Dazzle Ships

by E. E. Isherwood

  To my surprise several volunteers stepped onto the platform. I heard her sigh in relief before she caught herself. “Thank you sisters. Thank you. The Goddess thanks you. Sister Valerie thanks you.”

  “No!” Valerie yelled. “I will not allow it.”

  In a flash Valerie grabbed Xandrie’s arm and stumble-dragged her back toward the blue wall. Xandrie screamed and flailed at her abductor, but it was only a few steps.

  “You’re coming with me,” Valerie shouted.

  Without a second of hesitation she walked into the blue beam. In the instant her skin entered, it became holographic, like she was walking through the rock just behind it. I pushed Sister Felicity to the side so I could watch as Xandrie got yanked into the screen.

  Xandrie righted herself and planted her feet at the last second, though she screamed as her left hand went into the beam. It appeared to freeze in ice as I watched it happen.

  “No! I don’t want to die,” she shouted. Her feet slid on the stone floor, but she did manage to slow herself. The blue of the wall seemed to bleed out onto her wrist, as if it was going to envelope her that way.

  In the next couple of seconds she pulled out a long knife from inside a hip compartment of her pants. She used it to slash at the blue part of her wrist, even as the blue slithered higher up her forearm.

  “God, no,” she screamed.

  Then, as we all watched in silent horror, she used the heavy knife to take several wild cuts at a part of her arm just below the elbow that wasn’t in blue. I almost screamed as I watched it happen. Several other sisters did.

  Xandrie cried out in pain, but there was more fear. After a couple more messy slashes she began to grind back and forth. We all could tell what she was doing. As terrible as it was.

  And still no one offered any help. We were all frozen in place, watching the spectacle.

  In the end, she just barely beat the blue glow. Valerie was frozen—her hand still linked with Xandrie’s. But when the arm was severed, the hand and wrist sprang into the picture. Valerie’s image might have let go, or maybe the hand just didn’t register. It seemed to disappear.

  I was glad of that.

  Valerie’s projection—now with a clean white skirt—ran to the path up to the monastery without so much as a look back. Several of the sisters waved to her anyway, as if that was part of the tradition. They were less sure how to handle the hot mess standing before them.

  Xandrie’s blood had saturated the white of her dress. Long streaks and splashes of bright red had ruined it. She looked down at her dress in a way that, to me, suggested she was more concerned about that than she was the horrible stump of an arm she was holding under her armpit.

  “I must go,” was all she said.

  This time the sisters all cleared a path for her not out of respect, but because they didn’t want to suffer a similar fate. Everyone’s eyes were glued to the blood—they were afraid of it.

  Mr. B’s words came back to me. “It was the blood that ruined the world.”

  While everyone’s eyes were glued to Xandrie’s back, I jogged up to the black box, opened the service door, and yanked out my staff. It was already a deep blue as it was obviously helping power the machine. I touched it and pulled back my hand, expecting a shock. Nothing happened. When I yanked it out, the blue projection stopped without making a sound.

  I ran after Xandrie.

  Not really sure why.

  3

  It was easy to track her. The drops of blood were steady and easy to see on the metal surface of the floor. It led me right back to her upper level office. She didn’t bother closing doors behind her, and when I reached the last room she was bent over a box on her desk.

  The bloody knife lay upon the glass top of the desk, though when I approached I was surprised to see the surface was lit up with images and lights. The pile of bandages and glues next to the knife told me all I needed to know about what she was doing.

  “Oh, it’s you. You probably think this is all hilarious. You and Valerie thought you’d get rid of me and, ha ha ,you’d take over, or whatever. Is that right?”

  She spoke with strain in her voice as she squirted something on the mangled end of her arm. She cut it clean off, just below the elbow. Whatever the liquid was, the end sizzled and bubbled.

  I had to look away.

  “Meg: Give me a map of the vault.” She spoke to the desk.

  A complicated schematic showed up, partially obscured by the knife and a growing pile of red bandages.

  When she could, she pointed to a tiny area in one corner of the map. “This is where you came in, right?”

  I squinted to try to see the detail, but it was difficult.

  “Let me zoom in.”

  I saw it right away. The weird grotto with all the bags—the map only showed the outline, not what it really looked like—and the tunnels I took to get to the water-filled chamber where I was chased.

  “I don’t know,” I lied. “Are you going to put me into that death ray?”

  She cast a glance at me. “You weren’t supposed to interfere. Since the beginning we used the Icer to get rid of undesirables and malcontents.” She grunted, hurt by what she was doing to her arm.

  “You called it an ascension-thingy. I’m confused. You said the sisters want to be on that wall?”

  “You really aren’t from around here, are you? How can you be so ignorant? The Icer is our relief valve.” She sighed, then twinged with pain as her stump continued to bubble. “I should have seen it coming. Valerie never really belonged. She was also an outsider—from the get-go, but she knew everything about the vault system. How to stop the leaks. How to build the safety floors. We couldn’t have done this without her. And she was way smarter than me.”

  Her green eyes fell on me. “Do you know all about our bunker, too?”

  I shook my head, thinking of Alex for some strange reason. “It looks like you burned that ship.”

  She didn’t smile at my joke.

  I wanted to keep her talking. “So why’d you kill her?”

  “Ascend,” she corrected.

  “Mmm hmm. Why’d you do that?”

  “I had to. A long time ago she tried to betray me but I stopped her. The Goddess declared she would ascend to achieve forgiveness for that act, but someone took apart one of the control towers and removed that magic pipe, uh, power generator, you carry around. When I saw you with it I had to move fast before she found out you had it. Yet, I guess I was the one being played.”

  “No, I had no idea what it was. I found this in a tunnel, far away.”

  That was mostly true. The tunnel wasn’t that far away. Just across the river.

  “It doesn’t matter. It’s done. She’s gone.”

  “So, um, did you get out of it?” I couldn’t help feel the concern for her, despite what I’d seen. The blue “ice” was too horrible to wish on anyone but her efforts to stay out of it had to count for something. She was driven, if nothing else.

  “It depends. Nothing like this has ever happened. If—”

  She glanced behind me. “It all depends on the good sisters.”

  I turned around to see Felicity and Patience standing in the doorway. Neither looked very happy. Both held their hands on their hips, over what I assumed were knives. The women all seemed to carry the same long knife.

  “Come in. I’m almost done here.” Xandrie hardly looked at them once she got back to working on her arm.

  The two women walked up to me and stood close. Both their braids were draped over their chests as if they were on display.

  “Who are you?” asked the spike-topped Felicity.

  “I’m not from your, uh, sisterhood. I came here with a boy and a girl. They are waiting for me here.” I turned and pointed to the map.

  “You brought a man here?” Patience asked. She’d moved to my other side.

  “Well, not here. We didn’t know here existed. He’s still on the outside.”

  I hope.

 
“Men are forbidden,” Patience continued.

  “Well, sort of,” Xandrie replied. “We have one we keep around because he’s special.”

  “Felix?” I guessed.

  “We did have some men here at the beginning. We don’t like to talk about those early days. I don’t, anyway.” Xandrie gripped her bandage with her teeth and yanked. She displayed minimal anguish, though I bet myself it had to have hurt.

  “Where’d they go?”

  “Some went outside to get help. Some went to see if the world had healed. Some just went,” she said softly.

  “And we kicked out the rest,” Felicity said with anger. “Thanks to her.”

  Xandrie spoke calmly, as if the pain of the arm was subsiding. “I had to protect us. You know that, right? We women would never have survived with those men. They were bad.”

  “I can’t even remember them,” Patience replied, obviously disturbed at the notion.

  “Trust me, they were bad. I was lucky to get most of them outside the doors. The rest we sent into the experiment. The machine that does this,” she held up her bandaged stump, “to the people who go inside.”

  “But you told us we would ascend. The Saints who went before—they’re on that path. We watched them go up.” Felicity stepped back a little so she could point out the window to where the Icer was below in the Cathedral.

  “Yeah, well, I think that cat has been bagged. I have no idea how those women get on that hill. I wasn’t part of the experiment when the machine was set up.”

  “So you’ve just used our fears and hopes?” Patience said with deep sorry. “There is no Monastery of Saint Benevolence where we can achieve peace?”

  “Would it matter what you do now? Are we not already living forever?”

  I opened my mouth to speak, but Xandrie kept going.

  “This place is truly the home of Goddesses. You. Me. Even her.” She pointed to me. “The Remainder has been difficult, but it’s a gift.”

  “Then why send people to the hill? Why kill them?” Felicity asked.

  “Resources. We’re running out of resources. We have been since the doors closed. Each woman we send away is another month or two for someone else.”

  “Yuck! You killed them for no reason at all.” Patience actually spit on the glass top of the desk. “I hate you.”

  The tension rose as Xandrie and Felicity stood staring at each other. I expected Felicity to come to the defense of her partner, but she seemed to hesitate.

  “I know why you don’t age,” I stated.

  Xandrie looked at me with her tired eyes. I held them as best I could—almost ready to let my eyes drift from hers—when she dropped her head. “If it wasn’t because of the Goddess, I don’t want to hear it,” she said in a soft voice.

  “We do,” Felicity replied.

  “Okay, but it’s going to sound crazy,” I said, echoing how Alex had warned me he was going to tell me a dog talked to him.

  For the first time in the conversation, all eyes were on me.

  4

  “Do enlighten us,” Xandrie said in a condescending tone.

  “I will, but you have to promise you’ll let me go once I tell you. I don’t want to live here forever, and I most certainly don’t want to ascend into your picture on the wall.”

  I looked at Xandrie, but she she hunched her shoulders. “I’m not in charge at the moment. I’m supposed to be ascended,” she laughed, without humor.

  I turned to Felicity, who seemed to rise to the situation. I noticed her pulling at her braid in an offhand way. Patience was also absently pulling at hers.

  Felicity watched Xandrie for a long, thoughtful moment before addressing her. “The sisters will never let you back in their sight. Not once word spreads to all the others.”

  “I know.”

  “So how do you want to do this?”

  It was clear they had no method for the transfer of power.

  Xandrie was now properly bandaged. She’d swept the trash off her workstation, and used her good hand to tap an on-screen keypad.

  “I propose you lead the sisters, Felicity, with Patience as your Second. You can pick a Third: I’d suggest Sister Destiny. That seems fitting,” she giggled.

  “I know nothing of how to lead them,” Felicity offered, almost as a cry for help. A contrast to her earlier accusatory tones. I could only guess they'd never had another leader in all their years.

  “You’ll do fine. As long as they don’t turn on you like they turned on me. Maybe you’ll have someone to defend you when it happens.”

  The girls seemed not to notice her accusation.

  “And your office?” Felicity asked, with a little too much anticipation.

  Xandrie spoke as she walked to a small door near her desk. “Take it. Take all of it. I don’t care. I’ve punched up our exit route, Sister Elle. You’re leaving, and taking me with you.”

  “For real?” I asked, dumbfounded. “You’d leave all you’ve built?”

  She laughed with deep sarcasm while she opened the door and stuck her head inside. “I was hoisted on my own rules. If I tried to lead them now, there’d be nothing but anarchy. You’ve survived outside. Maybe I can go out there and figure out a way to get all my sisters to follow me.”

  “You could stay at the Complex. We're in a … transition.” Not that I wanted her there, but kicking her Outside alone was also horrible to contemplate.

  “I might just do that.”

  She came out of the doorway holding a sleek-looking futuristic black rifle. “But first, if Sisters Felicity and Patience will allow me one last command, I’ll take you through the back tunnels and get you back outside. When I’m gone, I won’t care what happens back here.” She looked at her two former allies but I couldn’t tell if her statement was good or bad.

  We all looked at the gun.

  “What? This old thing? Just one of the perks of being the leader,” she said matter-of-factly.

  “You’ve kept weapons in here the whole time? The entire Remainder? Even when we had so many problems?”

  “The Icer was a much more elegant solution. Why kill my fellow sisters when they would willingly go into, ah, a higher place. No blood on anyone’s hands.” She held out her hand and the stub of her arm with a surprised look on her face. Like she’d planned to display a lack of blood on her hands, but only found one.

  “Anyway,” she continued, “I may need this to prevent a riot if I’m spotted.”

  “They know you’re up here,” I suggested, trying to be helpful.

  Xandrie nodded. “That’s what I’m hoping. It will give us some time to get out. I hope all this gives you some assurance I do plan to go out with you, after you tell us your secret.”

  “Actually, it isn’t a secret anymore. The whole Complex knows about it.”

  Lot of good that will do them.

  I was going to tell the women when I remembered an important detail. The Complex had no idea about the reasons for their long life. The Commander had dropped the memory mist on everyone one last time. Anyone who might have known about the elderly’s role had now forgotten it. The number of people who knew the secret was distressingly small.

  I debated whether it was a secret that needed to be shared. If I kept it to myself would it give me some advantage? A way to protect my friends?

  “Well, Sister Elle? Do we have a deal?”

  I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t trust Xandrie anymore. Felicity and Patience were little better. They’d all known Scarlett and Felix were captive in their prison and did nothing about it. I believed Xandrie was the only one who knew about the Icer, but her closest confidants must have suspected something wasn’t right.

  “I need you to show me the oldest woman here,” I declared.

  “What? Why? How about I show you Felix again? He’s by far the oldest person in this place,” Xandrie said, making an effort at humor.

  “No, it must be a woman,” I lied.

  Xandrie eye’s narrowed as she s
lung her gun over the shoulder above her bad arm. “Why? What aren’t you telling me? Does it have something to do with why you came here in the first place?”

  “I came here to find help. You have to believe that,” I said.

  “A young woman from the outside comes in with our missing energy rod and says nothing about what brought her here. I somehow get tossed into the Halo because of her big mouth. And you want me to believe you on a whim?”

  “I know how it sounds. I don’t even know if I can prove what I’m going to tell you is true. I do a lot of things I don’t understand. But I think this is right. You’ll have to trust me. Uh, for a little while. If you think I’m lying after you show me the oldest woman here you’ll have lost nothing.”

  It all sounded good, but I couldn’t stop thinking of that blue beam absorbing Sister Valerie and how bad Xandrie fought to keep from becoming its victim. How many other women had been subjected to that torture? Were the women in the hologram once real people in the here and now? That was a horrible thought.

  And Xandrie seemed to be the woman at the center of it all. I’d have to show her what I knew if I was going to get out of their bunker system, but I didn’t like the idea of her leaving with me.

  “I’m keeping my staff,” I declared.

  Felicity and Patience passed a look.

  Xandrie said, “I think after my display today, everyone would be just as happy if that thing got lost forever.”

  The two girls shook their heads in agreement. I looked at them, curious about how deep their loyalty to their old leader went.

  Xandrie pulled a fresh skirt from a drawer and stepped behind a small partition to change. That left me in awkward silence with her helpers.

  “Do either of you know where the oldest woman is kept? Can you lead us?”

  Their non-reaction was telling.

  Xandrie came forward with her clean skirt and smiled broadly for the first time since we’d all gathered in her office.

  “So?” Xandrie said, reverting to her haughty speech normally reserved for her flock. “You wanted to see an old woman? You have to follow me.”

  The four of us left the room through the main door, but soon left the main hallway by way of one of the narrow side passages.

  We were on our way.