by J. Naomi Ay
The formerly Janet Waldman-Moonbeam, neé Kersey, and now, Boykin, stepped into the RV and removed the blue hood from her head. This process caused a small storm of water droplets to rain upon the linoleum floor, soaking through the nylon rug and pooling beneath the tiny dinette.
“Would you look at this, Bud?” Janet exclaimed, blowing air through her teeth. “It’s Captain Perfect and her boys, along with a couple of other guys. Wow! Things on Rehnor must really have gotten bad.”
“Not as bad as here, apparently,” Katie snapped, just as Bud Boykin emerged through the Winnebago’s door. He was dressed similarly in Rossorian robes, his crown of snow white hair peeking in cottony tufts from his hood.
“Please to meet y’all.” Bud smiled politely, now shoving his hood back to reveal twinkling blue eyes, a thick, white overly large unibrow, and a weathered pale face. His eyes cautiously followed his wife, while she surveyed every occupant of the crowded camper, making a tsking noise with her tongue as she examined them.
“Shika, you certainly have aged since I changed your diapers, and let me tell you, you don't look like you've improved. And you, you must be Rent. You’re practically twins. And, who do you belong to, young man?” Janet stared at Arsan. “Wait! I think I’ve seen you somewhere before. Don’t tell me. It’ll come to me. Give me a minute.”
“Janet.” Bud cleared his throat. “Sorry to bother you folks, but we've come for batteries. All we need are a couple of size Ds for our flashlight. If you’ve got some to spare, I’d be happy to trade them for a fish.”
“A fish!” Gabe cried, rising to open a drawer in the wall console. “I love fish. Let’s see if I can find what you need.”
Inside, there were papers, matches, rubber bands, and paperclips, amongst other ordinary things. Gabe, being rather extraordinary himself, found each item completely fascinating. He proceeded to empty the contents out on to the dinette table, examining each article as he picked it up.
“What do batteries look like anyway? Is it this?" He held up a tiny screw.
"No, sir. They're sort of round." Bud chuckled politely.
"I know I've met you, kid,” Janet continued, studying Arsan’s face with narrowed eyes. “You're a friend of Zak's. I never forget a face, especially one like yours.”
“Janet,” Katie interrupted, reaching for the other’s arm. "We need to talk. Let's go outside, right now."
“Don’t touch me!” Janet shrieked, and quickly backed away. “Don't you know all contact between people is prohibited? You might have the virus. You’ll give it to me.”
"What virus?" Shika asked. “What are you talking about?”
“I don't have any virus,” Katie insisted. "We’re all completely healthy. Come on, Janet. You and I need to chat.”
“Cassie won’t get sick,” Gabe announced helpfully, examining a ballpoint pen. “Cassie is immune from your viruses. Would this be a battery, Mr. Bud?"
“No, dude!” Shika snatched the pen, and tossing it down, he slammed shut the drawer. “What virus, Janet? We just got here. Tell us what's going on.”
“Let’s speak outside,” Katie insisted. “This camper is getting hot, and it stinks even worse than usual. I swear, the main course at an Andorian buffet smells better than you people.”
"It's Arsan," Rent informed her. "He hasn't showered since we left Rozari."
"Hey! I went swimming," Arsan protested.
“We all did,” Shika muttered. “Maybe, it’s Gabe who is stinking up the place.”
“Me?”
“Battery?” Bud repeated. “If you folks don’t have one, I’ll just go check with the next group of campers. Janet, you can stay here and have a reunion with your friends. I’ll see you back at the truck in a little while.”
“Cassie can fix your battery,” Gabe interrupted, pulling open another console drawer, whereupon he found an old bound volume of papers with typewritten words upon them. “Wow! Is this a book?”
“Who is Cassie?” Janet asked, as again Katie waved her to the door.
“It’s me, more or less. I don’t know how I’m going to fix your battery, but I’m willing to take a look at it. We can talk on the way over to your rig.”
“I’m coming with you,” Shika announced, reaching for Gabe’s coat, which was the only overcoat available to share amongst the four men.
“I'm coming, too.” Rent jumped up. "But, can I borrow the coat? I think I might be catching a cold."
"No! My immunities are weakened since I just survived a drowning."
"But," Rent protested.
“No!" Now, it was Katie's turn to shout. "All of you stay here. I’ll be back in a little while.”
The door slammed behind her, as she and the Boykins stepped out in the rain.
“He wants to kill us,” Rent muttered, pressing his palm against his forehead. “He sent us all here to catch this virus, to die a horrible death. I feel like I’m already getting it. Is my head hot?”
“I think your brain is so hot, it’s going to explode,” Shika snapped.
“Well, at least the thunder stopped,” Arsan offered, while Gabe thumbed through the book he had found.
“Hey, I’m in this one. And, look, little brother, so are you. Has anybody read this?” He held it up.
Shika and Rent both shook their heads.
“Maybe you ought to,” Gabe suggested. “It looks rather good, very entertaining.”
Bud and Janet didn’t have a rig. At best, they had an old pickup truck with a camper top, which Bud had used for years when he had gone upstate for fishing. There was room enough for one mattress and a few fishing poles to hang on the walls, as well as a small box for his tackle, and a cooler for beer. Now, it was stuffed with provisions, including anything and everything they could find to eat.
“You’re living in this?” Katie exclaimed, aghast at their predicament.
“Home sweet home,” Janet smirked. "I guess all of us have fallen down a notch or two."
"Boys?" Bud knocked on the camper top’s door. It swung open to reveal two teenagers huddled on the mattress in dirty sweats. “Meet Zak and Etan, my grands. Boys, this is Janet's friend, Katie. Be polite and say hello. She used to be a queen.”
“Like the transvestite kind?” the younger one, Etan snickered.
“No, a real one,” Janet replied. “With an actual crown and an actual king.”
"Sure," the older one, Zak scoffed, laughing along with his brother. “So what happened to you? Why are you here looking like a homeless bag lady?”
“Why are you here?” Katie turned on Janet. “Where's Jerry?”
Janet shrugged. “Lucky for him, the poor schmuck died. He was in a spaceplane explosion several years ago. I moved back to Jersey for awhile, and then, met Bud when I moved to Ohio to work with Etan. We're here escaping from the virus like everyone else. What happened to you, Princess? Why are you in a camper with a blonde guy and your sons, but no Emperor Ron? Does he know what you’re up to?"
“The batteries,” Bud said for the third time, before Katie could respond. “Your friend said you might be able to fix them.”
“Right.” Katie nodded and followed Bud into the cab, avoiding both Janet's question, and her judgemental gaze.
The three adults crowded onto the front bench seat, while the boys peered at them through the cab’s back window.
Bud handed Katie two old fashioned round alkaline household batteries with the name Bunnigizer, and a picture of a drumming rabbit stamped on the side.
Katie had never seen batteries like these before. They had been banned for a number of years, perhaps even a century or two, on account of leaking toxic waste into landfills. She hadn’t a clue how they worked, or how she could possibly fix them if they were broken, so she flipped them around in her hands while stalling for time.
“So, what made you convert to Rossorian?” she asked the Boykins, pretending to read the tiny inscriptions on one of the batteries, although it didn't provide any instructions on how to repair
it.
“We didn’t convert,” Janet insisted. “We’re in hiding, like I said. We ran away before the virus could kill the kids."
“It was the only way to escape the city,” Bud added, sighing heavily, and scratching his white beard. “The entire continent is under quarantine because of Robolo.”
“Only Rossorians are allowed to move around,” Janet continued. “They say that putting them under quarantine is a violation of their civil rights. The rest of us have no rights anymore. The kids’ parents died in the city.” Her voice dropped to a hushed whisper. “It was awful. One morning, they went to work, and never came back. This virus is worse than anything I ever saw out in space.”
“I’ve never heard of Robolo,” Katie whispered back, still clutching the batteries tightly in her hands. “Where did it come from? How do they think it got here?"
“No one knows,” Bud explained. “It might have been brought here from outer space. So many aliens, including all these Rossorians folks, seem to be arriving every day. Nobody is checking them for disease. It's that civil rights thing again. In the meantime, all the rest of us just might die.”
“It’s incredibly lethal," Janet added. "It kills everyone in minutes by liquefying their internal organs. Basically, it turns the host into water.”
“Is there a cure?” Katie asked, so concerned about the virus, she failed to notice the slightly warm and tingling sensation in her palms.
“If there is, the government isn’t telling us about it.” Bud sighed again, while shaking his snow white head. "The politicians are all liars and crooks. We’d already been through so much with Etan’s terrible accident, we couldn't lose him now because of this. Janet and I decided we would hide out for as long as it takes. So, we climbed in this old truck and drove west as fast as we could. So, here we are, just like you.”
“Except you didn’t bring any extra batteries along,” Katie noted, handing the ancient Bunnigizers back to Bud. “Sorry. I don’t think I can help you. I really don’t know anything about this old technology.”
Bud shrugged, and slipped the batteries back into his ancient flashlight. "We didn't bring a lot of things because we left so quickly. At least we're still alive, and more importantly, we're free of the virus. Everything else, we'll figure out as we go along."
"Good luck." Katie put her hand on the truck's door handle. "If you need anything else, just let me know."
"You're here to help us," Janet declared, crossing her arms in front of her chest. "Ron sent you, didn't he? You're going to find the cure to Robolo and save the Earth."
"Not me," Katie scoffed. "I don't know the first thing about viruses, and I just got here, but it was totally an accident."
A similar thought had criss-crossed her mind, though. There was no way this was a coincidence. Meeting up with Janet here and now could not be a random happenstance. Someone was directing them, putting them together for a reason.
"There's pure evil at work in that virus," Bud declared. "Someone has got to stop it before everyone is dead."
Katie nodded, her mind whirling. There was only one Someone who could stop it. Someone who knew medicine, as well as everything else there was to know.
"Let's get back together in the morning. I've got some things I need to check out," she said, shutting the truck door.
Gabe could call him. Gabe could talk to him. Gabe was in communications, after all. Gabe could use every one of his persuasive powers to convince Senya to do what was right.
As Katie walked back through the darkening forest, she heard Bud whistle when a splash of light danced across the twilit woods.
"Well, lookee here," he chortled, shining the flashlight at the darkened trees. "Your friend managed to fix those batteries after all."
Chapter 11
Senya walked to the edge of the estate and out onto the road. It was dark and cold, not that he cared. For the sake of expediency, he wore an old and heavy woollen cloak with a large hood to cover his face, lest anyone recognize him.
On his feet, he had an even older pair of fur lined boots, which his wife had acquired for him whilst they were still living at the estate. This was before they had moved back to Rehnor, even before Shika had been born. She had wanted to go skiing, he recalled, in the mountains, in the snow.
At the time, Rozari had no snow, not even on the continent of Hahr, so they had travelled to an alpine planet in a neighboring sector. She had leased a chalet for them to sleep in, rented skis, and bought him gloves, a hat, a pair of goggles, and a snowsuit. Then, she acquired tickets, and together they slid their way to a contraption which ferried them to the top of a mountain, before dumping them off.
Senya had hated skiing, as well as being clad in all of these ridiculous items, but of course, there were so few things in this life he actually enjoyed. However, sliding down a hill with one’s feet strapped to boards, seemed not only absurd, but rather foolish. All about them, people were falling, and several mistakenly impacted trees, something Senya might have done should he have chosen to continue this charade. Instead, he flew off, leaving his wife to traverse the mountain by herself.
“I suppose when you can fly, it’s tough finding something better than that to do,” she had snippily complained.
He had rendezvoused with her at the base of the mountain, whereupon she seemed quite angry that he had left her alone. Her breath came hard, and her cheeks glowed hotly from the chill mountain air, but her eyes were like the icicles hanging from the chalet's rooftops.
“I have told you,” he said. “There is only one thing better than flying.”
Then, he picked her up despite her angrily, swinging limbs. He carried her back into the chalet, removed her heavy snowsuit, but left on the boots and hat, and spent the rest of the vacation doing exactly that.
Now, as he trod down the empty highway in those very same boots, longing and loneliness swelled in his chest. Senya tried unsuccessfully to look forward, a feat that had always come easily to him in the past, as if time itself was nothing more than a book whose pages were effortlessly perused.
This had been a privilege of his prior status, though. One of many gifts bestowed upon the Angel Prince, only to be revoked when his tenure had expired. As he searched the dark recess of his mind for a memory beyond the past and present, he realized that along with his secret closet, all knowledge of before and after was gone.
"Kari-fa," he whispered under his breath, realizing the full depth of his decline.
His throat was parched, and his legs grew tired and sore, for he limped excessively, and leaned heavily on his cane. He would have summoned his eagle wings, and willed himself to fly, but in truth, he could not remember exactly how to do so.
Prior to embarking on this venture, he had stood upon his balcony and pondered that exact same thing. He raised his arms in the air, willing the great dark wings to form. However, he must have done something wrong, omitted this, or reversed the sequence of that, for nothing happened. There he stood, growing cold, his shoulders aching.
"Kari-fa," he had sworn then, just as he did now. The distance along this highway was quickly becoming insurmountable.
"Uri?" Senya called through the darkness, summoning the cherub who had always been at his beck and call.
"Sorry, Mika," his brother replied. "I can't come. I'm very busy. I’ll see you later."
Senya slowly continued along the road for a while longer, recalling a time when he had travelled this same expanse, crossing this entire planet on foot and by his wings. How young he was! How full of life and expectation! He could do anything back then. All it took was merely a wave of his finger, and the world would change.
Why, he had practically rebirthed this entire planet. This forest here grew from the droppings of his own blood. This creek, he had started by cradling water in his hands. This owl, calling to him from the sky above, was borne from the seedlings of DNA which he had spread. Without him, Rozari would still be a dead rock of radioactive dust.
Senya
had done well, and he had been rewarded. His wings grew thickly and glistened brighter than the firmament of stars. Of course, no one could see them, not even his wife noticed what was before her eyes. After which, he was given more tasks, more work to do, and more power to make it all happen.
"Kari-fa!" Senya roared, finding himself flat upon the ground. He had tripped over something, a rock, or lump of rubbish. His leg screamed, as the already damaged muscles refused to straighten out. His wrist ached for he had foolishly held out his hand to buffer the fall.
“I might just stay here,” he concluded, tasting the blood which oozed from his torn lip and damaged nose.
On the other hand, forest animals might converge upon him, recognizing the delicious scent of his warm blood. They might tear his flesh apart, into tasty, bite-sized pieces. Certainly, he would have done so were he in his raptor form.
This would be a fitting end to his disastrous reign, an appropriate conclusion to the life and times of Sehron de Kudisha. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t allow him to atone for his long list of transgressions, or render the recompense to repossess his magnificent silver wings.
Senya knew he had to get up, for he had only a short probationary period in which to redeem himself, but at the moment, he was far too weary to attempt to rise. He lay there well into the night, perhaps sleeping off and on, for his mind drifted to somewhere else, somewhere warm and comforting, somewhere reminiscent of a much more peaceful and happier time.
On Monday morning, Jullee realized she had to leave when she headed down to the cafeteria only to discover it was closed. Come to think of it, the lift had been empty. Her neighbors on the fifth floor of Annex Building C were amazingly quiet. Not once did she bump into anyone in the hall.
“Where has everyone gone?” she murmured aloud, checking the date and time on her cell, having arrived at her desk in her shared cubicle. It said Monday, and there were no notations or reminders to indicate a holiday, but her officemates were all absent, and the lights were dimmed.