by Dan Glover
He was there.
She shook her head as she rubbed her fingers over her eyes afraid to open them again lest he had vanished once more. His image had changed but it had been so long since she'd seen him so it made sense he might change.
Finally she took her hand away from her eyes and opened them. He was still standing there though like a mirage she could see particles of dust intermingling with his countenance. He seemed to have a scowl on his face as if he was unhappy with her for some perceived slight that she was unaware of.
A chill wind blew in from the sea disrupting the visage as it scattered the gray mist that had congregated both in the lowlands and higher up, clinging to the edges of the hillsides and hovering over the tops of the rounded knolls that masqueraded as mountains.
"Wait, my darling... please don't go!"
Though she knew it wasn’t really Kirk a scream issued from her throat as his image dissolved into the fast-approaching gloom of the night. A sudden gust of wind blew minute particles of grit into her eyes causing her to stagger backward. Her left foot caught on a protruding rock or perhaps a long-dead tree root and she fell.
Suddenly he was there cradling her in his arms strong and sturdy and yet foreign to the touch, as if they were carved out of wood or manufactured of steel. When she looked up into his face she had to stifle a scream.
Where his gorgeous blue eyes once twinkled she saw only an angry red glow apparently emanating from somewhere deep inside this thing that had once been her husband. Involuntarily twisting her body to disengage his grip upon her, she found her arms and legs were entangled in some sort of web, strong and resilient, unbreakable.
As the scream erupted from deep inside of her she found herself rising to some unseen surface far above her as if submerged deep beneath black malignant waters and though she tried to keep from breathing in its evil essence she felt her gills fluttering as they sought to filter the filth that poured through them.
Finally struggling to the surface of waking consciousness she discovered she was in her own bed tangled and twisted up in the covers and covered with perspiration. A cold gritty wind blasted through the cracked and broken window panes as the tattered curtains fluttered like undone ghosts drowning in the dim light of morning.
He was coming for her.
She'd been right to wait for him. Even though everyone else had forgotten about Kirk and relegated him to the tomb she had always held on to the love they once shared knowing that he couldn’t forget either. He'd promised her to come back and though the man was a lot of things he had never lied to her.
As the shabby room where she lay came more into her vision she tried grasping at the fleeting images of her dream before they faded away but it was too late. But the feeling of love and of being loved remained.
He hadn’t forgotten her.
Why had he stayed away for so long? The thought troubled her more than it should have... if he was dead, then it would make sense, his extended absence. Yet he still lived. She felt it viscerally all the way to her marrow.
He had promised her to return and she had promised to wait for him. She kept her word even through the heavy centuries weighing her down with grief and the heartache due to the constant badgering of the others for her to come away with them.
She only had to hang on for a little longer.
Chapter 33—No Goodbyes
It was all coming undone right before her eyes.
Though she saw the way he looked at her and even glimpsed a prophetic tangle of unrequited love pulsing from his misguided consciousness, she never thought Micah would go so far as to jeopardize the rest of not only humanity but those of the Lake as well.
"Darling Ena... I am in old America to search for Niall. The nanobots we thought were dead are instead thriving."
It was supposed to be an experiment to test the new communications device. She had no idea that Grandfather Nate had gone so far. The plan was for him to fly to a point directly north of the old British Isles to send a test signal.
There was a kind of fear in his voice that Ena hadn’t heard before. Grandfather Nate was the most courageous man she knew. She wondered if perhaps she'd misunderstood his words... if in fact the quantum linking device was malfunctioning.
"Say again, Grandfather Nate... what are you doing in old America?"
"I decided to see if I could locate Niall. All signs point to him coming here. I'm in trouble though. My flying unit has broken down. I need some help."
She could be there within minutes but something bothered her about the notion of going back to old America. It was something Micah had said, or rather hinted at. She had once asked him if his tiny machines were really dead. He said they couldn’t die since they were never alive to begin with.
He didn’t technically lie to her but neither did he furnish her with the truth. Micah hadn’t given up on his dream of creating the perfect machine capable of aligning itself with living tissue. He had been stymied but the man was far more resilient than that. Not wanting to press the issue and perhaps alienate herself from him, Ena had let the matter drop. Now, she was regretting her decision.
"I'll be there as quickly as I can, Grandfather Nate. What are your coordinates?"
She knew without asking that he had gone to old New York City. A thousand years had passed since her last visit there and though she had fervent hopes of never returning, she couldn’t turn her grandfather down.
She had a plan, however. Even though the landscape had no doubt changed dramatically, Micah could make use of his still existent nanobots to chart a course safely through the maze of jungles and semi-tropical growth that no doubt permeated the entire area by now.
"My nanobots are useless, darling Ena. I told you that without a nexus I have no means of exciting the silicon neurons that make up the hive activity."
Micah had gotten sloppy over the years. He had practiced his foolery for so long that he actually thought she believed it. Even though she had told him numerous times of her ability to see the present from a future point of view, he still treated her like a child incapable of perceiving a lie.
"You'll have no problem accompanying me then, right my darling Micah?"
She watched as the blood drained from his face. For a moment, he actually stuttered. Even though he was intelligent enough to anticipate her question, he had obviously taken her inquiry as one of mere interest and not of any real consequence.
"You'll have to give me a little time, sweet Ena. I have so much going on at the moment I couldn’t possibly leave now."
"You'll have to put those plans on hold, my friend. We're leaving right away. Don’t worry though. We won't be gone long."
The smile on Micah's face ran away as a wave of recognition broke over his brow. She saw that he knew she'd seen through his subterfuge. He had no choice but to do as she requested, otherwise their informal friendship would be irrevocably damaged.
It wasn’t that she disliked the man. When he had the mind to, he could be amiable and he wasn’t at all opposed to sharing vital knowledge while they worked together on various inventions.
Still, with her innate ability to sense portends of coming troubles she couldn’t help but notice Micah's presence seemed to revolve around most of the more pressing problems facing both the People and those of the Lake.
He made no attempt to hide his ambivalence toward every living creature. Micah exuded a hatred toward not only Chester but to all his offspring that was only matched by the big cats' own loathing of Micah. If given an opportunity, she had no doubt that the man would have long ago furnished a meal for the pride.
There had always been a cold light in Micah's eyes. She suspected there were many secrets hidden in that luminescence that her prescient ability should be able to unravel and yet what she might find there frightened her.
The newly designed anti-gravity machines were built to travel to the stars so a mere trip across an ocean was nothing. Grandfather Nate's distress call had initially alarmed her but sh
e quickly rationalized that any new technology had its weaknesses. No doubt something simple had caused the malfunction he experienced and it could be quickly remedied. They'd be back in Toulon for lunch.
"We shouldn’t be here."
Micah had been silent up until that point. Ena thought perhaps he was engrossed in watching the landscape blur past them as they plotted a direct course to old New York City. She had been able to ascertain Grandfather Nate's exact position and they were circling for a landing when Micah spoke his warning.
"I don’t want to be here any more than you do, darling Micah. We'll set down next to Grandfather Nate's machine, hopefully have it fixed in a few minutes, and be on our way home again."
"They aren’t going to let that happen."
He didn’t have to specify who or what he was talking about. As soon as they entered the airspace over old American she sensed instinctively that the nanobots had somehow evolved into a new and more terrifying menace. A black rain had begun to fall but rather than sluicing off their flying machine it seemed to adhere.
"This has something to do with Kirk, doesn’t it, Micah."
"I'm sorry, darling Ena... I made a mistake."
It surprised her that he was so forthcoming all of a sudden, and alarmed her as well. Obviously he felt safe here... in his element. An overwhelming premonition of danger rushed into her consciousness as she felt the aircraft shudder.
"You set me up."
"I didn’t want to come here, sweet Ena. You know that. You forced me into it."
"I don’t mean now... I mean you've been setting me up all along by feigning indifference and ignorance when it comes to our work together. I knew it. But I didn’t want to pressure you into admitting it."
"I'm a genius, darling Ena, but next to you I've always felt like a moron. I don’t understand how you know the things you do. I never pretended I did. My field was bioengineering but you seem to grasp that even better than I ever did."
"What can we expect here, sweet Micah?"
"I rewrote the old code for my nanobots to include a synthesis with biological level organisms. I'd never considered that as an advantage until I worked with Lady Lily. She impressed me with her ability to render my machines inert.
"One day after I arrived in Toulon I was out for a walk when it hit me: my nanobots were unprotected from electrical discharges emanating from Lily's body. They required a protective membrane. I instructed them to search for the most reliable way of incorporating water molecules into their apparatus.
"It worked. Meanwhile, the new nexus had been taking root inside of Kirk's old brain taking advantage of his neural synapses in ways I never dared to try on myself."
"You used Kirk as a test subject without his approval, sweet Micah?"
"He was dead, darling Ena. The only things keeping the electrical activity alive in his brain were my nanobots."
"You tricked me into bringing you here, didn’t you... why?"
"I'm in love with you, my darling Ena. You know that. Before the day is out, you'll be mine whether you want to or not."
"We'll see about that."
Cutting the warp drive and banking sharply to the left Ena flipped the switch to automatically open Micah's door while at the same time going to warp again. He had been too arrogant to bother fastening his safety belt even though she urged him to do so. The last glimpse of him that she had was of the startled look on his face as he flailed uselessly at the door handle before he was sucked into the singularity produced by the re-energized warp field.
"Do you still love me, darling Micah?"
Chapter 34—Dissolving
Leaving Chester behind for the second time was even harder than the first.
Even though he told himself he was hard and made of metal now, he still had human feelings. The big cat had done nothing to deserve being trapped inside a sordid tunnel where he would slowly die of dehydration long before he succumbed to hunger.
Niall was a ninny who got what he deserved for sticking his nose where it didn’t belong. He never should have come here. In fact, it was his fault that Chester showed up. Somehow the tiger had known where the boy was off to and followed him.
Kirk had business in old Scotland. One of his newly discovered powers consisted of seeing distant places as if they were right beside him, of hearing tears of distress being cried for his absence, of feeling tender flesh pressed against him. He had made a promise and it was time to keep it.
When he first saw her, he yearned to dissolve into her arms once more. Luciana was more precious than life itself. He'd never stopped ruing the day he left her behind though in his dreams he was always with her.
She'd let herself go but that only made her more beautiful. Seeing her as his shadow stood high on a hill Luciana reminded him of something feral yet tame, like the day she first came to him on the beaches of Toulon where his despair over losing Delilah had nearly got the better of him.
"You don't remember me, do you?"
Of course he didn’t know who she was. He'd never met her before. Kirk was more than certain he'd remember a girl like Luciana. Still, he felt like the same old idiot who spent his childhood and parts of his adult life stuttering like a simpleton each time anyone put him on the spot like that.
"I'm sorry but I don’t believe I know you. Should I?"
He had thought how suave his voice sounded and how continental. He'd begun to think of himself as a baron, perhaps, or most certainly an earl. He had his own castle and a thousand hectares of grapes. He'd finally become someone though he still wondered who that was at times.
"I'm disappointed, Mr. Kirk. You promised me you'd wait until I grew up so I could marry you."
"Are you Luciana?"
Years ago he'd made a trip to the Isle of Skye with Mr. Nate. They were mainly in search of oak kegs in which to store their wine—Nate had read that the aged barrels of old Scotland were best—but they had stayed on for some time to visit with Karen and Pete. Nate had been having problems with one of his new inventions so he wanted to take advantage of their knowledge.
Kirk had wandered down by the seaside. The scientific talk bored him. No one noticed when he left and he made sure not to go too far and risk a bout with Lake Syndrome. That and the wild beasts that abounded in the forests scared him more than he cared to admit.
A little girl was sitting upon a high rock gazing out over the undulating waves. He noticed right off that she was a hybrid but that did nothing to take away from her splendor. She seemed like a tiny goddess, like the jade princess that Nate had brought home from one of his many journeys to the Far East in search of such treasures.
"Who are you? I've never seen you around here before."
Her voice was a clear bell sounding in the murk. She had leapt off the rock right into his arms, as if she expected him to catch her, as if she knew his whole purpose in life was to protect her from harm. She was heavier than she looked and the impact of her body against his staggered him backward but he didn’t drop her.
"I'm Kirk."
He thought how stupid he sounded but it was all he could do to speak even those two words.
"I knew you wouldn’t let me fall. I'm Luciana. I live up there."
Her lucent blue eyes darted to the villa from where he'd just come and then back to his face. He wondered if he should set her down but she made no effort to loosen her grip upon his neck and so he held onto her longer than he deemed proper.
"Don’t be messing with those little girls, you little son of a bitch. I'll have your hide."
His father's voice still haunted him. Kirk had liked playing with the girls better than the boys in his hometown of Kurgan. They were gentle creatures who didn’t tease him on account of his stutter or mock his pigeon-toed gait. Of course his loving father took the boy's interest in them for something more sinister and forbade him from being with those girls.
"I came here with Mr. Nate. We're looking for kegs to put our wine into."
"Mother allows me to ha
ve a glass of wine with dinner. She says it's good for me."
"You remind me of someone. Who is your mother, Luciana?"
He liked how the name rolled off his tongue. In fact, he couldn’t remember hearing a more beautiful sound coming out of his mouth.
"My mom's Ena. She doesn’t like me coming here alone. She says it's too dangerous."
"Oh... so you're one of Mr. Nate's granddaughters."
"I call him Grandfather. How come you don't have gills?"
"I'm a human. I can't breathe under water."
"Can you swim, Mr. Kirk?"
"Not well but a little."
"I like to swim in the ocean but mother says I can't go in alone. Want to go in with me?"
"I'll wade in a bit but I'm afraid to go in over my head. I might drown."
"Oh you silly man... I would never let that happen."
When he walked to the edge of the water and went to set the girl down, she clung tightly to his neck and whispered something into his ear.
"What did you say, Luciana?"
He knew what she said but it startled him.
"I said to wait for me, Mr. Kirk. One of these days I'm going to marry you."
When she did finally grow up and fulfill her promise Kirk soon learned that Luciana was a lot like her mother. They both saw the moment from a point of view rooted in the future rather than in the past. The girl both frightened him and filled him with awe.
When he left Luciana to go with Nate to old America, he saw something reflected in her eyes that she refused to give voice to... a premonition, perhaps, or a vision. She was right. He would not return to her as he promised, at least not as the Kirk she knew and loved. Still, he had to go.
Now, he wondered. The only thing he had accomplished was to become a monstrosity. He didn’t need a mirror to know how much he'd changed. With the arrival of Niall his body began to devolve into what it once was and it terrified him.