by Fox, Chris
"Is it bad business?" Hateya asked, snatching up one of the other full shot glasses and bringing it to me. I took it with a nod.
"Worst kind," Jillian answered, glancing towards the kitchen. "Same kind Kali's dealing with. Maybe worse."
"God damn it." Hateya returned to the bar. "We've forgotten so much from the ancient days, but we remember the grey men. These fuckers have been here for a pile of centuries. There's glyphs up in the hills north of us, and no one knows how old they are. Meaning's clear though. You can't mistake 'em for anything else."
"Seriously?" I asked, glancing down at the shot for a moment. Why not? I downed it too, and the stuff burned.
"Haha, look at him tear up," Hateya said, cackling. She shot me a wink. "Yes, I'm serious. Grey men have been here a while. Your mama knew it, David. Spent the balance of her days learning all about 'em."
I went cold. Knew. Spent. Those were in the past tense. Had something happened to my mother? "Hateya, where is my--"
Kali emerged from the kitchen, a pack of dogs in her wake. "Sorry, Grandma, I couldn't find any. I think we're out."
She came over to stand near Jillian, withdrawing a smartphone from her pocket and staring at the screen. I couldn't see what she was reading, but I recognized the Kindle app. A book of some kind, then. I bit back my questions about Mom, for now at least.
"Girl, you've earned a shot," Hateya said, offering Kali the last shot. The girl took it uncertainly. "Down it in one swallow. It will burn like bile, but in a minute you'll know why it's worth it."
Kali raised the shot to eye level, studying the contents. Then she tentatively poured it into her mouth, gagging. She started to tear up, but managed to force down the contents. "That was the most vile thing I've ever tasted."
"Yeah, well, it will fortify you in a minute, and that's a good thing for what we've got to discuss," Hateya said. She downed her last shot and slammed the glass down on the bar. "Kaliska, your Auntie's in some bad trouble with the grey men. She ain't told me about it yet, but she was about to. Things have been getting worse year after year with those pale bastards. Something bad is coming; I feel it. Now, they already know about your situation, so it's time you all pooled your troubles. "
So we told them. Everything.
Chapter 10- Crater
"It's right over the hill, toward Twainharte," Jillian explained as the SUV approached the summit. I stifled a yawn, surprised by how tired I was after a night's sleep. I'd wolfed down two plates of eggs, but was still hungry.
I was thankful Jillian had offered to drive, because I had far too much on my mind to be trusted at the wheel. I wiped at my eyes, just the thought of what might have happened to Mom tearing me up yet again. On top of that the grey men had agents everywhere, and those agents were after us. Usir was an unknown quantity, but whatever he wanted probably wasn't good for us.
"Something doesn't feel right about this place," Kali said from the backseat. I glanced back at the teen. She dropped her gaze immediately, waking her smartphone and acting like that was what she'd been focused on all along.
"Kali, have you experienced anything strange since the grey men returned you?" Jillian asked, blunt as usual.
Kali paled, straightening her glasses. She licked her lips, voice just above a whisper. "Yeah. I haven't really talked about it much, but things have been strange since I came back."
"Strange how?" I asked, glancing back at her again. We crested the summit, slicing into the dense mist. Pines loomed all around us, silent sentinels watching our approach.
The smell of burnt leather filled the car. I looked back at Kali in alarm. A thin plume of smoke curled from the seat where her hand had been resting. She recoiled in horror. "Omigod! I'm sorry...I didn't mean to ruin your seat."
"Pyrokinetic," Jillian said, giving a tight nod as if this was the most normal thing in the world. I was still staring at Kali, blinking.
"Pyro-what?" Kali asked, voice quavering.
"You're a pyrokinetic. You can light things on fire with your mind," Jillian explained, guiding the BMW smoothly down the road. A pair of headlights passed us from the other direction, the first we'd seen in a while. "It's one of the more common lineages, but also very powerful."
"So you've seen this before? Are there other powers too, then?" Kali asked, leaning forward.
"Yeah, from what I can tell we all have different ones," I answered, gesturing at the radio. I concentrated for a moment, feeling the components inside. The radio came to life without me needing to touch it, blaring a Kansas song. I gave a triumphant smile, but it was muted by the spike of pain now stabbing into the back of my skull. I shook my head, and the pain faded slightly. When it had abated I turned back to Kali. "Apparently I can control machines. Jillian is something called a Phasic."
"David," Kali said, shrinking back against the leather. "Your nose."
I reached up, feeling something wet and warm. It was blood. I gave Jillian a level look. "You know more about this stuff than I do. Please tell me this is normal."
"I know a lot less than you might think," Jillian said, stopping the car while she examined me. She tilted my head with a hand. "Maybe take it easy on your powers for a bit. This isn't something I've seen before."
Jillian guided the car down a narrow driveway. The fog was so thick that I had no idea where we were going until we emerged onto a wide gravel driveway. There was no house I could see, and nothing else that suggested why we might have come here.
"Oh my god," Jillian said, throwing the parking brake. She all but leapt out of the car. I followed, trotting after her into the mist, swiping at my nose with the back of my hand.
She stopped at the edge of a massive crater, easily a hundred feet across and just as deep. The sides were almost perfectly smooth, as if they'd been bored by a laser. They still smoked and smoldered, and I could feel the heat rising from the crater.
I was dimly aware of Kali approaching behind us. "Listen. There aren't any birds. There should be ravens all over these woods, but I don't hear a single one. Or any squirrels. It's like all the animals just...left. And the trees around the edge are bent away from the crater, maybe from the force of the blast."
"What the hell happened?" I muttered. My head continued to throb, building to a crescendo that spiked down into my gut. I sank to one knee, vomiting noisily into the pit.
"I can't imagine anything human having this level of precision. The grey men must have done this. We've never seen them intervene directly, not on this scale," Jillian said, staring down into the crater. She rested a hand on my shoulder, giving it a squeeze as I rose to my feet. "This is where the resistance was gathered, almost twenty of us. Only our members knew about it." She paused and reached out to take my hand. "Your mom was probably here, David."
I turned toward the car, walked back to the passenger's side, and climbed numbly back into the vehicle. This was the place where I was supposed to find answers, but all I had were more questions. Why had the grey men suddenly attacked? What had my mother been doing and, more importantly, what the hell was I supposed to do now?
Jillian slid into the driver's seat, eyes large with concern. Kali got in the back seat a moment later. The three of us sat in silence for several minutes.
"I don't know where to go now," Jillian said quietly.
"To my mom's house. There's a chance she wasn't here for this." The thought came to me even as I spoke. I wasn't going to give up, not until I found some frigging answers. "Even if she was, who knows what's still in her apartment? We go there and see what we can find. Mom was a pack rat. Is a pack rat."
"Won't it be watched?" Kali volunteered. "I mean, by the people you said chased you here?"
"Assuming they know it exists, it might be," Jillian allowed. She pursed her lips. "I still think it's a good idea to go. We need to find out if anyone survived the attack here."
"I agree, it's worth the risk. Besides, what the hell else are we going to do?" I said, staring out the windsh
ield at the crater. "We're outclassed, and we need answers."
Chapter 11- Mom's House
Twenty-five minutes later, Jillian glided into a spot near the entrance of an apartment complex in downtown Sonora, right outside my mother's first floor apartment. She turned off the car, but made no immediate move to unbuckle her seat belt.
"Kali, I want you to stay in the car," Jillian ordered.
"What if you guys get into trouble?" Kali asked. She leaned forward between the seats, meeting Jillian's gaze. "I have abilities too. I can light things on fire with my mind, and if we get into a fight that might be useful. You know I want answers as much as you guys. My mother is still missing, remember?"
"I'll leave the keys in the ignition. You've got your cell phone, right?" Jillian asked, ignoring Kali's question.
"Yes, I've got it."
"Then stay in the car. I want you in the driver's seat. Keep an eye on the building, and if you see anyone approach I want you to call me immediately. Understand?" Jillian asked, a hard edge to her voice.
"Okay," Kali agreed, heaving a sigh.
"Thanks, Kali," I said, opening the door and stepping into the rain. It was starting to drizzle.
I stepped over a row of rocks bordering the walk and moved over to Mom's front door. The front patio was ringed by a waist-high fence, with mismatched Christmas lights strung along the top. They stayed up year-round. A single white patio chair sat near the sliding glass door, with an inflatable little green man sitting on it. He wore a Santa hat, though we were well into spring.
I reached under an empty flower pot next to the door and fished out her spare key. I had to jiggle it a little to get it into the lock, then opened the front door and stepped into Mom's apartment for the first time in three years. Nothing had changed. Just past the door stood a curio cabinet filled with colorful dragon statues. Beyond that were stacks of boxes and piles of old newspapers. They covered nearly every surface, except for the sky blue recliner where Mom had spent the bulk of her time.
It faced a tiny television with an old Playstation plugged in. I'd offered to buy mom a newer one, but she had been happy replaying Final Fantasy VII over and over again.
"Mom? Are you home?" I called out, already knowing she wasn't. The place was too still, too empty.
It reeked of cigarette smoke. Mom had smoked a pack and a half a day with all the windows closed, and she'd lived here for seven years. The walls were covered with an oily residue that had painted the walls the unmistakable yellow of a chronic smoker. Part of my mind recognized that stray thoughts were a way to avoid my feelings, but right now that was all I had the strength for.
"David," Jillian called, waving me over to the small kitchen table where I'd played about a billion games of Hearts with mom. "This is your mom's sketchbook. She never let anyone look at it."
I approached the table, picking up the battered black sketchbook. Some of the pages were full of pictures, others stuffed with hand-written notes. The last third of the book had a series of very disturbing sketches. Quite a few were of the grey men and what was quite clearly the obelisk forests inside their ships.
Others were less familiar. There was a sketch of the sun, with several fiery tendrils bleeding off the side. Another showed a jet-black pyramid jutting out of San Francisco bay near Angel Island. The last was by far the most disturbing, though. It showed a ravening horde of zombies packing the Golden Gate Bridge. They were unmistakable, the kind she could have pulled from any Romero movie.
A few days ago I would have taken them for a sign of growing psychosis, or just some idle artwork based on a TV show. Now, they were terrifying. I felt ill, and more than anything I wanted to be away from there. At least the headache had faded.
"If she left anything important it's probably in her room," I said, plunging past Jillian up the narrow hallway.
The bedroom door stood halfway open, and I slipped inside without touching the yellowed wood. The room looked the same as it always had, a queen-sized bed buried under a comforter that had once been white, with an army of pillows. A nightstand sat next to it, with a worn AM radio facing the bed. If I turned it on I knew it would be tuned to the station that played Coast to Coast, a conspiracy show about aliens and other phenomena that mom had absolutely loved, and I had abhorred.
The only other item of note was Mom's dresser, which was covered in snow globes. A large wooden jewelry box sat in the back, propped open. I approached, recoiling a bit at what I saw in the jewelry box's small mirror. My dark hair was mussed, my eyes swollen despite having just had a night's sleep. I looked awful and felt worse.
"See anything useful?" Jillian asked, entering the room behind me.
"Maybe," I said, leaning closer to the jewelry box.
It held many of the necklaces and rings I was familiar with. Mom loved turquoise, gold, and any gaudy semi-precious stone she could get her hands on. The funny thing was that she somehow managed to make all of that stuff look elegant, no matter how much of it she seemed to wear at once.
Near the back of the box was a massive green stone, far larger than anything else. It was maybe three inches tall, and cut into a perfect pyramid. The color was too light for an emerald; it was more like summer. I reached out to touch it, and a shock went through me the instant my finger brushed the warm stone.
"David." A familiar voice came from behind me, and it wasn't Jillian. I turned slowly to see a spectral figure hovering several inches over the carpet. The translucent woman was the same green as the stone, but she was unmistakably my mother. She gave me a warm smile, one that made me tear up instantly. "I'm so glad you're all right, and that you thought to look here. I wasn't positive you'd think of it, or be able to make it if you did."
"Dorothy?" Jillian asked, voice quavering. That grounded me somehow, the fact that she could see the specter too.
"Hello, Jillian. You did well in locating David. Thank you for that," Mom said, shifting her smile to Jillian. She looked younger somehow, more vibrant than last time I'd seen her.
"Mom, what is that crystal? How are you talking to us?" I asked, several competing theories playing through my head. Communication device? Mental repository?
"It's a genetic memory crystal. In essence, a mirror of my mind. I have all of Dorothy's memories up to the moment the crystal was imprinted, and her entire personality. At least I've lost quite a bit of weight," Mom said, giving me a holographic smile as she posed. Her expression sobered before she spoke again. "I don't know the fate of the real me, but I suspect the worst. The real me-- Dorothy-- headed to the safe house to meet with her resistance cell. I'm guessing you've already looked there?"
"Yeah. Nothing left but a crater," Jillian replied in a small voice. She sat on the corner of the bed, eyes locked on the spectral hologram.
"It's as I feared then. It looks like I was right to create the crystal. David, there's a lot I have to share with you. You're far more important than you realize, both to the resistance and to the grey men," she explained. "I have a lot to tell you, and not much time. If you're here they probably already know, and they'll be here soon."
"Who?" I asked.
"One of two groups: either the agents of the grey men, or a faction called Mohn Corp," the hologram explained.
"What can you tell us about Mohn Corp?" I asked, joining Jillian on the bed. I knew we had to get out of here, but I was hoping a minute or two wouldn't matter. I needed answers more than I needed air.
"The corporation is run by a man named Usir, who is definitely more than he appears to be. You'll need to learn the truth behind him, David. I wasn't able to, but your powers are uniquely suited to getting answers," she explained. "He wasn't created by the grey men, but seems to possess a lot of power. I don't know where he comes from, or how he relates to them. I do know he's old, centuries at the very least. It appears he's been gathering supers, but I have no idea what his motives are."
"He's interested in me," I said, scooting closer to Jillian. My hand found hers, and she gave
it a squeeze. "He was trying to invest in the company I work for."
"I'm not surprised," Mom said--hologram or no, that's how I decided I was going to think of her. "Your powers are unique, and I believe they may be what the grey men have been seeking all along. As Jillian has no doubt told you, you're a telemechanic. You can interface directly with machines."
"Why is that so useful to Usir?" Jillian asked.
"In my limited research, I came across references to something called Object 3. I don't know what it is, exactly, but I think it's a grey man artifact. Usir has it, and is trying to find a way to use it," Mom explained.
A ringing came from Jillian's pocket, and she fished her phone out. She turned to me eyes widening, a voice rising a half octave. "It's Kali."
Chapter 12- Attack
"What's up?" Jillian said, phone shooting to her ear. I heard Kali's voice in the background, high pitched and scared.
A familiar howl sounded outside, rattling the bedroom windows. I shot to my feet, looking for any way to escape.
"David," holo-mom said, drawing my attention. "You cannot allow them to find the crystal. They cannot discover what I have learned."
The front door exploded inward, and something heavy advanced quickly up the hallway. Jillian tucked her phone in her pocket, then shouldered the door closed.
"That's not even going to slow them down," I said, scooping up the crystal. The hologram disappeared as I handed it to Jillian. "Hang on to that. If they're here for me, then I should be as far from the crystal as possible."
The door simply melted, dissolving into green mist that flowed across the carpet. A moment later, a Latino kid about Kali's age stepped into the doorway. Tattoos poked up from the collar of a black T-shirt, and I spotted several gold teeth when he shot me a predatory smile. "It's gonna go rough for both of you if you try to run. Just like it went rough for the tasty redhead outside."