Glassing the Orgachine

by David Marusek

  Tim brought about a dozen boards of various dimensions to the worktable.

  “Looks like it’ll be moose stew,” she said. “I have a lot of recent experience making moose stew.”

  He began marking up the boards with a tape measure and pencil. “I love moose stew. I can’t get enough moose stew in my life.”

  She glanced to see if he was being serious, but she couldn’t tell. “Working on a project?”

  “Yes, I am. One that I’ve been putting off way too long.”

  “Okay, then, I’ll call you when dinner’s ready.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  That was her cue to leave, but she couldn’t put things off forever. “So, do you know what’s happening out in the world?” she said. “Are you curious?”

  “Sure, I’m curious,” he said. “I don’t get much news. What’s happening out in the world?”

  “Okay. I’ll tell you what my parents in Wallis told me today. It’s big news, but first I want to ask you something.”

  She paused long enough for him to look at her.

  “You got it,” he said. “I’ll tell you everything I know.”

  “Then tell me how I got here.”

  A grin crossed his face. “The usual way, I would imagine.”

  “Huh? No, how did I get to your cabin?”

  “By snowmobile.”

  “Go on.”

  Tim tucked the pencil behind his ear and talked while he worked.

  “Last Saturday, the twelfth day of January 2013, at approximately oh-nine hundred Zulu time, I was already asleep in my loft and everything, when the sound of an approaching snowmobile woke me up. You can imagine how many visitors I get up here in the winter. The answer is not many. And this in the middle of the night. So I get up, throw on some pants, and notice the sky outside the porthole. There’s only a little ventilation porthole up in the loft where I sleep, and it was glowing orange. I thought the world was on fire, and I leapt down to the floor — didn’t even bother with the ladder — and ran for the door. The world was on fire and some good Samaritan was riding around to rouse his neighbors is what I thought. I thought it must be Gus, my closest neighbor, though I wouldn’t call him a good anything. I went through the wannigan here; his engine was idling right outside that door.”

  Tim pointed to the exterior door with the pencil and then to the windows on opposite walls.

  “Those two windows were blazing orange. So I’m expecting a wall of searing heat to hit me the second I open the door, and I prepare myself, shielding my face and everything. But outside the night is cold, exactly as it should be. Only the sky is on fire. By then the rider was already speeding away; I could see his tail light down the trail. But it was the sky that got my attention. The whole sky was as bright as day, only orange instead of blue. I stood out there a long time without a shirt watching it. The orange light kinda swirled around like cream in a cup of coffee. Finally, the light faded to like a sunset glow. And then — lights out.

  “I figured whatever neighbor it was who roused me was home by then. I might never know who it was but I was glad they came by. I would’a hated to miss the show.”

  “Okay, wait a minute. You’re saying that last Saturday —”

  “The twelfth of January.”

  “What day is it today?”

  “Monday, January the fourteenth.”

  “So you’re saying that two nights ago the whole sky turned bright orange?”

  “I am. You didn’t see it.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because when I went back into the cabin, I almost tripped over you.”

  He paused to glance at her. “Stop me if any of this gets too graphic, okay?”

  “Okay,” she said.

  “You were stretched out in a body bag. It’s over there in that bin if you want to look at it, and all the blood you came with. Your parka is in there too. You know what? You probably should check it out because I’ve seen how you look at me like I’m dangerous or something.”

  “I do not,” she said, though she probably did.

  “The body bag was zipped up to your chin, so all I could see of you was your face, and your face looked as peaceful and pale as the moon. So peaceful in fact that I was sure you were dead. That’s when I unzipped the bag and found all the blood. Oh, and it was all frozen blood, in case I forgot to mention that. You were frozen too, or at first I thought you were, but when I brought you inside, you turned out not to be dead, or frozen either. And now here you are, walkin’ and talkin’ and everything. I am awed by your ability to heal.”

  So here she was, more confused than ever. A mysterious snowmachiner had delivered her frozen, bloody corpse to Tim’s doorstep during an outrageous orange sky show. Sure, why not? These were the days of miracles when devils roamed the Alaska bush. And, as Tim had so cogently summed it up — here she was.

  She put the plastic pail on the floor and sat on a shop stool. “Good story,” she admitted, “but not even half the weirdness that’s going on.”

  He stopped sawing a board. “I’m listening.”

  “When I called my parents today, they told me — we live in Wallis — they told me that the army of the Antichrist had taken over town, and the rest of Alaska, and they are persecuting Christians like tyrants.” She stopped for his reaction.

  Tim put down the saw and picked up a well-thumbed notebook, found a blank page, and said, “When did this happen?”

  “What happen?”

  “The assault by the Antichrist. The date and, if you can, the hour.”

  “I don’t know that! I didn’t ask and they didn’t say. Recently, I guess. This happened in the last couple of weeks, I suppose . . .”

  He was writing furiously with his carpenter pencil, filling an entire page with what looked like numbers and gibberish.

  “Do you want to know what’s going on or not?”

  He shut the notebook, set it down, picked up the saw, and said, “You were telling me the Antichrist has arrived in Alaska. Please go on and everything.”

  IN THE END it was Tim who made dinner, a rice dish with chunks of braised smoked moose flank in a peanut butter curry sauce from a jar, but still excellent, and French sliced green beans from a can. Ginger stuffed herself to lethargy but still didn’t eat as much as he did. Talk about feeding a horse.

  Tim was an imposing man, no doubt about it, and he might have been psycho-scary, especially with his crooked smile and unruly beard. The left side of his beard was full and bushy, but the right side was thin and scraggly and barely concealed a large, purple birthmark that covered his entire cheek. He was ugly upon ugly, but not scary.

  A YELLOW LEGAL pad, a yellow Ticonderoga pencil, and three Lincoln pennies. He shook the copper coins in his bear-trap hands and tossed them on the wooden tabletop. He did this repeatedly and recorded the results in long, teetering columns of dashed lines on the legal pad. Able to hold a complicated conversation while doing so.

  “I don’t really care; I’m off the grid and everything. I’m so far off the grid that the army of the damned will lack the demon power to bother with me. I’m small potatoes for the Antichrist. By the time they’re strong enough to comb through the forests for holdout Christians, their time in the sun will be over. But if they do manage to find my cabin and break in the door, they’ll be disappointed — I’m no Christian! They have no beef with me.” He held his arms out in a show of innocence.

  “No?” she said, “Then what are you?”

  “Who says I have to be anything?”

  She laughed. “I guess you don’t, in normal times. But when the AC’s thugs break down your door, put a gun to your head, and want to know — What God do your worship, Mr. Tim Hash, what do you tell them?”

  “I tell them I believe in my own life force and the almighty power of numbers.”

  “Ehhhh.” Ginger made a gun with her fingers and pointed it between his eyes. “Wrong answer — pop, pop.”

  When Ginger realized
what she was doing — fake shooting a strange man in the head in his own cabin — she marveled at the ease she felt in his presence, and so quickly. Nevertheless, she watched him out the corner of her eye in case he took it the wrong way.

  Tim grunted. “For all I know, they might break into an empty cabin that blows up with them inside it. I’ve already had the opportunity to build a few little hidey-holes in the hills around here. They won’t be able to pick me off so easy.”

  Hadn’t her dad ordered her to find a safe place to hide?

  HER: A HIGH school senior, she told him. Homeschooled. Wallis, dad, mom, brother, whippet, Arctic Cat snowmachine dealership, the Prophecy girls, Proverbs Prophecy, Poppy Prophecy (though she withheld most of it and only shared the highlight reel). Her escape attempt, most of which was still lost in the fog.

  Him: A high school dropout, bumming around in Houston (Texas, not Houston, Alaska), time spent in an Arizona jail, a job erecting wind turbine blades. (“It’s hilarious that they’re constructing wind farms in the same locations that will lose their prevailing winds as soon as the planet’s mean temperature rises another degree and a half centigrade.” Taps his notebook as evidence.) Married divorced. No kids but lots of nephews and nieces, some of whom he’s never met. Came up to Alaska to do labor for a friend with a goldmine. Eventually bought out his claim.

  “So, you find enough gold around here?” she said with a laugh. It wouldn’t take much color to support his affluent lifestyle.

  He reached under the table and tossed her a pint Mason jar. She caught it reflexively and was stunned by its weight. The glass jar was half full of gold nuggets and dust and must have weighed five pounds (2.25 kg).

  He pulled out a coin collector magazine, only two months old. “Spot gold exploded this year.” He showed her a quote price in the magazine, $1721 per troy ounce. “If it’s still this high, then the jar you’re holding is worth more’n $120,000. And I have more jars hidden.”

  Ginger marveled at the treasure in her hands.

  “One season’s worth,” he added, taking the jar from her and returning it to its lair beneath the table. “I’ve been on this creek five seasons. Do the math and everything.”

  GR6 1.0

  BEFORE LONG, TIM’S shop project was finished, installed, and ready to use. Ginger’s pallet was replaced with a simple bed frame. The mattress was a new foam cushion from Tim’s inventory. Fresh-smelling sheets and pillow. Space underneath the bed frame for eventual drawers. A privacy curtain on a clothesline. It would be her own private sleeping area until she figured out what she wanted to do. No pressure.

  “In truth,” he reassured her, “I’d been contemplating doing something like this for a long time. I actually do need an occasional guest room, and this one will do fine.”

  On her first night in her new bed, Ginger snuggled under her warm, borrowed parka. Tim’s parka actually was big enough to use as sleeping bag, not that she needed one. Tim seemed to like to keep his cabin warm throughout the night.

  His loft was right above her. Tim Hash in his sleeping loft. She hadn’t had a look up there yet and so for now it was terra incognito. He was a bear in his lair, unable to stand up straight under the pitched roof.

  Talk about big days. Ginger had never lived such an eventful day. She’d started it naked in a strange cabin, bruised, in pain. That seemed like a million years ago. Now she felt safe, no pain, the bruises turning noticeably yellow, which was a sign of healing. She’d started the day alone in a strange cabin and was ending it sharing the cabin with a most unusual man.

  Except for the crackling stove, there were no sounds inside or out. No mice or voles scampering about; no pages being turned in a book; no wind in the trees; no traffic on land, sea, or air.

  Sleep opened its arms and drew her in, and she was halfway gone when there was a knock on the door, and she wondered if it was in her dream or the real world. The knock was repeated and followed by a girl’s giggle, and Ginger snapped awake and panicked for a second when she couldn’t remember where she was. But she heard the ladder creak as Tim climbed down from his loft and padded across the room, and it all came back to her, where she was, her remarkable day.

  The knock was on the inner door, which meant that whoever it was had gone through the wannigan. Tim opened the door, and a woman laughed, and a beam of light momentarily grazed Ginger’s curtain. The door shut. Tim was shushing her. The flashlight clicked off.

  “Gush true me out,” she whimpered.

  “Again?”

  She guffawed. She was very drunk-sounding. Tim had neighbors, apparently, within walking distance, or staggering distance.

  From the sounds of it, Tim helped the drunk woman off with her boots and coat, helped her climb the ladder without falling off, which was a feat, and then, for all Ginger knew, helped her off with her clothes because it wasn’t long before they were pounding the mattress pretty hard right over her head. Accompanied by animal grunts and drunken declarations.

  Ginger reached her limit quite quickly, grabbed her clothes and parka, and snuck out of the cabin. The wannigan was cool but much warmer than outside. There were still embers in the potbelly stove that she used to build a roaring fire. She pulled the shop stool close so she could bathe in the radiance and heat.

  The night’s silence settled around her, but her nerves were shot. She wondered how long she should give them before going back to bed.

  COLD. GINGER WAS curled up in her parka/sleeping bag on the work table. The potbelly fire was a long time gone. A light shining in her eyes woke her up. She couldn’t make out the face behind the headlamp.

  “So, you’re the secret, are you?” a young woman said. She had sour, boozy breath. “We’re about the same size. He says you need some normal girl clothes. I’m a normal girl. Swing by and I’ll loan you some.” Then she giggled. “And everything.”

  A Brunch Date

  BD1 1.0

  THE CLOSEST THING he could compare it to were his memories as a child trying to fall asleep on Christmas Eve. Santa was coming, but not until Jacey was asleep. Santa was bringing a bag of toys, but only if Jacey was on the Nice List. How could any child be expected to fall asleep under such conditions?

  Now substitute Deut for Santa and that was how hard it was for Jace to fall asleep. He finally drifted off in the wee hours, but soon thereafter Scrappy woke him up.

  Excuse me, Jace, but Missing One has an urgent matter to discuss with you, it said from the nightstand. It repeated the message several times at increasing volume until he responded.

  “Okay, okay. I hear you.”

  Shall I put Missing One on?

  “Who?”

  The non-terrestrial being in the mine.

  “Right now?”

  Yes, unfortunately. Missing One says it’s an urgent matter that can’t wait.

  Jace rolled over. “All right, all right. I’m awake now. Put the little orgachine on.”

  Sorry to interrupt your sleep cycle, ranger, but you need to leave right away.

  “Really?” He stifled a yawn. “Why is that?”

  Your flight departs Anchorage this evening at 7:02. The McHardy Road is passable, and you could drive to Anchorage, but it would take all day, and when you arrive you still need to pick up your passport and credit card in Spenard, maybe purchase a clean change of clothes or two downtown, get a haircut or whatever. Rather than rush everything, this one has booked a charter plane to come pick you up and take you to Merrill Field, where a rental car will be waiting.

  “Where am I going?”

  The pellet? The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant? Earth defenses against the Grand Old Machine. Any of this ring a bell? Do you still want this one to help you protect Earth, or would you rather sleep in?

  Jace sat up in a hurry. “No, let’s do it. Let me wake up. Today? It’s today, Tuesday?”

  Correct.

  “Can’t it wait till after brunch? Or maybe rebook for tomorrow.”

  Sure, if you want to cancel the who
le trip.

  Jace rolled out of bed. “No, no, I’m up. Okay? Talk to me.” He grabbed the scrap of paper and his robe and went out to the living room where Missing One was already sitting on the couch. Which seemed weird. He raised the paper to his lips and whispered,“That’s still VR, right?”

  Yes, boss, it is.

  “And you don’t need to be out there to project it in 3D like that?”

  Not anymore. I’ve completed the mapping of your house.

  “Okay. Cool.”

  Jace continued into the living room. “I’m awake,” he said and began to load the wood stove.

  Missing One sniffed the air through slitlike nostrils, making a wheezy, whistling sound. “It’s actually colder in here than in this one’s cave. But don’t bother making a fire, ranger; you won’t have time to enjoy it. The charter plane will arrive in two hours. Check the time: 3:21 a.m. That means you need to be all packed and waiting on the runway at no later than 5:00 a.m. Understood?”

  Jace felt like saying, Yessir! but instead he shut the stove door, sat down next to the little sausage man on the couch, and said, “Understood. I’m almost all packed. No problemo. So let’s get to the nitty gritty. What am I supposed to do exactly?”

  “Excellent,” the alien said. “Your cycle of dormancy and alertness is fascinating to witness. What you’re supposed to do —you will be given a pellet, not dissimilar to the one you delivered to HAARP, and a bird’s feather. You are to take them to Tokyo by way of Seattle and Seoul. First class the whole way. You’re booked at the Hundred Stay Hotel in Tokyo. As soon as you check in, go by taxi to Sumida Park. Take a stroll along the riverbank. At some point you will inconspicuously drop the feather in the water.

  “Drop the feather and you’re done for the day, as well as the next day. See the sights, visit Bunny Island, climb Mount Fuji, whatever you like. Charge it all to your new credit card, which is bottomless.