. “Spelled backwards it’s fuck you.”
The train slows down as you hear the Ni-Perchta begin to sing something a cappella, in almost funeral dirge tones, somewhere off. You can hear this music thump through the monorail.
John and Keira are passing the Valis device back and forth. You feel more than a little light-headed at this point, and the world is beginning to run a little on the slow side. That ozone smell and atonal music from the Valis wheel are getting to you. It is fully dark now, the only light coming from the seven moons and what you see in the distance.
There is a stone palace in the middle of a green grass field. It’s large and looks like it should be somewhere like Tibet or Bhutan, a Dzong-style fortress with high, windowless walls, a Chinese-style rooftop, and two massive doors made out of what looks like wood and iron. The Dalai Lama probably had a place like this once upon a time.
Connected to it is an apartment tower; a good-sized one, maybe twenty stories tall, give or take. Lights are on in some windows, and a couple of swirling searchlights reach into the heavens above, painting the sky over and over with small circles of light. It is made out of concrete and stands out significantly from the rest of the land. Balconies jut out from the sides; the top floor has one wrap-around balcony that isn’t separated like the others.
“I think that’s it.” You take out the small brochure that was stuffed into your pocket. Mission Friendship—A Place of Warmth and Protection states the brochure’s front page, next to a painting of the Dzong and apartment tower structure.
There is another, thinner tower connected to it by three concrete walkways, and looks as if it is set up as observation point—glass windows surround the topmost part. Farther away is a large, walled village; it looks like something out of The Lord of the Rings. Wood-timbered homes stick their heads out over the walls. A large wooden bridge crosses the rushing river that separates you from Mission Friendship. A lumber mill also spans the entire river and is right next to the bridge.
The train slows.
“And here we go,” Jaime says in a guttural voice before coughing a few times to clear his throat.
“The Joker said that before he blew up a building in The Dark Knight,” you retort, seeing double. “Nerd.”
“That’s the joke.”
“I think this is the best capital D drugs I’ve had since I was thirteen at that Prodigy concert at Glastonbury.” John Boston coughs. “You ever seen that old movie, The Jerk? Remember that cat juggling shit?”
Jaime looks confused and you have no idea what John Boston is talking about. “Was that about cats being juggled, or a cat juggling shit?” you ask with a slur.
John Boston shrugs “These cans are defective!” he calls out. “Steve Martin—it’s a funny film.”
No one laughs. “Was Steve Martin the guy in The Blues Brothers?” you ask.
No one says anything for a long moment. Keira laughs, stoned. “I should really slap you hard.”
You laugh, and so do Boston and Jaime. Keira slaps you hard, stunning you.
Boston laughs, and even Jaime laughs a little, nervously. You are startled. Then you hit back once, twice, and three times, making Keira tear up. Her face is really red and starting to swell. Boston stands up and snaps out the ori-baton he had hidden on him with such force and points it at you, lifting you up and out of your seat. Invisible strings seem to pull you out of your seat.
“Hey, now, girl. All quiet on the Western Front.,” Boston says, a scowl on his face. He looks like he is about to do something else just as a Ni-Perchta monorail attendant in a shimmering rainbow-colored tunic walks into the car. Boston drops you right back onto your rump.
* * *
You have arrived at your new home, after almost getting into a full-on fistfight with strangers who were once friendly. “Last stop,” the overhead speakers say. “Funeral Breaks village. Mission Friendship. Star in the Mountain.”
You get off the train and step onto the very empty stone platform. Boston and Love walk over, looking sheepish. Love also looks a little angry. Boston speaks up. “Look, my friends, I think things became a bit heated. A bit strange. Drug use makes these situations happen.” He snickers, and Love laughs.
You and Jaime look at each other. Boston and Love put out their hands to shake with you and Jaime, and you do so gingerly. “We’ll be working on-site in Sargasso-3, out near the old boat quays. Our radio frequency is Quay-two-five-six.”
Boston hands you his powder-white business card embossed with the words Boston-Love Dayhawk Co-Op. “We check up on the world around 4:00 to 6:00 pm each evening. Give us a call if you’re in the area. Stop on by.”
Jaime nods. “We may just do that. The old boat quays in Sargasso-3, that’s about a mile or two from the Nemo Gate that leads to the old reactor, right?”
Boston nods slowly. “Yes, if you can get near the place—the wreckage and the machines down there...You don’t own that site, do you?” Jaime smiles a little. “Oh, I wish. But no, just read up about it. Sounds neat.”
Boston blows out a raspberry. “That’s a bad deal friend—that’s a death zone. Ask anyone. I mean that whole defense system is up and running. It’s very strange. It’s more than a reactor should be. That place is locked down, shut down, do not enter. Unless you’ve got a defense key.”
Jaime shakes his head. “Uh, no, just curious about it.”
Boston shrugs. Love speaks up, in a sort of stilted speech, changing the subject quickly. “I’m sorry about the…what happened back there. Have a better one. Radio us.”
You and Jaime thank them, though a cold feeling is running up and down your spine. A place that is considered a death zone does not seem like a place Jaime should be working in. You laugh and laugh, making everyone uncomfortable, and then start to tear up again.
Boston says something about maybe being wrong, but you take it as him trying to downplay what he just said.
Jaime gives them your new home address
at Mission Friendship and tells the couple to come by whenever they have the chance. Boston and Love are picked up by what looks like an old Pontiac muscle car being driven by a Ni-Perchta male in dark war paint. They drive off down a dirt and cobblestone road that leads into the mountains at the far end.
You see Mission Friendship and hear the rushing water of the river very close by. Ni-Perchta are singing somewhere in the distance; their songs echo in the valley. It’s very cool out and a breeze blows down from the mountains. Everything smells fresh and of pine. Jaime tells you it’s about a fifteen to twenty minute walk to Mission Friendship from the station’s platform.
You look to your left, up a snow-capped mountain on the other side of the river, and see something you’ve just heard about on the monorail train. Star in the Mountain.
Jaime nervously blathers on. He’d probably mentioned it before, but you hadn’t really bothered to ask him what it meant, figuring it was self-explanatory—which of course, it is.
Over two hundred stories tall, Star in the Mountain is a glass and steel star, a single giant building in the shape of an actual multi-pointed star. Its mid-section is like a glass bowl and its points, which are dissimilar in size and length, stretch upwards and outwards. It is set into the side of a mountain, like God’s own Christmas ornament. One point of the star has broken off, taking a piece of the mountain with it. The rest seems to be in good condition. There’s an odd reddish light around it, somewhat faded, and you wonder if it’s the moonlight being reflected.
“That star can hold up to one hundred thousand people, if not more. Star in the Mountain is the one of the few left that’s still intact,” Jaime says in a whisper.
“So are we supposed to...” He nods at Mission Friendship. “Do we walk it? What’s the instructions?”
You only stare up at the stars in the sky as you wait, not thinking and not listening. The constellations are so different, so jumbled up compared to what you can see on Earth. Seven moons drift overhead, amazing you. Somewhere Earth is there, you suppose, up in the middle of all that.