Climbing over the crumbling barricades, he worked his way up through the old neighborhoods around the capital building and towards the avenues. A forest of crumbling chimneys and brick corners amid the trees and undergrowth. The rain followed him. As he looked out across the green valley, it seemed the only place it was raining was right where he was.
Gerald took a moment to stop and look at a pretty spider web glistening with dew.
He was feeling tired. He sat down underneath a beech tree. It was so peaceful it made him feel like lying down and taking a nap, so of course he didn’t.
After a couple minutes the rain lightened up, so he arranged himself, his bike, a rock, and a flower in a circle, each of them with a few worn playing cards laid out before them.
“Okay, Lily played a Skip so that makes it your turn Rocky,” Gerald mentioned, shuffling the faded cards in his hand. A quick gust of wind blew one of the cards away from the rock.
“Ha! UNO!” Gerald yelled, pointing at the rock. “You didn’t call out ‘Uno’ so now you have to draw four cards, Rocky.”
After setting down four more cards in front of the rock, Gerald took out a lemon from his pocket. “I don’t want to hear it, Lily, you got caught cheating last week so you don’t get to complain.” As he quietly peeled the fruit with a pocketknife, he watched a little chipmunk scurry about. It paused to look at him curiously as he ate a lemon wedge.
“You know, Nikki,” Gerald said, patting the seat of his broken bike, “in a lot of ways I envy that little squirrel thing.”
Gerald tossed a piece of lemon peel out and the chipmunk ran up to it and took a few nibbles.
“Now, why did he do that just now?” Gerald mused. “That could have been poison, after all, but he tried it anyway. You see, that little guy’s instincts tell him to try it when something hits the ground near him, so he does it. Strip away all the layers of complexity and mysticism and he’s nothing more than a little machine following his programming. So, why do I envy him you ask?”
The bike said nothing.
“Because he’s not sophisticated enough to realize that he is programmed. He never notices it, so it doesn’t bother him. He just goes about his little squirrel-chipmunky life.”
Suddenly the little chipmunk charged at him, leaping up onto his face, biting and clawing with all its strength.
“Ahhh! Get it off! Get it off! Nikki, help me!”
* * *
Three hours later, his stock pot now empty and his face covered in band-aids, Gerald made his way into the Temple of Soeck, which had been built on top of what had at one time been a Ken Garff car dealership. It was a simple design, as alien temples go. Built from blocks of a translucent amber material that Stolleckians secreted from glands in their hands, it was basically a step pyramid like a Ziggurat, but each level was rotated some thirty-five degrees from the one below it. Gerald always thought it looked kind of like a half-twisted Rubik’s Cube.
As Gerald walked in, he took a moment to breathe in the feeling of peace inside. Stollick inscriptions covered every surface of the walls and ceiling in their native language. The basic tenants of their philosophy were written in large script, while the more marginal stuff was written in smaller text. The final layer was the history of their people, written in letters so fine they required a magnifying glass or at least a good pair of eyes. Gerald had a pretty good grip on the basic language by now, but some of the eastern dialect still just looked like chicken scratches to him.
“...I’m telling you, I can’t take it anymore,” came a voice out of Gerald’s translator. He looked up and saw a pair of priests speaking with the Father. The Stollick language contained a lot of clicks and chirps, some of which were just at the edge of human hearing, but luckily the device could still pick it up.
“Either you tell him or I will!” came another as Gerald approached.
“Good day siblings,” Gerald said warmly. The torn edge of his robes caught the bottom of a candle brazier and knocked it over, spilling hot wax onto the floor.
“Ah, it’s him!” Priestess An’Sol complained as she backed away, gathering up her robes defensively.
“You said he wouldn’t be back until later,” Priest Ty’Kall accused, his long lizard-like tail slapping the floor angrily.
“I got my rounds done early,” Gerald said happily as he picked the bent brazier back up.
Father O’Theen gave off a long, droning sound. His yellow eyes looked tired. “Gerald, what have you done to your cassock?” he asked in frustration.
“Oh this?” Gerald asked, pulling at his robes. “Just a badge of honor for a hard day’s work. That’s how I choose to see it, anyway.”
“Well, no one else does. Go get yourself cleaned up. You look disgraceful.”
“I’ll get to that in a minute,” he replied, nearly jumping out of his skin. “In the meantime, I have great news.”
“You’re moving?” Priestess An’Sol quipped.
“No, silly. I finally managed to get a Stolleckian Lotus to grow in earth soil.”
An expression came over the three aliens’ faces that Gerald had never seen from them before. Panic.
“You did?” they asked in unison.
“Yes,” Gerald said, pumping his fist. “Now, when it blooms I can complete my Oathstone Ritual, take out my vows, and become a priest like you guys.”
The three aliens looked at each other worriedly.
“Ooh, and then I can start forging my own soul catcher,” he gushed, pointing at the amulet hanging around Priest Ty’Kall’s neck.
“Don’t touch that,” Ty’Kall bade, pulling away, but it was too late. The metal chain snapped and the amulet fell to the floor and shattered.
“You idiot!” Ty’Kall barked as he knelt down. “That took me fifty years to make.”
“Sorry, but I didn’t even touch it.”
“YOU don’t have to touch things to break them,” he accused.
Father O’Theen raised his long scaly fingers. “I am happy for you, my... sibling...”
Gerald flicked his translator. The word “sibling” had come out really forced.
“...but we are no longer accepting new priests at this mission.”
“We aren’t?” Priestess An’Sol began to ask, but Father O’Theen smacked her on the back of the head with the tip of his tail. “Oh right...” she covered. “Sorry, can’t do it, not anymore.”
“But why?” Gerald asked, crushed.
“Look, I’ll be frank with you,” Father O’Theen breathed heavily, causing his long white goatee to shiver. “You have twice the enthusiasm of any initiate I’ve ever seen on any world, but since you joined our order this particular mission has been run into the ground. Attendance is down to nearly nothing; all of the holy relics we brought have stopped working...”
“And we are drowning in repair bills,” Priest Ty’Kall spat as he scooped together the fragments of his soul catcher.
“But,” Gerald stammered, “what about our relief efforts? Without us, all those people out there aren’t going to make it.”
“No one is forcing them to stay in their beds,” Priestess An’Sol snarled indignantly.
“But Soeck makes no distinction between those in need for their own fault, and those in need because of the fault of others, he only sees need and fills it,” Gerald recited. “Thirteenth Binding, Seventh Stanza.”
“Ugh, I’m afraid the young initiate knows his scriptures well,” Father O’Theen grumbled. “Better than he should, frankly. Nevertheless, the decision has already been made. This mission will close at the end of the month.”
Chapter Two
When Earth joined the Alliance there was an immediate flood of scientists and archaeologists that descended upon it to learn everything there was to know.
Turns out, it only took them about four months. A good deep quantum scan of the entire planet revealed everything from the lost city of Atlantis, to Jimmy Hoffa’s grave underneath Yankee stadium, a butt-load of dinosaur bon
es, and even a few surprises, like Hitler’s clone living happily beneath the White House.
Once that was done Earth’s short archaeological history was dumped into Central Core, a few Earth questions were added into the hypernet game shows, universities began offering a semester of human studies as part of their liberal arts programs, and the scientific community moved onto the next big thing.
-A Tourists Guide to Earth, 2nd edition, page 32, Valium Press
If one were to open it up, it would look like a giant geode. A cavernous structure filled with beautiful white crystals. Glowing mists and specters of light played along the surfaces like ripples in a clear pool.
Of course, opening it up would require the somewhat difficult task of lifting up the continent that sat on top of it and screwing off the planetary core like a mason jar. Generations of engineers went by without ever truly probing its depths. It was the entire core of Central, the capital of the Alliance. Dynasties and empires had risen and fallen, but this had remained, each new regime utilizing its selfless services for their own ends. To the Old Confederacy it was known as The Medium, during the Age of Ragnarok it was The Judge. The Alliance called it Central Core, but in truth it would have preferred to be called something a little less stuffy. If anyone ever bothered to ask it, it would have liked a nice simple name like Tim, but no one ever asked it, so it kept that opinion to itself.
At the center of thousands of miles of crystal and energy, something happened. A hairline crack appeared along the base of one of the smaller shards. Slowly it grew across the luminous dagger, until it snapped off and fell over, letting off a wisp of black smoke.
* * *
“Mom, I’m home,” Gerald announced as he poked his head in, carrying an empty stockpot. The door swung inward, then snapped off at the hinges, collapsing loudly to the floor.
“Don’t worry, I’ll fix that,” he promised as he set down the pot and examined his robes. “Today was a good day,” he boasted. “I managed to limit myself to a mere two stains, coffee tossed by Ms. Donaldson and a thrown peach from a passing motorist... oh, and I got attacked by a raccoon.”
Gerald stopped when he noticed something strange. Some of the drawers and cupboards were not as he had left them, bits of contents strewn about as if in haste. The pile of mail on the scratched-up dining room table had been rummaged through. No sounds of synthetic combat came from upstairs.
“Mom?” he said, nearly shouting this time as he looked about. He could feel his hands growing cold and clammy as he forced himself to step forward into the family room.
“MOM!” he called out one last time, his voice cracking as he reached for the bent scented candle holder on the coffee table.
There was a sharp crack from behind and he jumped. Raising up the improvised weapon, he held it over his head.
“What are you doing, Geri?” his mother asked as she stood there in his bedroom doorway. “You gonna bean me with pumpkin spice?”
“Oh, you’re all right,” he said, relieved, lowering his arms.
“Better than all right,” she giggled, clapping her hands. Her face was filthy and crusted with grime. “I feel better than I have in eighteen years.” At his feet she dropped a worn suitcase, a bit of torn underwear poking out from one side.
“You always say ‘happy birthday’ in the most creative ways,” he said, setting down the candle holder. Something occurred to him and he looked about. “You’re not wearing your helmet. Who’s playing your character?”
“Oh, I gave one of my friends the passwords, he’s got her on auto-follow for me until my instance cooldown is over,” she gushed as she waddled over to the dinner table.
“That’s really dangerous, mom, you shouldn’t give anyone your security codes,” he warned, examining the bulging suitcase.
“Oh, it doesn’t matter. The way I feel right now I could reroll a new class tomorrow from scratch.”
Gerald bit his lip and scratched his ear as he looked around furtively. “Am I being kicked out?”
“Even better,” she sang, shoving something into his hand.
“Well, gee, what could be better than being tossed out on the street the day I turn eighteen?” he wondered aloud as he held up the clear tablet of plastic. Illuminated letters rolled across it in various languages.
“It came special delivery about an hour ago,” she explained. “It finally happened.”
“What happened?” he asked, scrolling through various photos of smiling alien students in smart looking uniforms.
“My chance at freedom,” she said, raising her flabby arms up triumphantly. “No more babysitting for me. I’m gonna be a free woman again. You’ve been awarded a full-ride scholarship to Central Exeter Academy.”
Gerald furrowed his brow. “Mom, you shouldn’t fall in for scams. This is why I told you to let me sort the mail from now on.”
“It’s not a scam,” she insisted, licking her dry lips.
“Yeah, like the Akturian Prince thing?”
“This is different, I already called in and confirmed it.”
“It can’t be real,” he said, rotating the tablet suspiciously in his grip, as pictures of pristine campus and polished marble buildings streamed across. “Central Exeter is like, one of those law schools the kids of senators and royalty go to. They don’t give out scholarships and even if they did, they wouldn’t give one to someone like me. I never even finished grade school.”
Gerald was cut off by two grimy hands digging into the skin of his forearm. “Don’t ruin this for me, boy,” she warned, tightening her grip. “Do you know how many repair bills I have to pay every month thanks to you?”
“Of course I know, I’m the one who pays them.”
The tablet shorted out in his hand and went dark, releasing a little puff of smoke.
“Even if I wanted to, it’s a terrible idea,” he defended, tossing the broken tablet onto the couch. “You put me on a star-cruiser and we’ll crash right into a star or something.”
“One can only hope,” she grumbled.
“What’s that?”
“Nothing.”
Gerald sat down on the legless couch, the sproing of a snapping spring coming from within. He sat there quietly for several moments, pulling anxiously at the prayer beads around his neck. His mother’s expression softened and she sat down next to him.
“Look, Muffin, if it makes it easier, don’t do this for yourself, do it for us.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Us?”
She nodded and placed her head on his shoulder as if she were a little kid. “I had a chance to read the whole thing. It includes transport costs, living expenses, clothes, books, everything. You even get discretionary funds. Fun money to use in the evenings however you want.”
“Really?”
“Mmm hmm, you could give it to me.”
“I knew it,” he said, leaning forward. “All you want out of this is more money to spend on that stupid game.”
Her mouth opened up as if she had just been slapped. “It’s not stupid. It’s True Life. This... this all around us,” she said, pointing about to the decaying room. “THIS is the stupid. If real life is a game, then it is a crappy game, and I refuse to play it.”
Her helmet resting of the torn armchair chimed and she walked over and put it on.
“Hey guys, it’s Shido,” Mary said, snapping on the chin-strap. “No, he’s still here.... I know, right? Anyway, I want to talk to you guys about starting our own Guild. See, I don’t think Faulks realizes what he has done by...”
Gerald closed his eyes and tuned it out. Being angry or sad would change nothing, so he recited the seventh scroll to himself instead.
He had read about the other worlds in the Alliance, of course, at least until the local library closed down a few years back. But to someone who had never traveled outside of Utah, they felt terrifyingly far away. Every time he thought about the crowded cities of the core planets, just the very thought of something that large just about scared him
to death.
The sun was setting in the west, melting down over the tips of the mountains like a pat of butter. It bathed the room in the amber glow of twilight. He thought about all those that the light touched. Thousands of people scattered throughout the valley, who, come the end of the month, would have no one to care for them. He decided that his fear would not control him.
“How much?” he asked, opening his eyes.
“Wha?” she asked, tipping up her visor.
“How much is the discretionary fund?”
She grinned, revealing a mouth full of brown teeth. “A thousand credits a day.”
His eyes grew like saucers. “You’re kidding? That’s more than we make in a...”
“I know,” she giggled.
He paused for a moment and made his decision. “I’ll do it.”
* * *
The doors to the Temple of Soeck flew open, one of the handles falling off.
“I’ll do it,” Gerald announced to the echoey chamber. Attendees and worshippers scattered at the sight of him.
“Good evening, my siblings,” he called happily after them as they ducked into the ante-chambers.
“I thought we told you not to come during worship hours,” Priestess An Sol said with a flick of her long lizard-like tongue.
“I know, I’m sorry, but I’m here because we don’t have to close the mission.”
“Why, are you leaving?” Priest Ty’Kall snickered as he packed scrolls and hymnbooks into crates.
“Yes.”
Father O’Theen raised his weary head from where he sat at the base of the statue of Soeck. “Oh... really?”
“Yes, I’ve been offered an academic scholarship offworld, and I’m donating the balance to support the relief efforts here.”
Priestess An’Sol crossed her arms. “You mean, you’re going to become our patron?”
Gerald nodded. “A thousand credits a day. It’s it great?”
Priest Ty’Kall clucked his tongue. “With that much we could feed the whole valley and then some. Maybe even start a second...”
Father O’Theen raised his thick leathery hand. “What about your scripture studies?”
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