House of the Galactic Elevator

by Gerhard Gehrke

  “Wake up,” Jordan said.

  The worms were now clustered around Lady Capitoline. They climbed.

  Jordan began to beat her fists on the giant’s back. “Wake up, wake up, wake up!”

  The worms were at Jordan’s feet. Jumping would mean landing in more of the things. She squeezed Lady Capitoline around the waist.

  “You should have just built the guy a statue,” Jordan said.

  A large hand grabbed Jordan under one arm and flung her. Jordan hit the stone ground just past the worms and tumbled to a stop. No otherworldly dexterity roll saved her from knocking her head, both elbows, both knees, and butt. None of the worms on the floor paid her any mind. They continued to crawl on and over Lady Capitoline. The giant didn’t fight. Instead, she spoke.

  Jordan didn’t have her translator in. The sound that came out of Lady Capitoline’s mouth was a single sustained note that went straight through Jordan’s ears and into her head and heart. A feeling of warmth and love and peace filled her, as if all the chords of every beautiful song had just been played in that one instance. It shook Jordan. She tried to stifle tears but there was no fighting it. The song echoed and died in the chamber, but Jordan could think of nothing else even as she heard it no more.

  Somehow, just from hearing the note, Jordan understood that the long musical phrase was the genesis of how thousands of beings from thousands of worlds had originally come together without the ability to communicate. The sound must have predated the translators. It encapsulated the centuries of effort and millions of lives involved from Lady Capitoline’s world to reach each of the original founders, invoking memories of lifetimes of all that were honored in the hallways of the palace. The note held meaning as an invitation and a challenge to rise beyond mundane animal existence, a selfless gesture of peace for ones who would take the proffered hand, and even a hint of regret for ones who chose not to.

  Jordan wanted nothing more than to hear it again. Layered new meanings within the song continued to unfold. She recognized sadness both wistful and crushing, all mixed in with swelling hope. She also understood what the note actually meant when sung at this moment.

  “You can’t go,” Jordan whispered. “We need you.”

  But the note ended, and Lady Capitoline sang no more. The worms covered her completely. Hundreds of them bore into her body. Lady Capitoline’s form swayed from side to side, shuddered, and collapsed.

  Jordan felt numb. She wanted to rush forward. She wanted to stomp and squish and burn the tiny monsters that could ignore the clear cry of one so beautiful. But there were too many of them. Lady Capitoline was gone.

  Jordan backed away. The worms, having carried out their task, began to mill about again, spreading away from the giant’s fallen form like lazy eddies in a brook.

  ***

  When a worm began to climb Jordan, she didn’t feel it until it was thigh-high. She grabbed the thing, knowing that squeezing it was a mistake, but squeeze she did. The pain of a drilled hand or finger never came. She also didn’t have enough strength to do any damage. She looked around and saw the other worms hadn’t changed location. Only this one had, and she opened her hand and looked at it.

  It tapped at her palm, pushing gently at her skin.

  Jordan sniffled once and said, “You little creep. Look at what you’ve done.”

  It continued to push and tap, moving from the lines of her palm to the heel of the hand and back to the knobs under each finger. There was a rhythm to the movements.

  She wanted to drop the thing in a fire and listen to it melt. Instead she put her translator back in. She’d later wonder why she’d do that, exposing herself to the worm’s ability to neutralize her with the device back in place. Something in the song perhaps. The sound waves had faded from the chamber and were only memories, but the song would always be a part of her because she wanted it, accepted it, and let it in. Now Jordan wanted to share it, and that desire moved her to inexplicably reach out to a mechanical worm that knew only a single purpose as dictated by Lord Akimbo.

  “Sorry,” the worm tapped out in a new language never before translated until that moment.

  Jordan thought she misheard. She pulled the translator out, blew on it like it was a dusty USB plug, and put it back in. The worm kept tapping.

  “Sorry,” it said again.

  Jordan looked at the worm, then looked around her, checking to see if she was somehow logged into a sim. This was real. The worm tapped, apologizing again.

  “You little bastards. Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

  “Sorry.”

  The other worms ignored Jordan and their penitent brother.

  “What good does that do us? What good are you?”

  It kept tapping. This was a different sequence. Finally came the word “Build.”

  CHAPTER 31

  Something pinched Jeff’s earlobe. Next, Jeff felt someone shake his shoulder. Even though he was still inside the weather control program, the real body sensations came through loud and clear. He couldn’t make any headway with the password, having tried hundreds of guesses, so he logged out.

  He opened his eyes and saw he was back in the access room above the weather machine. Jordan looked down at him. Her lip was bleeding and her face was scuffed as if she had been in a fight or had fallen off a bicycle. At first he thought this was another sim, as she hadn’t been injured in real life, but his own game world wounds were no more.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  He then saw the worm on her arm and tried to scramble back.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “This one’s friendly.”

  “What, are you crazy?” He paused, seeing that the worm wasn’t trying to drill into anyone’s head. “Why isn’t it attacking you?”

  “This one got its programming changed somehow by Lady Capitoline just before the other worms killed her.”

  “Build,” the worm said.

  Jeff shook his head. “The worms killed her?”

  “It was awful,” Jordan said. “I got her translator out to wake her up. When I did, the worms attacked. It’s my fault she’s gone. But before she died, she…”

  Jordan began to choke up. She seemed to be right about the worm, as it looked content to just hang on to Jordan’s arm.

  “Look, I would have done the same thing to wake up Lady Capitoline,” Jeff said. “It’s not your fault. We didn’t know the worms were killers, but we do now. We’re trying to solve this situation caused by the Grey and Lord Akimbo. They’re the ones who will answer for this. So where’s Oliop?”

  “He’s out cold down below us. He took an interface device from the Grey, which forced him to log out of whatever he was doing, and then got a worm in him.”

  “I guess that’s why the little bugger never tried to log back in after you killed him. That might not stop Irving for long, though. The bugger could just pop in a translator or put in a spare device. Where’s Irving now?”

  Jordan pointed down to the hatch. Jeff opened it and heard Irving the Grey scream, “Drill! Dig! I order you!”

  Irving the Grey stood up to its belly in the middle of a small sea of worms. It held a handful of them against the machine’s side. The little robots just twisted about in its hand. Irving slammed them against the hard surface, causing the worms to scatter down unharmed to the floor to join their brothers in their mindless tumble. The Grey looked exhausted from its efforts. Both Oliop and Lord Akimbo lay on the ground nearby, worms passing slowly along across their bodies like lazy recruits running an obstacle course.

  “What happened to Akimbo?” Jeff asked in a whisper.

  “Oliop stuck him with something that put him to sleep.”

  “With Akimbo down, the worms appear to have stalled out.”

  Jordan nodded. “Lady Capitoline gave me a gift. She gave it to this worm, too. It’s now different than the others.” She grinned. Before Jeff could stop her she leaned down and called out to the Grey.

  “Hey, douchebag.�
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  Irving looked up. The little Grey’s entire body trembled with rage. The sour smells soon followed.

  “Boy, is he ever pissed,” Jordan said.

  The Grey checked its pockets and then the surroundings as if taking stock of what was available. It no longer had a blaster, as Oliop had taken it. Maybe it was looking for something to throw up at them. Jeff wanted to close the hatch. What could they do from up here? The Grey began to shake Lord Akimbo. When that didn’t do anything, it began to slap him.

  “Ssstttop it, Irving the Grey,” Lord Akimbo muttered, his voice thick and slurred.

  “Order them to drill,” Irving said. “Get them into the machine.”

  Lord Akimbo made a show of placing a hand to his forehead. He began to sit up, worms falling off of him as if he were emerging from a pile of leaves. Irving continued to poke and push him.

  Jeff was about to jump down. Maybe if he grabbed hold of Irving, Akimbo would go back to sleep. But avoiding all the worms wouldn’t be possible. Jordan put a hand on his shoulder. She showed him the worm now on her hand.

  “You’ll thank me later,” she said.

  Besides the worm knowing a new word, it still looked like all of the others. Jordan appeared shaken from whatever had happened to her earlier. Perhaps seeing Lady Capitoline die right in front of her had sent her into a tailspin. Perhaps she was the one who had been too long away from Earth.

  “How is this going to help?” he asked.

  Jordan didn’t answer. Instead she tossed the worm down the hatch onto the others below. It vanished in the roil of mechanical spaghetti at Lord Akimbo’s feet. From outside and through the opening in the floor, the wind whistled. Jeff could see flashes of lightning. Thunder followed, a deep, gentle rumble that shook the floor beneath them.

  Lord Akimbo stood up, leaning on the machine for support. When he noticed Irving the Grey had a hand on his elbow, he swatted the little Grey away. He looked down at his tiny creations and broke into a dopey smile. He wore an expression of genuine affection. He had a slur in his voice when he spoke.

  “Drill,” Lord Akimbo said. “Fall. Tear down. Drill. Fall. Tear down. Execute your master’s program.”

  He made a swirling gesture in the air for the worms at his feet to follow. They just continued to stir. The giant machine hummed and churned. Lord Akimbo sagged a little when the worms did nothing.

  He cleared his throat. “Pets! Minions! My little friends! Go forth! Lord Akimbo commands it.”

  Irving the Grey tried to say something, but Akimbo put up a finger for silence. The worms began to form up. The clumped mass turned their collective monospikes first in Lord Akimbo’s direction, then at the machine. They moved forward like a shag carpet on rollers, climbing the machine until they covered half of it. The ones at the top put their monospikes to the machine’s surface and drilled.

  “Lord Akimbo,” Jeff called down. “You don’t want to do this. You don’t know what will happen if this place is destroyed. Look at the storm outside. If you break this machine, it could only get worse. People down in the city will get hurt. This place might come crashing down. You could die.”

  Lord Akimbo gave a belly laugh. “We find you amusing, human. We would never break this machine. Now learn your place and hush.”

  The Grey made a rude gesture towards the hatch. It then kicked Oliop for good measure. Oliop just lay there.

  The front line of the worm column had their tips inserted into the machine’s skin. They began to wriggle inside. Soon these were gone and the second row followed. Jeff looked at Jordan but she had an odd, content look on her face.

  “Have you been drinking?” Jeff asked.

  “No. But it’s all going to be okay. The worms know.”

  Jeff just shook his head. He dropped down onto the top of the machine. He had to try something, do something; he couldn’t wait for it all to culminate in whatever disaster lay at the end of this chain of events. He began to kick and stomp at the worms. His soft shoes didn’t do much more than displace a few of the little things. Some went flying. The rest resumed their place in the long line waiting to enter the pre-drilled holes in the machine’s surface. There were too many of them for him to stop.

  Both Lord Akimbo and Irving were laughing. Jeff flushed, feeling angry and strangely embarrassed. He got down on his knees and began to scoop double handfuls of the worms up and off the machine. The ones that he threw off just crawled back to the rear of the line. More worms squeezed away into the churning interior, either through the first set of holes or through hundreds of new punctures made in the last minute. Jeff slapped at worms, tried to pinch a few between his fingers. One he managed to rip into two pieces, but he then found he had two smaller worms in either hand. None attacked him.

  He jumped at Lord Akimbo. The big ungainly creature moved quickly. It stopped Jeff with a straight-arm block and pushed him aside. Jeff bounced hard on the floor near the bottom hatch that opened to the sky below. A stiff wind tugged at him.

  The Grey had a hand in one of Oliop’s pockets. It pulled out a small microfuser. The Grey turned it on. A blue flame shined bright like an oxyacetylene welding torch.

  The Grey grinned like a pyromaniac child that had just discovered how matches work. It walked towards Jeff, the microfuser held out in front of it. The flame grew to a long jet of bluish orange. Jeff tried to scramble away, but his legs wouldn’t cooperate. He backed up to the edge of the hatch.

  Get burned or fall?

  From the corner of his eye, he saw Jordan start to descend from the crawlspace, her legs dangling down from the ceiling. She was unnoticed for now. Below him there was a railing, just underneath the hatchway. He launched himself through the hatch and grabbed the rail just as the Grey slashed forward with the microfuser’s flame like it was a saber.

  Instantly a criss-cross of air currents tried to pull Jeff from his tentative handhold. Jeff got an elbow around one rail and planted his feet on a lower array that made for a solid foothold. He shimmied along for a moment, but he almost slipped. The metal railing was wet and cold. He latched on with both arms before surveying his options.

  The bottom of the weather palace was its least elegant side. It looked like someone had attached dozens of upside-down jungle gyms of steel to the stone, along with a long rail that would be right in place at any skate park or subway line. A giant purple bubble protruded and swelled from the underside of the machine room. As Jeff watched, it inflated like a monster-sized balloon and burst. Jeff saw tiny white things explode out into the churning weather. Along with the other contents of the bubble, hundreds of worms fell away into the clouds.

  A horizontal sheet of lightning blinded him momentarily. The air broke around him with a crack and rumble. The hairs on his arm were standing straight up.

  The sky beneath him looked sick. Deep hues of blue and violet spun and churned about. The storm had a green center with several twisting arms that spread out into the gloom. The worms were still tumbling out, going in every direction. If the city lay directly below them, the worms would be scattered everywhere.

  He didn’t dare try to log back in to the weather controls while down here. He didn’t want to do anything but concentrate on keeping his grip. Cold pelting rain began to sting his face, coming at him from every side. He clung to the railing with all his strength.

  The Grey looked out from the hatch. Jeff thought it would drop down and come after him, but instead it just waved at him and vanished, leaving Jeff alone with the storm.

  ***

  He couldn’t tell how long he was holding on to the icy railing. His arms had grown numb. His knee and punctured foot felt stiff and swollen. There was nowhere to go. Moving meant slipping. The machine continued to produce its wet burps into the atmosphere. Whatever sound it was making vanished into the roar of wind.

  He licked his lips and tasted sweat mixed with the rain on his face.

  Another bubble formed. This one was smaller than the last. When it burst, no worms came out.
When a new bubble swelled, it quivered for a long moment and then receded back into the machine above.

  The wind no longer pulled at him. The sky now spun in a slow, lazy revolution of cloud. Purples became blues and reds. Before his eyes the darkness slowly brightened to the silvery hues of the sky that Jeff had become accustomed to over the past months. The clouds were still thick and heavy, but the storm was finished. Jeff could once again hear the hum of the machine above.

  The city below was still obscured by rivers of foamy air.

  His teeth chattered. He worked his hands and fingers to get feeling back into them. He couldn’t stay here any longer. He moved along the railing by inches, making his way back to the hatch. The edges of the hatchway were slick. He could only use one leg to steady himself on a low rung, as the other had become numb and useless. With both arms trembling he swung and pulled himself up, expecting to see the Grey appear to try and burn his fingers.

  Worms crawled everywhere around the floor of the machine room. With as many as had passed into the storm, hundreds still remained. Several near him looked as if they were helping to fabricate a new hatch cover to replace the one that had gone missing. Jeff didn’t try to understand what he was seeing, was just glad that they ignored him as he collapsed on the floor among them. If they were going to attack, he was too weak to do anything about it.

  He heard someone crying. Jeff opened his eyes to take a look. Lord Akimbo was slumped against a wall, bawling like a post-tantrum toddler. The weird creature paused long enough to inflate like a bellows before letting loose with a howl of despair. Jordan was crouched next to him, stroking his bald head.

  “My children don’t listen,” Lord Akimbo blubbered. “They were going to let me build. Lord Akimbo demanded it.”

  Jordan gave him a pat on the head.

  “You poor dear.”

  She ditched Lord Akimbo when she saw Jeff. She helped him up.