Enemy tst-1

by Paul Evan Hughes

  “But you also saved me. You shifted through the webs that I was caught in. We both would have died if you hadn’t shifted.”

  “Shifted?”

  “Yeah.” To make his point, he shifted his arm. It flickered and became a ghostly image of itself.

  She remembered the voice in her mind ((HELP HIM HELP HIM NOW)) calm, whispering, and the flood of images as some higher power took over her mind long enough to destroy the metal bonds that held West—

  She smiled. “Oh. It was my first time.” Had she possessed enough human flesh to do so, her cheeks would have blushed.

  “Well, thank you.”

  Patra looked with wonder at the cool, matte black surroundings.

  “Is this one of the alien vessels?”

  “Same techbase, from what I’ve seen, but somehow different. Little changes…And no silver webs.”

  “How did it get into a mountain?”

  “That’s what they were trying to find out before they found the light in the chamber. Milicom became more interested in that than in the craft itself. It was right after Three, and MSI was terrified. We’d barely made it out of the last war, and with things heating up in Quebec…They wanted to use the tech in this ship for our own weaponry. And then they stumbled onto the light. Enter the Styx.”

  “No wonder why my father was afraid. He must’ve thought the rightful owners of this were coming back to claim it.”

  “Maybe they were.”

  She frowned almost imperceptibly, shivered a little. Whether from the cold interior of the vessel or the fact that alien creatures had once traversed these dark metal passages, she did not know.

  West walked to the round hatch that served as the doorway of the spherical room. It slid silently open when he approached, revealing a dark, slightly canted passageway that led further into the vessel.

  “Let’s look around.”

  They walked into the black.

  “Yes.”

  Zero-Four stood in the open doorway. “Yes, what?”

  “Yes, I’ll go back with you.”

  Zero-Four studied the man seated before him on a bunk. Middle-aged, hair brown, whitening at the temples, faded blue eyes. He was surprisingly fit for a man who had gone through such a trying life. His eyes were somehow distant, giving him the look of age beyond his years. He was weary, yet attentive.

  David Jennings.

  “How did you find out?”

  Jennings weakly smiled. “The yard’s grapevine extends even to the refugee wing. I’ve thought it over, and I want to go back with you. There’s nothing for me here.”

  Zero-Four noticed the fresh burn of the Judas encoder on Jennings’ left temple. How long ago had he received his own? It might have been decades; it might have been centuries. He looked away from the pattern of scarred lines. “I’m sorry about the interrogations. We have to be thorough.”

  “Understood…” He had followed Zero-Four’s gaze, and he reached up to touch the rectangular pattern on his temple. “But did they really have to brand me?” He grinned. “When do we leave?”

  “Immediately. Simon’s waiting for clearance.”

  “Good. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  The flickering of another meager campfire. The night air was frigid, the sky bereft of stars or moons or hearts or clovers. They had each retreated to their one hundred-eighty degrees of the fire circle.

  Simon’s hand and forearm flickered as he shifted. He resolidified and shook his head. “What kind of technology creates dimensional shifting capability in a biological structure? This breaks all the rules. Einstein, Hawking, Huntress, each would have given their souls to see this. This is impossible.”

  Maggie smiled, distracted by something within the fire that had held her attention all evening. “Don’t question it, Simon. You’ll go crazy like me. You’ll want to stay shifted forever and let the boogey monsters that live in the light steal your soul.”

  Simon frowned. “What, Maggie?” He had never seen her so fixated on the flames before.

  “What?”

  “You said something about boogey monsters that live in the light.”

  “Really? I… I don’t know where that came from. Don’t mind me; I’m just babbling.” Her gaze never left the sanguine flames. She pulled her blanket around herself and moved closer to the fire. It was getting too cold.

  Simon unrolled his sleeping bag and crawled in. From his angle on the ground, he could barely see Maggie on the other side of the fire, but somehow he could feel her there. He could feel the gentle touch of her mind; he closed his eyes, inhaling her essence. He knew that she felt his touch as well.

  Maggie pulled her sleeping bag open, got in. She looked at him from the other side of the fire. They said nothing; their minds cautiously retreated from each other. Their eyes locked.

  One hundred-eighty degrees.

  Maggie smiled her sad smile. Her eyes glimmered; the fire revealed the tear-wet surface of her face. She wiped the tears from her face and laughed at her emotion. Simon sat back up, as did she.

  “Maggie, I—”

  “Simon,—”

  They both tried to speak at once, realized what had happened, laughed. Simon motioned to Maggie. “Please, you go first.”

  “Today, when we—When we shifted together, you have to know that I did it so that you wouldn’t get hurt. That wave of light—Nothing could have survived that. I knew I could shift and it wouldn’t hurt me, but you would have been—I shifted into you so I wouldn’t be alone.”

  One hundred-eighty degrees.

  “When you shifted into me, I—I’ve never… Maggie, don’t leave me. I can’t do this without you.”

  One hundred-eighty degrees.

  She smiled that disarming smile, wiped the final tears from her face. He felt the press of her mind stronger than ever, a soft, warm, overpowering tugging. He did not mind in any way.

  “What’re you thinking, Simon?” The mischievous dimples made their appearance. “Don’t lie to me; I can read your mind, you know.” Her upper teeth dragged slowly across the wet surface of her bottom lip. “I told myself once that I’d know you. Do I know you, Simon Hayes?”

  One hundred-eighty degrees shattered.

  Simon went to her, their eyes locked in the bleeding firelight. He sat before her, grasped her hands. Silver eyes gazed upon silver eyes as bodies and minds shifted into one another. They illuminated the encampment brighter than any fire could.

  Simon and Maggie resolidified. Their souls had intermingled; for an instant, they had been one being, living as one entity. They sat in silence for a while, lost in each other’s now-gray eyes. Simon still held Maggie’s hands. She smiled a quiet smile, opened her sleeping bag. The air was decidedly frigid on this mid-June night. Maggie laid down, and Simon laid next to her. Side by side, their minds were one as he traced every inch of her face with his lips. He shivered, from the emotion of the moment or the cold of the night he could not tell. Maggie’s eyes closed, a gentle smile still on her face. His shaking hands found her back, and he pulled her close. Simon’s lips eventually completed their survey of the terrain of her face and neck, and he looked at her angelic face and curly spill of hair for an eternity.

  Without warning a dull throbbing pain swept though Simon’s head, emanating from behind his eyes to his temples. He looked from side to side, and Maggie frowned with worry. “Simon?”

  A voice tore through Simon’s head, overpowering, tangible. It was Maggie’s voice, but not Maggie’s voice. It was painfully mechanical, sterile.

  simon i love you

  maggie, don’t leave me. i can’t do this without you.

  you can

  I CAN’T LOSE YOU AGAIN!

  love

  maggie, i—

  …

  i love you, maggie.

  “Simon? Are you okay?” Her face could not conceal her concern; her hand rested on the side of his face. He blinked hard, his vision momentarily blurred with an image of a great black vessel
, a piercing white light shining from its center, a mechanical scream as atoms were torn apart…

  “Maggie?”

  “What is it?” She leaned over to him, squeezed his hand. Radiant in the firelight and her own beauty, she gazed at him. With those hypnotic gray eyes, a grin returned to her face.

  “I…I—”

  “Simon, shh…” Her finger touched his lips.

  Their eyes locked.

  He pulled her close in the crimson light.

  She kissed him, passionately. They fell into one another, furious desire seeking release in the entwining of their bodies.

  The campfire flickered.

  The embers burned in the haze of the night.

  They were one.

  “Hungry?”

  “Hmm?” Patra turned to West, a distracted look on her face. She had been staring into the clouded orb at the center of the chamber. West was next to her, rummaging through his pack. He held out two unlabeled metal cans. “Oh. Sure. Thanks.” She took the can from his outstretched hand.

  “No problem.” He cracked open the seal on his can, revealing a mysterious pink substance that in no way resembled meat but most likely was. “Fresh from the ruined suburbs of Chicago. Yummy.” He extracted a bit of pink quasi-protein and tentatively placed it in his mouth. His face attempted to hide his disdain and didn’t entirely succeed. He swallowed, shook his head, put the top back on the can. “Better save this for later.”

  Patra looked down at the can West had given her, placed it back in the pack. “Not really hungry anyways.” She turned back to the orb, which weakly illuminated her silver-laced face. Her voice still filled West with an odd feeling that he was conversing with a machine.

  They had explored the vessel from end to end, finding little that they could comprehend. It was obvious that whatever had piloted the vehicle was about their size, perhaps humanoid. They traversed the interior until there was nowhere else to go, which really wasn’t that far. They found the entry point that Milicom had burned into the surface of the vessel. An airlock to the surface had been constructed after the discovery of the vessel. They would explore the surface later. For now, the interior of the vessel was much more important than an abandoned mining town.

  From the central hub where the orb was contained, only three “hallways” went outwards in a T from the orb chamber. Everything was constructed of the same matte black substance, which felt like metal and was strangely cold to the touch. One of these paths led to a small spherical room within the central hub with recesses in the walls covered with glass. They reminded West of the stasis tanks used to regenerate burn victims he had seen used after the Quebec War. On the “ceiling” of this room was a circular panel that neither West nor Patra could open. Whatever lay beyond that panel would have to remain a secret. West did not want to attempt to shift through the unknown black material of the vessel.

  The other two slightly canted hallways led to identical spherical chambers on opposite sides of the vehicle. West and Patra were amazed at the size of the chambers; they had not known how big the vessel really was. All along the wall of the spherical expanse were circular hatches. They attempted to open one of the hatches and succeeded, but the interior was empty. The cylindrical interiors of these odd spaces were just big enough for West and Patra to enter, but they did not. What could have been stored in these chambers? There must have been thousands of the cylinders in each of the spherical rooms, each the size of a human… West thought about the possibilities and decided that he no longer wanted to think about what the chambers were used for.

  Whoever or whatever had constructed this vessel obviously had a fascination of spherical spaces and tubular hallways, a bleak and utilitarian interior architectural design suitable for the cold infinite black between the stars. Nowhere could they find any control panels, any viewscreens, anything at all that indicated the origin of either the vessel or the vanished occupants thereof. Had Milicom taken the crew’s remains, or had there been no crew? Certainly the area had been secured long before either West or the other Styx had been created. There were so many unanswered questions.

  West suddenly felt suffocated sitting in the orb chamber, watching the black swirls of color play upon the surface of the dying light. He stood, picked up his pack. Patra understood how he felt. “Let’s get out of here.” West looked back over his shoulder as they left the chamber. “There’s a town up there. The light’ll be here when we get back.”

  They walked up the inclined hallway to where the Milicom airlock had been burned into the hull of the vessel. West activated the opening mechanism and the massive door silently slid open. They stepped through and the interior door closed behind them as the exterior door smoothly opened before them. A wash of surprisingly cold air wafted from the mineshaft. They ascended to the surface on one of the mining elevators that thankfully still worked. As the elevator rose above the surface it revealed a landscape that had been scoured by some massive unknown force, leaving behind trails of glassy black earth. On the mountainside, several large black edifices had been erected since West had last been here: shards of the Enemy web that had fallen to earth. He looked down into the valley and saw the scattered ruins of what had been Diablo. Most of the buildings had been flattened by the force of the shattered upload generator, but some of the heartier stone buildings had withstood the blast. They would search those buildings first.

  Patra and West walked leisurely down the mountainside in the dark gray light of what should have been early evening. Neither knew why they were in Diablo, or what they were supposed to do next. West had a suspicion that they would not be the only people in Diablo before long. He suspected that the other Styx, if any remained, would come home before long. They would come to Diablo.

  He would wait for them.

  Desert. Somewhere.

  Richter sat alone under the starless sky. He had not made a campfire. He did not need warmth or light. Oh, father, where have you taken my stars?

  He had given up trying to remember the name of the song he had been whistling incessantly for days. He had given up whistling for the moment as well; his parched lips and dry mouth made his forays into the realm of music a near-impossibility for now. His mind was abuzz with his mental replacement for the mystery song; it replayed over and over again the theme song from the opening credits of “The A-Team.” He had always loved those ancient television shows as a kid. He had always fancied himself a younger and scrawnier version of Mr. T, with fewer gold chains and more hair.

  I pity the fool…

  Father, where are my friends the stars? You did not ask my permission before you slaughtered the innocents and threw their blood into the sky.

  He attempted sleep, but as always, the unnecessary biological imperative eluded him. Instead, he laid on his back, looking into the frigid black desert sky. Never had he been in a place so cold and black. For all he knew, he could be floating in the void of space at that very moment, so dark was the world around him. He could be dead already.

  You are dead already. You’ve been dead for centuries.

  In the middle of a dead desert, a dead sky above, with only the grit of the desert ground beneath him to signal that he was indeed still a prisoner of gravity, he shut his eyes to shut out the black.

  Oh Father, where have you taken the stars?

  A flawless, featureless sky above, faded dying red embers of the fire the only illumination of an expanse like black velvet, the air was frigid; he was warm.

  He slept beside her, eyes twitching beneath closed eyelids in a dream she hoped was not at all like the nightmare within which they lived. She moved to get closer to him, rested her face on his chest, her hand playing with his chest hair, fingers combing though dark brown curls. She looked up, kissed his sweet sleeping mouth, tasted herself on his lips. She listened for, found his heartbeat. The silence of the dead world intensified every sound: each heartbeat a thunderclap, each inhalation and exhalation a grating windstorm.

  They had made lov
e like forces of nature, like storm fronts colliding. They shifted as one entity between dimensions of heaven. In Simon, she had found what she had sought for eternities.

  In his sleep he turned, draped his arm over her back, instinctively pulled her closer to him. She smiled, more content than she had been in… Ever.

  She let sleep wash over her, knowing that tomorrow they would start the journey to Diablo. There was a long, cold road ahead of them, but together, she thought they could walk forever and never tire. She drifted off to sleep with a smile on her face and Simon in her thoughts.

  “What’ll it be, Ms. Jennings?”

  “Oh, I don’t drink.” She folded her hands on the bar.

  West frowned, pulling a dusty bottle of something brown and alcoholic from the dusty shelf of a dusty bar on the dusty main street of a dusty dead town. “Well, that’s a shame. You’ll have to start.” He unscrewed the top of the bottle, took a small pull, and painfully swallowed the amber liquid. He coughed, eyes squinted, eyebrows arched at the awful, wonderful taste, covering his mouth with the back of his right hand as his left hand gingerly placed the cover back on the bottle and put the bottle back on the shelf. “Or maybe not.”

  She smiled a sad smile of silver and terrible metal lace. “My mother was an alcoholic. They did a pretty good job of covering that one up. The Kennedy tradition.”

  West turned from the wall of bottles. “I’m sorry. I had no idea—”

  “Don’t worry about it. No one knew. But feel free to have a drink; don’t abstain just for my sake.”

  West sat down on a stool behind the bar facing Patra. He adjusted the wick of an ancient oil lantern they had found in an antiques store on the main street of town. It illuminated the bar with murky, somehow foul light. They had no reason to be here, but somehow it felt so right. This was one of the few remaining buildings of Diablo, and as such, it was one of the first last ties to humanity that they had seen in days. The force of the shattering spire had flattened almost everything in its path. Fortunately, Diablo was located on the other side of the mountain, so it had been somewhat sheltered from the blast. The bar was a sturdy concrete block building. No frills, but sturdy. And still here. So they sat in an abandoned bar in an abandoned town in an abandoned world. Anywhere was better than beneath the mountain in that alien vessel.