by John Moralee
Tower listened to her instructions.
*
The Game Room was dark at first, but Tower lit the ceiling with enough light to illuminate the centre. Iranda crossed the floor, stopping at the hole. She collected the crowns together. Then she placed one on her head and took control of a sprite. She directed the sprite up the tower, to the bedroom of Dison and Helen. They were sleeping. She sneaked inside Dison’s unconscious mind. She briefly examined his memory, discovering that his thoughts were cold and mechanistic. His repopulating of the planet wasn’t for altruistic reasons, but for entertainment and egotism. Any humanity had been washed away centuries ago.
Back in the chamber, she removed the crown. The sprite was left inside Dison, but he would not be aware of it if he woke. Iranda repeated the action for Helen, then went to Milton and Eriqa. Next, she sent a sprite to Kelsor’s bedroom. The bed was unmade, but he wasn’t in the room. Concerned, she flew into the bathroom. It was empty. She returned to the bedroom, flew around it, then went out onto the balcony. He wasn’t taking a midnight walk -
Abruptly, she lost transmission.
*
Kelsor had lifted the crown from her head. “Iranda, what’s going on? I couldn’t sleep so I went back to your room, but you weren’t there. What are you doing down here?”
“I ... wanted to practise the game.”
“Oh,” he said, yawning, “that’s a good idea. Get back to your old form, huh?”
She nodded.
“I don’t suppose you want to -” He stopped, puzzled. “Iranda, why are you holding all of the crowns?”
She saw the flash of understanding on his face. He shouted “No” as she raised the next crown. He was still reaching for it as she entered a sprite. Under her control the sprite dived out of the cloud towards Kelsor. He turned and tried to swat it. It was a mistake. He should have just taken the crown off her head. The sprite passed between his fingers and entered his cheek. He slapped himself but it did no good. Iranda’s sprite buried through tissue and bone, then entered his bloodstream. Quickly, it entered his brain.
The sprite exploded, taking control.
Iranda wasted no more time. She forced Kelsor to return to his room and sleep before she removed her control. Taking the last unused crown, she selected a sprite and sent it into her own head. Instantly, it was if there were double the thoughts, a continuous deja vu.
Butler emerged from the shadows. He removed the crown from her head. She gave him the crowns and watched him go to the stairs. He would now place the crowns in order while she went back to her room. The first crown would go on Dison and so on until everyone was wearing one.
Iranda watched the stars fade and the sun rise, the blossoming of a new day, then returned to her bed. She was tired, tired of living. The old Iranda was coming back.
Butler entered with her crown.
“Are you sure about this?” Tower asked.
“Yes.”
Butler placed it on her head.
A loop was created.
She controlled Dison who controlled Eriqa who controlled Helen who controlled Milton who controlled Kelsor who controlled her. If she sent the code Kelsor had sent to her sprite during the game then they would be trapped in a null circuit, with nobody able to act under their own volition.
She was scared. She did not want to do it. She knew that if she sent the code then the loop would be permanent and Butler would hide their bodies somewhere the new inhabitants of the Tower would never find. And as long as the crowns were on their heads, they would be unable to interfere with life. They would be immortal, but harmless. She had to do it for human life to be reborn. She sent the code.
The Six were trapped in the loop.
Iranda’s game was over, but humanity could live again.
The sun shone into the bedroom as Butler walked away.
He had a ladder to build.
Rehab
Mom was crying on the phone, trying to get the words out between asthmatic gasps. I clutched the phone - wishing to God that I could read the letter myself. “Mom, take it slower. What’s happened?”
“It’s Frank. They’ve found him.”
I looked out of the window at Vanessa sunning herself on the patio, then closed the glass doors so I could think without the traffic noise. My heart hammered. My brother had been MIA for ten years and I’d accepted he was dead, but now the thought of his body being recovered twisted my stomach in knots. “Mom, I’m listening. Go on.”
“They found him in the Kabistan delta two months ago ... and he’s alive.”
Her tone wasn’t good, like I expected. There was something more she had to say. “That’s great, isn’t it?”
“Michael, the people say ... they say ... they say he was a deserter.”
“What?” I couldn’t hear her for the pounding in my ears. “Frank was a patriot. Hell! He volunteered!”
I heard Mom wince at ‘hell.’
“Mom, what people are you talking about?”
“The army people. They had a trial and all,” she said. “Michael, they’ve put him in one of those VA Rehab places in Santa Barbara. They did some kind of mind scan or something.”
She paused.
I could imagine her looking at the photographs of Frank in his uniform the day before he shipped out. “The letter says he’s coming home in two days, but I’m afraid of what they’ve done to him. Can you come home?”
“Of course,” I said. “I’ll just have to explain things to Vanessa.”
*
Vanessa insisted on coming with me, despite my warning about East LA. I drove the Kev-Chev carefully, avoiding stopping at intersections if I could. The Chevrolet’s Kevlar plating offered excellent protection against drive-by shootings, but we were both edgy. Vanessa sat low in the passenger seat as we passed through the graffiti and bullet damaged neighbourhoods, nudging me each time she saw a man wearing a bandanna.
“He doesn’t have to be a gangsta,” I said.
“Yeah, right. I’ll write that on your tombstone.”
The gang warfare just reminded me why I’d gone to Boston. I’d seen a lot - maybe too much - living here as a kid. Now my old neighbourhood was popular for shootings and jaz dealing and not much else.
“This is home,” I said, turning the corner of 8th and Lincoln.
There were new corrugated metal sheets over the windows of Mom’s house. Security cameras followed our movements. Mom didn’t want to live in a retirement village way out in the suburbs like I’d suggested, so she had made the place up as a fortress. I got out and looked up and down the street, watching the steam rise from the sidewalks. There was no one around - but I could hear casual gunfire and dogs barking and screaming sirens.
Vanessa joined me, holding my hand, squeezing. “Nice place, shame about the people.”
“Don’t say that to my Mom, okay?”
Vanessa glared at me as if to say: “What have you got me into?”
The truth was, I didn’t know.
Mom opened the front door. “Michael, don’t leave your car on the street.”
“You don’t have a garage, Mom.”
She considered that as if it were my fault. Then she looked at Vanessa, then back at me. “Is it insured?”
“Yes - it’s a rental.”
“Well, forget it. Are you two coming in or waiting for a bullet?”
“I’ll get the suitcases,” I said, entering the shrine to Frank.
Sure enough, on the top of the living room’s 3DTV was a picture of Frank, beaming at the camera. Mom had already prepared for Frank’s homecoming by rearranging the furniture. Vanessa and I sat on the sofa and listened to my mother tell us how glad she was to have company, how she didn’t often get many visits since my father died, how she didn’t get out a lot with the crime going on. She managed to make me feel guilty for living, and bored Vanessa enough to get her to unpack the clothes upstairs.
“Come in the kitchen, Michael.”
Mom had bak
ed a cake several tiers high. It looked like some kind of homage to weddings, coated with inches of icing, whipped cream and chocolate flakes. The words ‘Welcome Home, Frank’ were written in edible silver beads that you could break your teeth on. “You think he’ll like it?”
“Uh - he’ll love it.”
She started crying. As I was hugging her, she asked me if I was going to marry that girl.
“We’re living together,” I said.
“A ring on her finger wouldn’t look so bad, Michael.” She went to the stove and carried out a tray of heart-shaped cookies. “Double chocolate chip - Frank’s favourite.”
“Mom, Frank’s nearly thirty. He liked those when he was a kid.”
“He’s never too old for cake and cookies,” she said.
I didn’t argue because I saw the magic in her eyes. Her other son was coming home. It was a reason for celebrating.
“I want him to have the best party in the world,” she said.
For the rest of the day, the three of us decorated the living room with streamers and Christmas stuff pulled from the dusty boxes in the basement. Soon everything glittered. Then we cleaned the furniture and vacuumed (something usually reserved for the day before Thanksgiving.)
I arranged for Frank’s high-school buddies (twenty in all) to arrive just before noon tomorrow.
Rehab would bring Frank to the door around one o’clock.
*
Out of all of Frank’s high-school buddies, only eight kept their promise. A couple had died of natural causes, one had OD’d on jaz, and the others just didn’t bother coming. A few relatives and some old ladies from the LA Evangelical Christian Church made up the numbers. Of Frank’s friends, I only remembered Garcia and Styles - they’d hung out with Frank before he joined the Marines. They both looked like they had fallen on hard times. They seemed more interested in the prospect of free food than a reunion of classmates. Mom welcomed them like they were members of our family. I watched they didn’t steal anything.
At noon the proximity alarm bleeped. I rushed to open the door, half-expecting Frank to be standing there wearing a chest of medals and a big grin. But it was an hour early.
It was a captain dressed in his uniform with his chest covered with medals. “I’m Captain Robert Andowitz.”
We shook hands. I’d never heard of him. The confusion must have shown on my face because he quickly continued.
“I was Frank’s commanding officer at the battle of Tai Fo.”
“Oh, right. I heard about that,” I said. “Didn’t they use gene weapons against you?”
“Yes, it was hell. A lot of good men died. Or worse.”
Andowitz stared into space for a minute, then looked uneasily at his polished boots. “Well, Frank saved my life that day. When I heard he’d been found, I had to see if he was okay. Is he in?”
“He hasn’t arrived yet. Come in.”
“Thanks.”
Andowitz relaxed his military posture over a couple of Buds.
“I don’t believe Frank deserted, despite what they said. I was at the trial. One big sham, you ask me. There was Frank sort of drugged-up, unable to talk, and the prosecutor was asking these questions and ... I just don’t believe it. When he went missing they didn’t lift a finger to find him, but when he turns up then they take an interest. Hell, they probably just made up the charges to get a volunteer for Rehab.”
I asked him about the war. Andowitz said that Frank had been called back to HQ shortly after the bombing of Tai Fo. Promoted to Special Forces, just like that. Andowitz had never heard or seen a word from Frank since his promotion. Andowitz told me that once his present tour ended next month, he wasn’t going to stay in the army, even though he was near to becoming a major. “It’s all politics. A guy is left for ten years behind enemy lines because of a screw-up, but Washington would rather call him a traitor than admit they let him down. It’s Afghanistan all over again. I can’t be a part of that.”
The front door’s proximity alarm bleeped again.
Mom rushed out of the kitchen. “It’s him! It’s Frank!”
A black ambulance stopped at the end of the driveway. As I stepped out to welcome Frank, two men in black suits stepped out of the cab and blocked my path. I heard Andowitz swear behind me. A third Rehab man stopped Mom from approaching the vehicle.
“M’am, step back. This is government property.”
I didn’t like his tone, like an IRS inspector.
“Is Frank in there or what?”
“Everyone step back. This is government property.”
The rear doors flipped open. The Rehabs went around and lifted a man onto the sidewalk.
He was in a wheelchair.
This man looked at me, straight eye to eye, and I wanted to cry. This thing couldn’t be my brother, not Frank. This man was all skin and bones, as thin as a skeleton. His eyes were a sickly yellow. His hands were almost transparent, nails gnarled and blackened. I’d seen the effects of gene weapons on TV, but never so close, so real, so terrible.
Mom fainted.
Andowitz grabbed her before she hit the ground. “I’ll take her inside.”
I looked at the stranger in the wheelchair. They’d made a mistake. He wasn’t Frank. It was a stranger.
“That isn’t my brother,” I said.
The Rehabs ignored my comment.
“That can’t be Frank! He looks like a zombie! That is not my brother.”
I felt Vanessa’s hand in mine.
“Yes it is,” she said, quietly.
Gravity doubled and I felt my knees weakening. Vanessa held me upright while I kept staring, staring at the wheelchair.
“The wheelchair is not permanent,” one Rehab employee said. “It’s just a legal requirement. Before we hand over the patient, someone will have to pay his medical fees.”
“Medical fees?” I said.
“They total sixty-four-thousand dollars.”
“What? That’s outrageous. How am I supposed to pay that?”
“We accept credit cards,” the man said.
I wanted to punch him. “I’m not giving you blood-suckers that.”
“I’ll pay,” Andowitz said. “Least I can do.”
“No,” I said. I calmed myself down with a deep breath. “I will. But thanks for offering.”
Andowitz looked hurt, but he said nothing.
I paid and signed for Frank like a piece of property. One Rehab looked at me with the coldest look I’ve ever seen. I don’t know what he had against me, maybe it was for being a human being, maybe it was for calling him a blood-sucker, I don’t know. Just looking at him gave me a bad taste in my mouth.
I approached the wheelchair with Vanessa telling me to stay calm. The stranger’s head moved and I saw spittle on his chin and a purple tongue snake between yellow teeth. I could see him struggling to speak. When he did, he just said one word.
“Mikey?”
Then I knew he really was Frank, my brother.
*
Mom emerged from the bathroom with the aid of Andowitz. There was her vomit on his uniform, but he didn’t seem to notice as he wiped my mother’s chin with a towel. Mom staggered forward and held Frank in her arms. At eighteen he had been taller than Mom, but now they were the same height. Frank said nothing. He had a weird expression glued to his face. Mom set Frank at the head of the kitchen table, so he was facing the huge cake. We took positions next to him. Mom toasted his return. The guests drank wine with rigid unease. Frank looked too tired to care. Mom cut the cake and the people tried to act normal, but I knew they were embarrassed. They couldn’t wait to go home. Frank sat like a mannequin. One of the church ladies said that Frank was welcome on Sunday, though she looked as if she were addressing the devil. I noticed even Vanessa was drinking the vodka punch in more than liberal amounts. Frank ate some cake, a few crumbs, most of it going down his shirt. His hands were shaking. I was surprised he could hold the glass of lemonade Mom handed him, but I could see the strain on h
is face and knew he was doing this charade for Mom. It was Mom’s return. Mom’s rebirth.
Gradually, Frank’s friends queued to pat him on the back or shake his lifeless hand. Then they raced for the door.
Andowitz stayed the longest. He turned to me after shaking Frank’s limp hand. “I’m sorry. This was never meant to happen. If there’s anything I can do ...”
He left his email address, then drove away.
We were alone with Frank.
“It’s good to see you,” I said to the skeleton.
Frank grabbed my arm and squeezed. His grip was so weak.
“You look -” I said. I stopped. What was I going to say? You look well? I could not lie to him. All Frank looked was alive - and barely that. His body had been ravaged on the cellular level by weapons I could barely understand. I had nothing to say that could say anything. Platitudes would not do.
“Is there anything I can do for you?” I asked him.
“Yes,” he said. “Get me out of here, Mikey. I can’t stand this. I just want to go to bed and sleep.”
*
I helped Frank to the bedroom Mom had made “like Frank would want it.” There were potted plants hanging from handmade baskets and flowery wallpaper. It was something from a romantic novel. The Frank I knew from childhood would have said something laconic and immediately pinned Marilyn Manson posters everywhere.
But this Frank was changed.
He walked unaided to the bed and tried to take off his shoes, but ended up slumped on the floor. I picked him up and helped him change into the PJs Mom had got from a TV shopping mall: big, slack and flannelette.
It was then I saw the implant.
It would be practically invisible once Frank’s hair grew longer.