by John Gribbin
Now he became really concerned. “You fool! Shut up!”
His sudden lapse into understandable speech disgusted me. “Jadderglub the dooble zug! Jadderglub the dooble zug!”
“I’m warning you. The game is over,” he gasped desperately. “You’ll get us into trouble. What’s wrong with you?”
“Jadderglub the dooble zug.”
Sweat was pouring down his face. He turned on his heel to run away. But the looming form of a policeman prevented his escape. This policeman seemed to be swaddled in aluminium foil. He carried a papier-mâché gun and his cheap plastic visor imprisoned a dirty rainbow.
“Nats kekking riktor, lubbies? Patex you nud?”
“Don’t tell him!” squeaked my friend.
But I was too filled with defiance to remain quiet. “Jadderglub the dooble zug!” I shouted at the top of my voice.
The policeman took a step back and although he raised his hand with the gun clutched in it and aimed it I could tell he was shocked. The barrel wobbled and the rest of his body twitched.
“Vulthy kring! Daspuckle cuckle!” he gasped.
And then he pressed the trigger.
Nothing at all happened.
As if remembering his duty, the policeman cried out, “Bzzt! Bzzt!” and lowered the fake gun to the ground. Then he drew a truncheon from a scabbard at his belt, rushed at me and hit me on the head.
I sagged to my knees while he growled, “Blazzer yud!”
My vision dimmed. I was vaguely aware that my companion had fled and that an appalled crowd was coalescing around me. They were pointing fingers and chanting, “Ververt! Zimy pekk!”
My trial took place two days later. It was held in the SFreme Court and it was a very big occasion. The frunkly judderies were filled to the nuks with datatakers and crallow choofies. The gruder was a tekowig and he jabbered the gukel until the sporkle broke. Then he passed sentence.
It was a meaningless sentence, as befits the SFreme Court.
Now I am jekking the oofers alone.
Luceria
by
Stefan Jackson
Stefan Jackson was born in North Carolina beside the calm eddies of the Trent and Neuse rivers, but spent the latter part of his childhood in southern California. In 1994 he moved to Brooklyn looking for a change, drawn to the energetic confluence of the Hudson and East rivers of the Big Bright City. There he met a lovely woman who became his wife, and they have an enchanting daughter. And a cat.
He now lives in Queens, where he writes stories, plays drums, coaches pee-wee girl’s basketball, works the cubicle life, cooks breakfast, rides the F line, laughs and rests his head in the land of jazz.
Stefan has had over two-dozen original short stories and comic scripts published in small press publications and on the web. His first novel was Glass Shore, published by Elsewhen Press in 2014.
Stefan says “Cheers to the first fifty years. Hoping the next fifty are just as kind.”
1
Denie slams shut the metal door. The warehouse is empty. No one hears the anger behind the closing locker door. Denie spits on the green tiled floor, more out of habit than spite or disgust. He reaches into his pants pocket and pulls out the Trigger; it is warm and pliable. He shuffles over the green floor as he studies the Trigger like a pitcher inspects a baseball.
Denie pops the Trigger into his mouth. In seconds he feels weightless. Unable to negotiate total bliss he drops, solid, upon the green floor.
Sweat plasters strands of his limp black hair to his forehead as the rest of his thin mane haloes upon the floor. Drool leaks from both corners of his smile. His tiny tight pupils fix on the eggshell plaster ceiling. Shift of light and fade of mind turns eggshell plaster into scattered white clouds madly rushing across a sad indigo sky.
Denie laughs.
In time he sits up and leans heavily against the wall. The aftertaste of the Trigger is akin to dried blood. He sniffs, coughs and spits.
He feels a discord in motion. Sluggish, he looks around the shifting room. Denie trains his mind to stop the room from sliding. He finds his school backpack on his left. Slow, deliberate, he reaches into the bag … withdraws the red spike. The spike is the length of his index finger and as slender as a spider’s lace.
Denie is lost in thought. Or slips through thought. Perhaps thought has no application.
He shakes the red spike then snaps off the tip. He opens his mouth and pokes the red spike into the inside of his cheek. Denie flinches as the meager ejection of warm liquid races into his body. He tries to pull the red spike from his mouth but is unsuccessful.
“Luceria always has a new beat.” Denie says with soft sigh. The thin spike twitches on his lips. He laughs.
In time, he removes his MindBuddy™ from his backpack. The narrow black unit shimmers when his hands pass over the touch pad. Denie turns on the unit and enters his code. Immediate link is pure rush. Luceria’s song escorts him to paradise. The now scent of salt directs Denie’s eyes from the sandy shoreline, over the calm seas and into the blue, green and pale orange horizon. Warm wind wanders over his flesh. Bleached sea foam waves upon flat sand. A hard Jamaican drop beat and the shrill cries of seagulls are her song. Luceria sings, “You are so lovely. So very sexy nasty. So very very desire. Yes I love. Truly so love you. Where have you been all my life?”
Luceria has chosen Denie. He is simpler now. He is a being of essence and bliss and no longer part of the complex structure of humanity.
2
Jacquil stands and walks over to lock his office door. He grabs his leather satchel as he moves over to the slender window. He raises the lower windowpane just a bit, allowing the chill and wet of the day to whistle through the opening, miniscule water bullets ricocheting off the dull concrete ledge into the room.
He opens his satchel and removes a red spike from its special holding place. He cherishes the skinny metal. It’s the gateway to Luceria. The path to perfect happiness. Jacquil pulls the Trigger from another pocket in his satchel. He hunches over to get close to the window opening. He quickly sets fire to the Trigger, pulling hard on the tiny joint. The Trigger tastes like copper rust and blood. The smoke is thick and drips down the back of his throat. He coughs and snorts then spits out of the window. He takes another pull on the Trigger. Cough, snort, spit. He crushes the Trigger between his thumb and forefinger. Then he eats it. The fire bites his cheek and tongue as he crushes the drug with his molars. He grabs the red spike, shakes it, and snaps off the end. He opens his mouth and jabs the metal into the inside of his cheek. He jerks and crashes to the floor. The spike falls from his mouth. Thin red drool runs down his chin. Jacquil’s piss-blond hair is matted to his square skull. His pale brown eyes bark confusion. His manners are clumsy and foolish. He had never known happiness until the moment he found Luceria’s song. He feels her song dancing on his heart.
In time ...
Jacquil sits at his computer. He punches in his codes. He hears a distant fade, like an echo. He pumps up the volume on his office computer as Luceria’s euphoric rhythm races through his blood. A complex earthy syncopation that stiffens his manhood and feather-scratches his mind. Feverish and hungry, searching the web with passion, he finds a chat room devoted to Luceria.
Jacquil enters the empty chat room and considers the silence.
I pray to you, Jacquil types.
No response. Jacquil feels his heart will not beat until he receives an answer.
Then, Do you ♥ Me? Y? N? scrolls across his monitor.
He answers Y before the thought enters his mind.
An annoying subliminal buzz forces Jacquil to flex his lower jaw. His monitor flickers and pulses at a maddening rate. His jaw freezes tight. He does not move. He does not blink. Jacquil watches Luceria materialize from the smoke wafting out of his monitor. Her form is simple. A darkness of pure beauty. Untouchable. Unapologetic. Painful. Captured.
Closer. Her smoky love is water on his parched flesh. Jacquil is greedy for her. He bites
the neck of the mist that is Luceria as his ejaculation pitches him out of his chair. His square face kisses and cracks the computer monitor. Jacquil crumples to the floor, quivering, unaware and drooling. His passion is unrelenting. Semen no more, he pumps blood.
3
“Quit telling me Luceria doesn’t exist,” Myric says to his computer as he rephrases the query then taps reload.
Again, I cannot reference this request pops up on his monitor. Myric slaps the monitor. “Fine,” he says to the computer. He taps the screen icon for phone. When the personal directory appears he touches the second entry on the list. Myric did not hear the line click.
“What up Myric?”
“TV, who’s Luceria?”
“RypStar,” replies TV. His voice flows from layered banks of various apparatuses that are fastened to his scalp and spine. Myric looks closely into his monitor, viewing the mass of wires, monitors and touch pads, and at the center of it all, he sees a man of withered face with wild eyebrows and beard.
It is a painful existence. TV releases more dope into his core. The drug doesn’t get him high but stimulates his libido (bye-bye pain); now he sports a beautiful erection as he gathers data on Luceria.
“She’s a construct?” Myric asks. He takes a long drag from his cigarette. Myric finds it is often hard to understand TV. His voice is rapid, flowing, as water falling.
“Yes, Luceria is a construct.” TV states. “Created on and for the net. Origin unknown. She sings music woven from beats and poems of the last century. Listen.”
TV dopes Myric’s alignment. Myric exhales thick pink smoke as he raises the sound on his unit. A repetitive organ chorus sliced with a rude ersatz E chord from an ill-tuned guitar. An uneven tribal beat lays the foundation.
“–Oh, never a doubt but, somewhere, I shall wake,
And give what’s left of love again, and make
New friends, now strangers, but the best I’ve known,
Stays here, and changes, breaks, grows old, is blown
About the winds of the world, and fades from brains
Of living men, and dies. Nothing remains.”
TV and Myric are silent as Luceria’s splendid voice echoes through Myric and claims ownership of his enraptured soul. “TV, that’s it?” pleads Myric.
“Sample.” TV states. He reads the data that appears on his monitor. “Music: The Who. ‘Baba O’Riley’, 1971. Poem excerpt, The Great Lover by Rupert Brooke, 1914. You want whole song?”
“No.” Myric takes a short pull off his smoke. “So she sells her music?”
“No. Free. Billions of hits.”
“What does she look like?”
“Unknown.”
“What? Everyone and everything is photographed! Nothing is unseen or unknown.”
“Visual Luceria never created.” TV states.
“She’s a damn cult figure. You’re telling me no icon or image exists. And if she’s so networked how come I can’t find her when I run a search?”
“Luceria lives in the mind’s eye. You can’t find Luceria. She finds you.”
“Is she a virus?”
“In kind but not exact. Luceria equals program extensile morph. Born and released on net to study language.”
Silence.
“Have you spiked?” TV challenges Myric.
“No.”
“It is beautiful.” TV sighs. “You can feel Luceria sing. Pure orgasm. Messy. A love you mind fuck that you can’t turn off. Small spike and zip trigger required.”
“I know about the spike, the bliss drug Inhorn spiked with Freheroin, but what is the Trigger?”
“Pre-boost before spike. No overload. Not always clean. I fashion extra traps. I get out clean.”
“So if I use a regular street brand Trigger I may still end up fried?”
“Risky. Some fried. Others salvaged. Many people lucky and spike clean. Do you like Luceria?” asks TV.
“Yeah. She’s fuckin’ beautiful.” Myric replies.
“You seek an answer to the crystal corpses? Luceria can’t be a suspect. She is unreal.”
“Right.” TV’s statement shocks Myric for a moment before he remembers that TV is tapped into the world. The media has yet to learn of Myric’s case but TV would know about it. There was no such thing as a secure net port to TV. International, Federal, State or personal, TV can and does hack into the world.
“Thanks TV. When you check your pouch, you’ll find a little something.” Myric terminates the transmission. He has the last pull from his cigarette then snuffs it out. Myric believes searching for Luceria is a dead end. Yet the fact that no visual image of Luceria exists bugs the hell out of him.
4
Denie sets the bloodied nude woman in the chair. He tilts her forward and red pours from the woman’s nose and lips upon the keyboard. Satisfied that enough of her blood wet the keyboard, Denie pushes the near dead woman back into the seat. The woman had put up a good fight. She may have beaten a lesser man but the love of Denie’s goddess made him extraordinary. Luceria loves him and Denie loves Luceria.
Denie pulls the red spike from his small leather valise. He snaps off the tip.
“Just a little squirt my dear,” Denie says in a hushed tone. He opens the woman’s mouth, jabs the red spike into her inside cheek. She jerks and almost falls from the chair. Denie steadies her and keeps her planted firmly in the chair. He places the woman’s hands on the keyboard and with her bloodied fingers types, Luceria.
Denie eases away from the woman.
Brilliant light erupts from the monitor, lightning-bright searing the room. Denie stands tall and still bathed in the storm of clean white.
Luceria’s velvet vocals soar with the fading white light. The weight of pure beauty of Luceria’s voice squeezes happy tears from Denie’s soul.
5
Myric surveys the pure white room. Carpet, floor, ceiling, walls, wall hangings, furniture, electronic appliances, doors, door handles and hinges are all virgin white. The windows are cold to the touch, offer zero visibility and are sealed tight. The only color in the room is Myric and the six members of the forensics unit.
Myric touches the corpse as the chief forensics officer studies the smooth, clear, perfect glass figure. Myric lifts his hand off the corpse as he asks, “Are you sure this crystal figurine was human?”
The chief forensics officer gives Myric a tired look. She removes the density glasses that cover her eyes, and lets them drop around her neck.
“We recovered Human DNA from the core of the corpse, here.” She points to a pinpoint hole in the belly button. “The core sample has not been identified.
“Twelve bodies. All the same. Skin, muscles, nerves, tendons, teeth, bones, and all internal organ turned to glass,” she continues. “Please note for your investigation that the corpses are glass not crystal. Crystal has a lead content of at least 24 percent whereas glass has no lead. And these dead are lead free.
“And no, I don’t know what it would take to turn humans into glass!” she snaps over her shoulder as she places her glasses back on. “Damn tired of everyone asking me that. How the hell would I know that?”
“When did you guys confirm glass not crystal?”
“It was the Dock crew that worked that out. I think they passed it along last night.”
Myric nods. He sparks a Turkish cigarette. Guaranteed to piss off everyone.
“Aw shit! Myric what’s your malfunction? Put that out!” The chief forensics officer bellows.
Myric ignores her.
The photographer tries to open the window, but finds it closed too fast for him to dislodge. A few of the crime scene guys scout for clues close to the floor, yet there is no escape from the pungent and stomach-clenching bouquet from Myric’s Turkish cigarette. In quick time, everyone leaves the room.
Myric smiles. Now he can think. Review: The victims were all women. Ages vary from twenty-two to fifty. All victims found in their homes – and so this unfortunate must be Aryka Brovent. Al
l bodies were nude and located within immediate vicinity of a destroyed computer. He glances around the room. White. All white. Just like the rooms of the other victims.
Glass corpses. White voids. Luceria.
Myric has a short pull from his cigarette. Somehow, someway, he is sure Luceria is the key. If he can get to know her, then he may understand he or they that kill in her name. Sacrifices. The glass corpses are sacrifices to Luceria. Of course, this is his theory. A theory he has not shared with anyone. He arrived at the premise one day as he studied mad spikers, who were secured in an observation ward. A bleached white spike found in the corpse’s mouth remains the only item recovered from any of the glass corpse sites. Myric had little understanding of spiking. He went to the ward to talk to officers who deal daily with spikers. A spiker repeated Luceria. The name quieted the ward. Dozens of ravers and wall-bouncers became still and content as they reprised Luceria’s name in a child’s singsong fashion.
TV says Luceria is a RypStar. Myric is sure that she is more than a RypStar.
Myric has an abrupt and absorbing unprofessional need to hear Luceria.
He desires to receive her voice.
Yet he is not chosen.
To listen.
6
On the south bound metro. In the tube between Brighton and Coney.
“The sweet song that
quiet your nightmares
is Luceria. She is
the Dark Light. She is
Every Night. She is
Blind Sight. She is
True White.
She is Love is.”
The thin alabaster-skinned young man croons with a lovely roar and a honeyed cadence. The song seems to emanate more from Denie’s pasty statuesque body than from his mouth. He produces a beat by slapping his palms against his chest, stomach and legs. He flows through the train like cold smoke. Passengers bop their heads and tap their feet. Women dance as Denie continues to sing and slap his body.