Once-Other

by Lawrence M. Nysschens

  Gordon Odentien, puzzled by all this glances back-n-forth between them. The two Desert Drivers ignore him.

  More fascinated by the pre-owned arm than my predicament or these Desert Driver’s odd words, Odentien loses interest in Peter and me and watches the new arm growing and healing.

  Ozerken waves Pe’truss over and indicates the battery pack with a nod. Pe’truss attaches the electrodes and flips a red switch. The arm jerks and dances. He cuts the power and Ozerken waggles his new fingers. Odentien gapes in astonishment.

  “Excellent product Once-Other,” Ozerken says. “Top quality.”

  “Thank you,” I reply and glare accusations.

  They trumpet a short burst of hard laughter.

  “Makes no damn difference,” Pe’truss informs one-n-all.

  A small movement captures our attention.

  We look to where Wernt lies and his legs twitch once again. Next his fingers twitch, his head jiggles and the mad tourist suddenly leaps up and lands on his feet as though he’d just arrived by falling out the sky.

  Wild-on-wild blaze the fires of his eyes and his words...oh how terribly he swears. But most grievously he swears as he comes at me all snarling and spitting foam with eyes that do terrifying things.

  They roll this way-n-that-way, n-up-n-down. His face glows red and his tongue turns purple and his skin sprouts big black blotches and...well...more-or-less.

  I struggle to my feet, stand tall but the raving mad tourist fires into my chest a third time. I land on my back. This compounds the earlier bad-on-bad with a second one-two-three but with bullets alone.

  With no time to dwell on it, I look up into the blinding sun. The mad tourist looms into view and snarls, “Admit you are guilty of murder in the First Dot One.”

  “I’ll not admit to something I don’t understand and didn’t do.”

  “Then die some more,” he says. Taps my cheek with the hot gun barrel, presses the muzzle against my forehead and leans in. “You have been an interesting campaign item Once-Other. Oh yeah? Surprised? Yeah. We’re running a campaign too. Duh. Didn’t realize that did you?”

  I pull mind and emotions together, cut past pain and all of everything else and ask, “How do you keep your thoughts from me Wernt?”

  He bursts out laughing, collects himself and says, “Didn’t I tell you to look at our time together. Did you? Yeah. Nooo!” He leans in closer. “Here’s a little clue for you. Think of a number.”

  “Two, for the two of us?” I guess.

  “No.”

  “Three or maybe four for you two and those two?”

  “No. How sadly lacking you are, Once-Other. How terribly depressing an empty mind must be. Sigh.” And he smiles as though touched by my shortcomings.

  But I know the number!

  It answers a question I’ve had about Peter for some time but which I had forgotten. It drifted up from hiding amongst the hazy mists of my poison-infested mind as soon as he mentioned it.

  When he and I were at the Mall of Sand Lake Flats he had said something and due to all the adventures with Criers and Peter the Sprinter—it slithered into hiding. But now I’ve found it and I understand what, if not who, Wernt is. But worst of all...he’s played me all this time. He even faked slow reactions.

  The answer discloses as well how he has been able to control me and hide his thoughts. Danger from EB has once again ratcheted up several notches. Some of those on Earth-Born have developed the skills and powers we have and are using these to take control of we campaigners and politicians as well, it would seem.

  That is what happened to Jiplee, to Franciscoa and to me. Who knows how many of us there are in the desert as dead as all can be. Damned be Madsen for withholding information from me.

  On the other side, like most all Here-Born’s, I was sure that EB’s don’t have and would never have anything near our mind-to-mind skills. Clearly, some of them are well ahead of us.

  What Peter had said was by all accounts rational, appropriate and worst of all, the casual conversation of a typical tourist. And so I lost sight of it. My failure to assign any significance to his words kept them hidden.

  How simple what he said was.

  How cunning if planned.

  How troubling, such cunning is.

  And all he’d said was, “What are the Missing Twelve?”

  How deadly a question.

  Twelve. Twelve lost children...and Peter is one.

  And Gordon is two.

  Mister Conqueror in his red-n-black checkered suit is three.

  The Lady is four.

  That leaves another eight somewhere.

  It’s been thirty-some years since they vanished. Thirty long years during which Earth-Born’s plotters raised twelve Here-Born infants and molded them into weapons against their own people.

  Now I understand why I cannot get Wernt’s thoughts and how he was able to dig into my mind searching for that one thing they so desperately seek—Here-Born’s UWMD.

  Without our Foundation, he knows nothing of our Ultimate Weapon of Mass Destruction. And that’s their campaign—finding our UWMD not just we campaigners.

  No one had thought to search Earth-Born for the Twelve.

  Wait! Perhaps then...I had sold his wife an arm.

  Why then are there no records of such a sale?

  Straight from the all-encompassing beige and orange sand of our desert the answer hits me right between the eyes. I stagger backward despite being prone and it takes several moments to recover before I can speak.

  “Peter Wernt? An interesting name Peter.”

  He smiles with joyous evil.

  “Yeah?” he says.

  I search his face but nothing twitches.

  I say his name but emphasize the last one differently.

  “It appears that Peter Weren’t your name—Peter Wernt. No background to be found under that name.”

  “Ah. The campaigner, the vendor of pre-owned, once a Teacher of Children...has awoken.”

  “I have no record of a sale to a Mrs. Wernt either. What’s your real name Peter?”

  “Let’s be fair here. You haven’t told me yours. I won’t tell you mine.”

  We look at each other for a long time with a repulsive mixture of comradeship and enmity while our faces remain devoid of such. I try to see into his mind, but it’s still blank and at best foggy. But now those images I’d glimpsed earlier make sense.

  “You were taken Peter...whatever your name. From sand, you were removed. You arrived upon Earth-Born in winter. Snow was falling. Later you lived in a tropical paradise at or near the beach.”

  “Yeah?” he says.

  I nod towards the SandMaster.

  “That no good Odentien’s air-conditioned suit was purchased in a tropical climate. Yours, being plain-n-all, in a climate with winter snow. Am I right?”

  “Yeah,” he whispers and pats my cheek.

  “What is your name Wernt?”

  “Wouldn’t you love to know?” he gloats.

  “I’ll never forget your face Once-Other.” Ozerken had said when he bought his new arm. I’d felt faint at the time and deciding the giddiness was physical promised myself I’d see a doctor, but that wasn’t it. Ozerken only has my current name, no doubt told to him by Peter.

  Therefore, Peter attacked me—not Ozerken.

  Peter must know my real name.

  He has also slowed my heart and suffocated me.

  But from our side of Neatness, we of Here-Born have found doing bad has a steep price. Soon one loses his or her skills. There’s many a fugitive out in the wild desert lost to us and mind-to-mind.

  But not so Wernt.

  I must find a way to pass this information on to others.

  Damn! I’ve landed here through my own failure to perceive what is.

  How terrible to one proud of observing what he sees and to have missed all this. Without access to his thoughts, I’ve made terrible mistakes. How limiting such reliance upon our single talent has b
een.

  We cannot afford to continue like this—obviously our strength has been turned into a weakness. But what if I had met Peter’s wife? Then he would have no need of my real name just to target me as a campaigner.

  Is he so powerful he can do what he has done without knowing my actual name? How terrifying a thought!

  Damn! Too much doubt and uncertainty prevail.

  Perhaps I did so damned excellent a job with his wife that she spoke to him of our Rights-n-all. If so, that allowed him to target me as a campaigner. And from me he hopes to get other names and target them.

  Not all tour guides are campaigners so EB must find a method of sorting us. Peter is likely hunting from one to the next and our criminal politicians then look up our real names for him in the database, as they possibly did mine.

  Those Database Records exist from birth on forward. They also provide the dividing line between criminal and honest citizen with the required shades of gray between. This includes any journey into and out of those classifications.

  The only data not in the database are the details of our Here-Born campaigners. Keeping those records would be too risky once the devious deeds of our politicians had been unearthed.

  Therefore, Peter wants into my mind and there to find both our UWMD and other campaigners. However, with me he has failed to get in that deeply. Chalk up one for Once-Other.

  But I fear we have underestimated what they are doing.

  How much worse than we’ve realized...our politician’s betrayals?

  CHAPTER 52

  Of The Assignment Of Rights And Internal Conflicts

  My situation seems hopeless, but there is one thing that gives me hope. Though it is unlikely to change anything at this time, perhaps some good may come of it when I am gone. But with no time to gentle in as I should, I have time alone for a full-on frontal assault.

  “Peter...many of our Religions believe the real self is a being, a spirit if you like and that we’re not only the body we’re living in. Today, most of your side of Mankind is no longer aware of such a separation. I’m not talking the kind of spirit like in stories, which goes bump in the night.”

  “Oh shut-up Once-Other,” he groans.

  Needless to say...I don’t.

  “With this idea in place we of Here-Born added unique concepts to our Bill of Rights. On Here-Born, all Rights are assigned to the Individual, the spiritual being within—not only to the physical being.”

  “I don’t give a damn what you believe. Dead is dead. Spare me the BS.”

  “Peter. It’s the first time in human history where politically, Rights are assigned in such a way.”

  He touches my forehead with the muzzle of his handgun. “A bullet through the head ends all Rights,” he whispers.

  I steel myself for one last attempt. “I understand these ideas seem insane and incomprehensible to one such as you.”

  He grinds the muzzle into my ear and hisses, “Your campaign’s done. Your life is done. So, take what’s left of it and enjoy the sun and the sand.”

  An idea sneaks up on me. Yes—I can still do something about this Peter Wernt. I change gears and go after what is so horrifically wrong with him. “You know what?” I say.

  “No. But you’re going to tell me no matter...yeah?”

  “Listen carefully,” I say as a teacher does to his favored and most talented student.

  He leans in with exaggerated interest. “Yeah?”

  “It appears to me...that you the Here-Born is in conflict with you the Earth-Born raised. So comes to be your affliction. All that twitching, the eye rolling, those spasms and that terrible tearing apart going on within he who isn’t Peter Wernt.”

  “Sure going to be a pleasure executing you,” he whispers voice thick with hate.

  “Thank you for confirming it, Peter,” I reply with grim satisfaction.

  I examine him in detail and find the seed planted and there with luck, it will grow until his Here-Born side wins out. On the other hand, will the blood of his past deeds well up above his elbows and choke decency’s manifestation? Only the future will tell which he chooses.

  He strokes his handgun a little too fondly and says, “You Once-Other were chosen...he, Franciscoa, came to us voluntarily advertising his connections. He was tougher than he looks and, unfortunately, Gordon, in the heat of the moment, lost sight of how much power....”

  He crooks his arm makes a sudden jerk-n-tighten motion and says, “Snap! And Franciscoa was no longer with us and none of us had a clue on how to fix a broken neck with a used part. Yeah. Okay. I got the BS name. He went without providing us a single lead...you following me...the names of other campaigners...I need them. Like the one we sniffed out and left in the desert. You sure found her remains faster than anticipated.”

  “We campaign in the hope you’ll go home whatever-your-name-is,” I reply and my heart thuds heavy at evidence of Jiplee’s final moments.

  “Oh spare me—we know better,” Peter snaps back. “We chose you before any mission personnel was brought on board. You did a damn fine job on my wife Once-Other—dead giveaway. All her talk about this Right and that one, on and on she went. Too tiresome. So you’re involved but we’re careful in what we’re doing. Don’t want to eliminate anyone without just cause—go figure how much that would reduce the potential workforce. Get me?”

  “Is that more of your insane justice?” I ask.

  “Oh no. That arm did kill. You are subject to the Authority of a Writ of Execution. Don’t misunderstand me here.”

  My teeth grind. “You should have figured it out for yourself. A Here-Born cannot co-exist within an Earth-Born raised and wage war upon us.”

  He waves it off. “Whatever! What about Madsen? Maggie? Of course, Franciscoa’s involvement was evident. Any others you care to reveal?”

  “What are you on about Peter?”

  “Jenk? Deidre? Karrell?”

  My heart stops beating for several moments as I compose my inner self and wait.

  He grins. “Deidre was more than helpful. She doesn’t like you very much! We had to stop her babbling on and passing us info...just to get away.”

  “She likes but one person,” I say.

  “And that is?” he asks.

  “Herself,” I growl.

  Chuckling he nods agreement. “So Once-Other let me say this right. You’ve been informed justice enters in here as well as revenge for what you did to my son. Shut up! You’ve also been told it’s your and our campaign locking horns here. Now I’ll show you this.”

  He briefly reveals his Nomadi screen that displays, Writ of Execution. He leans closer and reads.

  “Once-Other is found guilty of Murder in the First Dot One Degree. He is a vendor of pre-owned parts, a resident of Here-Born and his previous identity is unknown. Good so far? Yeah. Now! Get this.

  “This Court proved murder in the First Dot One Degree. We define Murder in the First Dot One Degree as knowingly selling a C-POP resulting in an unnatural death. A Writ of Execution is granted to me of course. Legal Authority empowers me of course to process this Writ of Execution upon the subject: Once-Other of Here-Born.

  “This Writ may not be transferred, used as a Negotiable nor sold. Let it be known that unnecessary cruelty is not recommended. The manner of, forms of, actions of, are open to the wishes of the Executor. Think of this as part of my campaign. Aren’t we Earth-Born sublime?”

  “Quite mad Wernt,” I reply.

  He sets his Nomadi to record and says, “Maybe we can come to a compromise here...if you’ll just admit to selling my wife a C-POP, Criminal pre-owned part.”

  “Never going to happen,” I say, choosing my words with care so they cannot be edited to provide the answer he is looking for.

  “We’ll see. We’ll see.”

  He works the settings.

  How easy it will be for them to twist the sale of a pre-owned part into the deliberate sale of criminal parts.

  And then?

  Turn th
at into a terrorist attack?

  And then?

  Start Earth-Born’s war machine in so-called defense.

  But! On a personal level, Peter is very mistaken. I will not confess to something I did not do. Not even to save my life.

  If I do so I will lose all Neatness and Honor, never to be regained—not even in death. For when I am dead my loss will transfer to Karrell and saddle future generations with dishonor until a son or daughter rises to undo it.

  Still, I am in two minds about dying.

  First off, I’ll miss friends and family very much and right now I struggle not to think of them. Second, the critical information I have learned needs be passed on. Nevertheless, death will answer one question—am I or am I not wholly a spirit glued to the body until death do us part? I hope to confirm this one way or the other despite that dying is not an ideal test bed.

  Pain hits, my throat constricts and I fight for breath.

  Wernt glances dead-eyed at me and continues to work his Nomadi.

  Done he stretches, sighs and says, “A couple of deep breaths Once-Other. In and out and in and out. Feeling better? Yeah. Moving on. Writ of Property is assigned to—me of course. I’ve checked and you are the sole owner of your store. Right?”

  I should have figured it out. How often had Peter examined me and mine as though he was the owner, not I? It was not a pending sale as I had thought but pending theft.

  “You won’t be able to buy out a partner and take over. Yes, I am the sole owner.” Not that it does me any good in death.

  “Thank you kindly Once-Other,” he says.

  I glance across to the SandMasters, but none of the others pays us any mind.

  Peter works his Nomadi humming to himself, spares me a glare, a cold smile and an insulting wink. His fingers blur as they dance across the keypad. Calculations end, he looks me in the eye for several moments, shows the screen to me long enough to read Writ of Property and the same EB Court number.

  His voice a soft hiss drifting across sand, he reads, “The following Properties are awarded to me of course. One pre-owned parts business. All inventory and equipment. All banking accounts and deposits. All other commercial and personal assets. This includes one home located northeast of Sand Lake Flats, Newfound Sand Flats, Here-Born. All vehicles, all contents, other items, and equipment are included. All business and personal debts are dissolved upon Transfer of Ownership.”