by Jason Letts
Coming in from the east at daybreak, they spotted the massive wooden shield scraping against the ground in front of them. Walking directly at it, it levitated just high enough to allow them to walk underneath. From so close, they could see the tiny string, straight as an arrow, that held it up from so far away. The string led directly to Shade Base Camp, which swarmed like a busy beehive.
The lieutenant at the guard post, a shocked expression on his face, just stared at them. Nobody said a word to him as they walked right on by. Vern had taken Mira, carrying her over his shoulder. Walking along the pathways, they caught quick glances from those they passed. Some of them squinted to distinguish these soldiers from all of the rest, the lifeless body drew the attention of a few, and some remembered their inglorious departure and watched with outright awe.
Turning into the residential section, they continued in silence down the path to their tent. Just about to enter, they heard voices inside. Will slipped by Vern to enter first, and he saw someone sitting on his mat and going through his bag at that very moment. Several others in their late teens were relaxing comfortably. A hand reached into Will’s bag and started to remove a large, black piece of fabric when Will snatched the bag away.
“We’re not dead yet! Give that to me and get out!” he snarled.
The other occupants gave him frozen looks while the rest of his friends filed in. They saw Vern carrying a body and Chucky holding a gruesome-looking weapon against his shoulder. Will shouted at them again, forcing them to move their feet and abandon the tent. Looking around, their belongings were scattered around. Though the morning had just begun, their strength allowed them to do nothing more than peel off their dirty uniforms and flop against the mats.
“I’ll get help for Mira.” Vern steeled himself, carrying the girl against his shoulder outside.
Taking her uniform top off, Mary gasped when she saw the red and raw skin on her arms. She grabbed her mirror and shrieked at how burned her face had become. The others also cringed at what made it through their uniforms. Mary dove for her tiny bag of healer hair and jammed the rest of it down her throat. A few others did the same, and a few held onto what little they had in case something worse came along. None of them had much left at all. The weary fatigue seeped from every pore in their bodies, and they dropped to their mats through their bleary exhaustion and passed into a dark sleep.
Elsewhere in Shade Base Camp, a pensive, nerve-racked man stood in a large warehouse that was empty except for one horse cart. One sidewall of the arcing structure had been removed, allowing him to look out to the east toward his sinister enemies. He rubbed his hands together, rocked onto his toes, and wore a giddy fixation on his face that grew more intense with each passing moment.
On the cart’s large flat platform, a giant desert octopus sat on a pedestal in the center. Fully ten times larger than the ones Mira and Vern encountered in the wasteland, this smooth, placid beast watched with tired eyes from on high. Its tentacles wrapped around eight human figures that stood motionlessly around it. Men and women, short and tall, young and old, they didn’t blink or even breathe.
Commander Carmichael put his finger to his lips, astonishment and wonder bubbling within him. He tiptoed around the cart like a thief, spying his bounty from every possible angle. He admired them with such fluid motions that it looked like he wanted to dance.
A door flung open along the back wall, and a young man of dark complexion, chubby but strong, barged in. He carried something over his shoulder, a pair of legs draped over his chest and limp arms trailing along behind. Commander Carmichael looked around like he’d been caught, but the temptation of what he stood before would not allow him to shy away. Betraying a guilty smile, he watched Vern walk across the warehouse to him.
“Excuse me, you’ve got to do something. I got turned away from the healer’s tent. I need help,” Vern implored as soon as he’d come within speaking range.
A lieutenant staggered through the doorway, closing it behind him, and stumbled after him. Vern stopped a few feet from the Shade’s top military leader, the girl’s backside hinged over his shoulder.
“What exactly are you trying to show me?” Carmichael asked, and Vern turned to reveal her face. Recognizing Mira and finally putting together the nature of this intrusion, feigned pity came over him.
“Something happened to our dear, sweet angel? I’m shocked.”
“She’s not dead!” Vern growled. “You have to get her some help. Someone must be able to heal her.”
Carmichael crouched near Mira to check her condition. He raised her arm and watched it dangle lifelessly. Seeing the deep cut on her cheek, he cringed. This was what he expected to happen to her, after all. He just never expected someone to shove her in his face. When he finally spoke to Vern, he abandoned his sarcastic tone.
“She doesn’t need a healer. She needs a grave. If you can find a free one out past the training fields, you’re welcome to it.”
“I’m not going to just abandon her when she can still be saved!”
“Suit yourself, but I don’t think carrying around a dead body is going to become as trendy as you think.”
The lieutenant had made it to them, jumping into the conversation.
“Sir, my deepest apologies for letting him in! I floated away from my post against my will. I’ll accept any punishment you have for me.”
Commander Carmichael sighed, much preferring to focus his attention on the exciting new toys in his possession.
“It’s quite alright. In fact, I’m in a sharing mood,” Carmichael declared. “We’ve finally gotten our reinforcements from Darmen. This war could be over in the blink of an eye.”
Carmichael stood in front of the horse cart gesturing like a showman. The faces, the creature that bound them, it hinted at something that most couldn’t believe was possible. There were no weapons the world could offer him that could exceed these, and now he had them at his complete disposal. It made him chuckle to see the astonishment on Vern’s young face.
“These are…” Vern stammered.
“The Specials!” Carmichael cheered. “The whispers of a group of world-beaters locked away forever couldn’t be more true. And now they’re finally mine.”
Awe-struck and horrified, the lieutenant mumbled, nearly incoherently. His eyes gazed so steadily at the figures on the cart that they looked like they would pop out of his head.
“Darmen council. They didn’t. It’s not. There’s no way.”
“Think about it. We’ve lost a generation to this war over ten years. Soon, the academy system will grind to a halt when even the largest cities have only a handful of children. We’re at the point of no return, the point where our stalemate losses bleed our way of life to death. Of course they want to give me what I need to win, and to win quickly. We could all be home by the new year!”
While Carmichael reveled in his words, instilling more fear in his lieutenant, Vern took a step closer to the cart. He gazed at an extremely old man with a beard down to his knees, who wore rags like all the rest. Despite his tan skin, he had a pale look and a tentacle wrapped across his forehead.
“He looks so old,” Vern remarked.
“They’re all in stasis,” Carmichael explained, coming closer to admire them along with him. “As old as he looks, he could be thousands of years older. There’s no telling how long ago they were caught, and how long this desert octopus has hidden them outside of time. Yes, knowledge of these beings has been passed down, and we know they’ve been crucial to keeping balance and order in the world. If any one of them got loose, the havoc they could wreak is unimaginable. And that’s why we’re going to unleash them on the Sunfighter army.
“Just this one frail looking old man, for example, the laws of motion bend to his will. Not only could he move any mass with just a thought, any sense of weight or force are his to manipulate. Imagine being unable to lift a grain of rice, or hurling a stone in one direction only for it to curve in mid air and take off like a bir
d into the sky. He could orchestrate every motion of a million-man battle into a symphony.”
“If they are so powerful and so dangerous, why not just kill them?” Vern asked.
Commander Carmichael turned to peer at him, succumbing to both an enticing pleasure and an abrupt contempt.
“And have the web just scatter them out around the world again? There is no escape from these powers, which can just be given to another newborn. This is the only way to keep control of them. This old-timer would even agree with me. They say he took it upon himself to catch the others and commit them all to wait through a frozen eternity. It just so happens that their waiting is about to come to an end.”
Vern started to shake his head, trembling.
“The strength here is unimaginable,” Carmichael gawked, pulling Vern to the left and pointing. “This little lady controls higher brain function. Everything about how we see the world, how we act within it, and how we function as living beings are at her fingertips. She could reduce the enemy Warlord to an animalistic state, have him grazing for grass and leaving him utterly defenseless in a heartbeat. It takes your breath away.”
“This one doesn’t even look human,” Vern said.
He gestured to the next figure, distinctly apish with longer arms and a larger skull. He couldn’t stand perfectly erect, and a great deal more hair covered his skin.
“He may not be,” Commander Carmichael replied. “It’s funny to think we would all look exactly like him if not for what he can do. You might think it took a millennium to develop into what we are, but he’s the only one who knows for sure. Yes, even evolution of the human species is deeply entrenched within the powers of the web.”
Like a child in a candy shop, the Commander could not restrain himself any longer from showing off his favorite. He dragged Vern around the cart, mindless of Mira’s body, and planted him in front of a spry and lanky looking young woman. But it was not her graceful appearance that interested him.
“If there is one Special here that holds the key to our victory, it is this one,” he said, lathering his praise and daring to reach through the cart to touch her foot. “Of all of them, I can’t wait to see her in action. She is a walking embodiment of the web, capable of redistributing powers at will. She could instantly change him from a fearsome and powerful chaos-monger to a laughable creampuff.”
The unsettling implication that he could suddenly find himself with a different power made Vern swallow hard. Carmichael mused at the questions that must be running through this young man’s mind. Who was he if not for what he could do? What would that do to him if he suddenly found himself being someone else? Full of trepidation and fear, Vern gazed at the young woman. There was no mistake he didn’t want to see her set free.
“Is there no other way? Couldn’t you just release them one at a time and see what helps? You might never need this one at all.”
“Half-measures are for fools,” Carmichael laughed. “In unison they will be a thousand times greater than they would be alone. We will need her most of all. Maybe it’s good that the defective weakling on your shoulder is still alive. I’d love to see her worthlessness passed on to him.”
Carmichael’s imagination ran wild with the beautiful possibilities that came to him. The lieutenant had backed against the wall, sweating and afraid though unable to tear himself away. Vern too seemed unusually panicked. Carmichael reveled in the knowledge that the boy feared him as much as these all-powerful forces of nature. He’d been called crazy before, but no one could stop him from rising to the top of the military.
“This little boy,” Carmichael said, speaking mostly to himself as Vern struggled through a daze, “might look like a pudgy butterball of mirth, but his force is the one that marches us all to our inevitable deaths. It’s the force that makes everything fall apart, break, and whither to dust. He rushes everything from its perfect state to confusion and chaos. He is the harbinger of death.”
Commander Carmichael then moved on to an identical pair of men without hair anywhere on their bodies. They held hands, and the tentacles that wrapped around them followed their arms and touched. Unlike the others, their mouths hung open, revealing the fine teeth of a plant-eater.
“These two are very interesting, indeed. While that tubby boy tries to erode away life, these two might be the very cause of it. The one controls the elements that compose even the tiniest particles in the universe. The other wields the spark of growth that controls their reaction, the catalyst that brings them together and allows the elements to become something greater than their individual parts.
“To say anything could happen around these two is a gross understatement. Possibilities for life that never existed might come into being if these two are given the chance to run free. I’m told they created the species of walking octopus that binds them all together, but then again it might just have been Mother Nature. Trying to separate their work from that of nature might be a more foolish errand than any other.”
Taking a step back, Carmichael again hastened to admire them as a group. Satiated and nearly drunk with the wonder of it, his broad grin and his wringing hands showed the extent of his pleasant anticipation. Some loud noises slipped in through the open wall, but he paid no attention. Everything he cared about was right there before him.
“And that’s all I know about them. Each one is a perfect manifestation of the web, a direct link between the world’s most fundamental spirit and ourselves.”
At this, Vern scratched his head, puzzled.
“Wait, but that’s only seven. You didn’t say anything about that tall one at all. What does that one do?”
Vern referred to the tallest one among them, a man that stood several feet above the rest. He was thin but not weak looking. The only oddity in his appearance was a small, barely perceptible nose.
“Him? I don’t have the slightest clue about that one and neither does anyone else. It’ll be a surprise! It’s going to be the most breathtaking thing, to see them all out there. The world will never be the same, and it’s about time. We will finally see humanity’s fullest potential!”
Looking like he would pass out, the shaking lieutenant let out a weak cry. After his whimper, he dared to invite the attention of the Commander from his entranced fascination.
“What are you going to do with them? Drive ’em out to Sun Base Camp?”
“No!” Carmichael bellowed like a thunderclap. “With these weapons in our grasp, we never need to attack again. They’ll march through the war zone in full force unhindered, only to arrive at our doorstep where we’ll wipe them out completely. When we clash, we’ll set the Specials loose upon the fray to support our forces with the might of the greatest!”
“You can’t control them,” Vern said. “We’ll be just as likely to fall victim to them as the enemy!”
He was right, of course, Carmichael thought, but that was of no concern. He had no trouble creating a plausible excuse.
“What they need is time to work their magic, and our army must provide them with it. After this fight there’ll be no need for any of you.”
Now that he’d put all his cards on the table, Carmichael waited for Vern to offer some response to the grand plans he’d constructed in his imagination. Perhaps Vern thought he cared for nothing but wielding the greatest power at his command and to watch it annihilate whatever fell in its path. Did he feel bad that his life might be sacrificed to usher in a new age of humanity? It didn’t much matter, considering there was nothing he could do to stop him. He could only warn his friends and commiserate over the cruel hand of fate that spited them.
Carmichael glanced at the horse cart, where eight serene faces hurtled mindlessly through time to the moment when they would collectively unleash the weight of their abilities on the world.
Chapter 9: Dreamscape II
Mira sat in the second floor windowsill looking at the web in the night’s sky. A small cot had been laid out for her underneath the window. In her hand, she clutche
d the moldy chunk of bread, holding it up against the moon, which seemed to be the same shade of blue. Rolling it in her fingers, she was still in disbelief she had caused it.
Kevin and Jeana were downstairs, and her namesake sat in bed with a book. Mira could just see her through the rafters at the other end of the second floor. She had a bandage on her cheek now. Mira had seen Clara running outside in the fields, full of energy, but she lost track of her until the sound of creaking floorboards and pounding steps signaled her ascension up the stairs. The surreal little girl, so much like herself and so much like the face that appeared before her in the mist at Cloud Cottage, ran right up to her and demanded her attention.
“Let’s play a game!”
Mira couldn’t bring herself to look at her, because it would make the sorrow for what could never be hurt that much worse. Where was she that her dream of being reunited with her sister could taunt her so? But the only thing worse than rejecting it was being rejected by it, so she turned to Clara before she lost interest.
“How could you do that to me? I was trying to help you.”
The little girl, off put by Mira’s comment, scratched her head.
“What are you talking about?” she asked.
“You don’t know what I went through to find you. Then you acted like you didn’t even care. I was supposed to fix everything, but now it’s more broken than ever. I guess there are some wrongs that can’t be righted, and this is just another reason why I’m not as good as anyone else,” Mira sniffled.
A single tear crawled down her cheek in the moonlight.
“Are you OK?” Clara asked.
“No, I’m not OK! Why couldn’t we have this? We could’ve had all the time in the world to play. But instead I had to be locked up and you had to be taken away. Why? Would it have been so bad for us to be a family together like this? Every glimpse of happiness here is just the pang of another impossible idea.”