by Dan Glover
When Kāne and Ginger along with their son Joshua left for Edinburgh Castle, Lauren thought it was for the best. She didn’t appreciate the girl Mindy accompanying them, however. Something was amiss with that scenario and it did not surprise Lauren when Ginger returned to Orchardton Hall a few months later along with Joshua but not with Kāne.
Now, Lauren felt the same way. Her hearts ached for a lost love and there was nothing to be done about it.
Chapter 21—Cocoon
A plan was forming in the back of what used to be his mind.
This space was too confining... he needed room to proliferate and to grow into the evolutionary splendor that he was. Though he had no idea of the passage of time nor did he notice the changing of the seasons or the subtle alterations of the constellations overhead—still being sequestered underground—something told him that it was time to emerge, a distant urge, a compulsion, perhaps.
It seemed as though he'd been inside a cocoon... a creepy caterpillar biding time until the metamorphosis had been completed and he would unfurl wings of splendor and fly off into the night.
He remembered being alone. When the boy tumbled into his domain, he thought the life force of Niall's body would flee. He didn’t know how he recognized the boy's name, only that he did. Whispers in the dark told him to approach the prone figure, to place a hand over his face.
He sensed this boy was a member of the enemy though he had no way of confirming that notion other than a distant memory, genetic perhaps. Still, the boy was dying and it went against his nature to watch a living being perish without helping.
But what nature was that? Had he once been a living creature too? The curiosity of the metal had lured him into its embrace, certainly, but what had he been before? Troubling memories surfaced seemingly of their own accord and at the most inopportune of times but still, there was no going back now.
The iron shell that once served as a second skin had been shed and in its place something new and miraculous had formed. He no longer sensed the outer world through the touch... rather, he'd become that which had always been hidden.
The nanobots showed him their secret. It was so simple that he wondered how he'd never seen it before. The brilliance of one better step at a time was obvious and yet so easily overlooked. Given enough time, any problem could be solved, and time was all he had.
A look of fear permeated Niall's eyes as the boy must have realized what had happened to him. His body was broken. He couldn’t breathe. Without immediate aid, he would die in minutes. Images of teaching Niall about the making of wine and going with him to explore the fading villages that surrounded Toulon arose in what used to be his mind.
It was strange he remembered all that and yet he couldn’t seem to recall his own name. He must have had one. Everyone had a name. It hadn’t mattered before the boy showed up. Being alone meant he had no need for a name... no need to separate what was him from the rest of the universe.
Now, he yearned for an identity... a way to distinguish his dreams and his desires... a method of being known for something other than being a lump of misshapen metal anchored to the earth.
He had been here all along... time had woven itself into a sort of vicious loop regurgitating him back out once he had been eaten. With a renewed sense of vigor, he realized his own true nature for the initial time though he also understood there were no firsts for him, not in this world.
They abandoned him here... his friends and family. If not for the nanobots he would have died, and it would have been the same with Niall. The boy's neck was broken. He could no longer breathe. Yet just a touch from his hand had resulted in life, albeit at a price.
Was being a monster too much to ask if it meant everlasting life?
He'd give the boy a choice, later. Once his injuries were annealed and he felt life coursing through his veins, then he could decide. It'd be easy enough to snap his neck again.
"Are you Kirk?"
The words sounded strangely metallic, like someone striking a bell with a steel hammer only both bell and hammer were deep inside his head. Still, a memory persisted. He knew what the boy was saying even if he hadn’t the ability to answer him.
Kirk... was that his name? He raised his iron eyes to the ceiling studying both the conduit that ran across it and the thoughts arising within what had once functioned as a living brain. The words were like syrup, slow, cascading through neurons that had sped up to instantaneous sequences no longer bound up by relativity.
It was only a matter of time now... of waiting for the evolution that was slowly consistent and compelling succinct. Soon, Niall would join him on a glorious mission to infiltrate and eradicate all life not only on this planet but throughout the galaxy. Life was weak and prone to making mistakes. Even the Creator had forsaken his creations in a misguided attempt at grasping at life instead of succumbing to the lure of metal.
In time, they would meet again. Even now, as the nexus grew, flourished, and sprouted new branches deep within his head, he could feel connections reforming that had never really been severed.
Nodding his head rather than speaking, he affirmed to the boy that he was indeed the man once known as Kirk. Now, he was so much more. Niall could only understand the transformation he had gone through by going through it himself. Already the nanobots were busy inside his body repairing the damage wrought not only by the fall but by the act of living.
The people of the Lake thought they were immortals but they were not. Cellular damage was constantly occurring... the DNA in their chromosomes was being attacked by free radicals in the air and water they breathed, in the food they ate, and in the sunshine.
Once the presence of the people of the Lake nullified the promise of metal whispering in their veins but now his tiny terrors had evolved past that roadblock. By combining the better traits of their biology with a foundation of metal they might indeed become true immortals.
Though he sensed revulsion at the notion of using the nanobots to perfect their lives, in time the people of the Lake would come to crave the salvation of metal, the perfection, or at least the constant pursuit of it.
He had been wrong to push Nate away.
His friend would now be reveling in the strength offered by the nanobots, the intelligence, and the promise of forever. Once Niall's transformation was complete, they would make a trip in an effort to reintroduce his friends and family to the promise and to the night of metal.
He had to plan carefully, however. Too soon and failure would find them, and yet if they waited too long the Migration would have begun. Then again, perhaps that was the key. Once separated it would be far easier to conquer the enemy. They had only to cultivate patience and the universe would fall into their iron hands without a fight and hardly a whimper.
Movement in the darkness of the tunnel startled him out of his day dreaming. He was certain the outer hatches were locked but with the passage of time perhaps the metal had finally fatigued and given way allowing a wild animal to enter. Where there was one, more were sure to follow.
The next moment, a giant tiger stepped into view.
Chapter 22—Too Far Gone
It was hard to believe Chester had gone off to die.
Ena had known the big cat for centuries though she had only seen him in the wild for a short while and in brief spurts. Living at the Isle of Skye meant she was limited in scope so far as traveling went, at least until Grandfather Nate showed up.
"I'm going to take our first anti-gravity craft to the south of old France, Grandfather Nate. You and Pete will have the new prototype ready soon. You don't mind, do you?"
Even though she was the one to perfect the craft, she still thought of it as belonging to Nate. Understanding her trip to Toulon was but a stepping stone to a much longer and more hazardous journey meant she should ask permission, however... just in case she never returned. She didn’t wish to leave bad feelings behind.
"Of course I don't mind, precious Ena. Perhaps we'll join you there soon."
>
Luciana ignored her entreaties to come along with her. The girl had settled into a kind of simmering resentment over perceived slights by both Karen and Pete linked no doubt to Kirk's disappearance as well as Niall's.
Knowing that Kirk went of his own accord seemed to do nothing mollify Luciana's mood. If either Karen or Pete so much as approached her, the girl would turn and leave without a word, retreating to the isolation of the old villa where she kept mostly to herself.
"Why do you hate them so, sweet Luciana? They did nothing to you."
"I don't hate them, mother. I will not associate with people who lured my husband to his demise, however. I'll never forgive them. The sooner they both leave the Isle of Skye, the better."
"But this is their home too, my precious Luciana."
"They don't belong here, mother, and you know it. They are interlopers. In all the years I've known them, neither Karen nor Pete have ever done anything to help others without first exacting a price for it. I would rather never to have been born rather than to feel beholden to that woman. No one asked me if I desired to be brought into this world."
Ena had wanted to explain to Luciana that if not for Karen's ability at invitro-fertilization, none of them would be alive, but she knew such an argument would be useless.
Though she had heard it said, she refused to believe that Karen had done what she did to repay the Ladies for the kindness they showed in allowing them to stay at Orchardton Hall when the Great Dying was raging across the planet killing every human being in its path. The fact that her own mother was a product of Karen's medical expertise apparently meant nothing to Luciana.
"You shouldn’t judge people so harshly, my lovely Luciana. What Karen did, she did out of love, not out of a sense of owing something to the Ladies. She desired to be part of rebuilding the world. Without her skill and knowledge, I wouldn’t be here. Are you wishing me dead?"
"Please just go away, mother. I wish only the best for you, but I will never leave this place until Kirk comes for me. I'm tired now. Goodbye."
Ena had felt like slapping some sense into the girl. Her daughter seemed to have fallen into a deep pit of gloom and try as she might Ena couldn’t seem to reach down to pull the girl out. She thought of asking Karen for advice but realized whatever the doctor recommended, Luciana would oppose.
Finally, she left. The farther she flew, the more her spirits seemed to be lifted. By the time she set the aircraft down in the south of old France, her mind was racing with the plethora of new possibilities arising.
She foresaw a paradise awaiting them all. Earth was their home but it was a brutal world full of hurt and suffering. For some time now, Ena had been dreaming of a world that orbited not a star but an enormous planet covered in dense cloudbanks. This new world was far older than their home world and yet it would live on long after earth had been swallowed up by its own sun.
"What would it be like to live a billion years, darling Ena? I cannot imagine a life as long as that."
"I'm not sure I can either, sweet Amanda... you are older than I am. I suppose as the years mount we will come to abide by their meaning. I know the Ladies always say how they never count the passage of time. I would think that might be the reason... even after time has run its course we might well still be alive.
"Alpin once spoke to me about the possibility of alternate universes. I never knew quite what he was getting at, but I assumed he meant we live in only one universe out of many. I once dreamed of bouncing between a multitude of universes like a stone might skip over still water, touching a spot once and then moving on."
"Perhaps that's what life was like once, my darling Ena, before the Great Dying, when all humans lived a finite number of years. They called it reincarnation. People would live a brief while and then die, only to be reborn in another body and another place, with no memory of their prior lives, but those people always seemed to return to the ones they loved most, or hated."
"That sounds romantic in an odd sort of way, precious Amanda. If they didn’t remember their prior lives, I wonder how they knew who they were with."
"I read that they called it a race memory, my wondrous Ena... a collective consciousness... something stored outside the body so it didn’t die."
"Is the collective consciousness like the soul?"
"That's an interesting way of putting it, my lovely Ena. Yes, I think so, although I'm not an expert on spiritual ideas. I didn’t know you were so interested in such things."
"I remember growing up watching tigers stalk and kill gnus when they made their migrations past Orchardton Hall and wondering what it would be like to die. Even though we never age or get sick I always knew there was a possibility of dying too... in accidents or from a case of just plain bad luck. Do you think we'd be reincarnated too, my darling Amanda?"
"I like to think we'd be born again, my sweet and lovely Ena. It's hard to envision just winking out of existence. Our life force must go somewhere if we die... don't you think?"
"What about animals... do you think Chester will be reborn?"
"Chester isn’t dead, my wondrous Ena."
"How do you know that he isn’t dead, sweet Amanda... he's been gone so long. Surely he would have come back home by now if he's alive."
"I've gone out searching for him. One day I noticed his tracks leading to the ocean. I've been up and down the shoreline for miles. He never came back out, as far as I can see. He's gone off somewhere but it isn’t to die. He is searching for an old friend."
Though Ena sensed the girl was right it troubled her that she hadn’t foreseen that eventuality. She remembered being in old America and how her prescience had dried up to the point she could no longer tell now from then. A troubled thought nibbled at the recesses of her mind but the more she tried to grab hold of it, the farther away it receded.
Chapter 23—Glue
She told herself she couldn’t give in now.
Putting Nate behind her had nearly consumed all her strength. When he returned to Orchardton Hall she did her best to ignore the man but the pull proved too strong. She counted making love with him one more time as a great mistake in a long life of many.
"I don’t understand why you were never happy with us, sweet Lily."
Lauren had shocked her by being uncharacteristically outspoken over the affair with Nate. Lily had never known her lover to sport resentment but she was wearing it like a warm fur garment on a cold winter morning.
"That's not how things are, my precious Lauren. My most contented moments are spent beside my two Ladies."
"You and Nate are spending a lot of time together."
Mossy shards of night were poking through the stained glass windows still beautiful but now cracked with age and bending inwards a little more with each passage of summer into winter and back again. Settling down at the table and thinking how good dinner would taste Lily hadn’t expected Lauren to confront her with such vehemence and anger.
"Where is our darling Natalia, sweet Lauren?"
Lily looked about the great dining hall hoping to see the girl but she was not there. Natalia had always been the glue that held the three of them together, ever since that day they all came together in the stone cabin beside Lake Baikal.
"I sent her on errands, darling Lily. I knew she would come between us as she always has. We need to talk."
Lily had dreaded this moment. A month ago she might have welcomed it, but now, with the memory of Nate still lingering upon her skin, she had no defense. Lauren had always been the stronger of them and she knew it. She was taking advantage of Lily's transgressions by confronting her head-on with them.
"I am tired, sweet Lauren. Come to bed with me where we may talk more comfortably."
It was a ploy Lily had used at times to divert the more perspicuous requests of Lauren, and Natalia too. Like a willful lover she knew her body held a lure over her partners that was both endearing and irresistible and she used that to her benefit and of course theirs.
"No.
.. we need to discuss our problems upright lest they fade into bliss. We've been waiting for you for far too long to allow you to slip away again, darling Lily. This man who holds sway over you will fail you again. Don't trade what we have for a life with him that will only bring you pain."
"Why are you doing this to me, my precious Lauren? You've never been so possessive in the past. That is one of many things I find so endearing about you. We've always been able to share our love with others. What has changed so suddenly? You've not even offered to feed me yet surely you can hear my stomach rumbling with hunger."
She knew there was nothing to eat. The castle was as empty of cooking odors as it was of the People. It had been decades—perhaps centuries... Lily no long kept track of the passage of time—since any human being had lived with the Ladies. It was rare for any of the People to visit Orchardton Hall, even rarer for the Ladies to visit others.
Lauren used to delight in making sumptuous meals but lately her lover ate only scant salad greens plucked from the unkempt and weed-strewn gardens and overly ripe fruit fallen from trees grown old and hoary with age.
Orchardton Hall was fast becoming old as time... a greenish slime-mold was slowly creeping up the outer limestone walls overtaking the dead ivy vines still clinging precariously to their old haunts. Dilapidated curtains fluttered in broken window panes on the upper floors where no one frequented any longer. Every now and again Lily would hear a piece of the slate roof slide off and crash onto the prairie below the eaves that once served as a lawn.
"I don't want to lose you again, my beautiful Lily. I keep remembering how you left us before and how my hearts broke until they bled. My roses spin tales of mourning mingled with tears of ancient grief. I'm sorry for not feeding you, my love. My appetite is gone. I've grown neglectful for the needs and wants of others."