Kharmic Rebound

by Yeager, Aaron

  “Thank you,” she said, looking up with beautiful hooded eyelids.

  Zurra boiled a little. “Hey, I want to hold his hand too,” she said, grabbing his other hand.

  “Careful, that arm is in a cast,” Gerald grunted.

  “Hey, what about me?” Ilrica asked, her tail flicking about. “I want to hold his hand too. Do I have to settle for a foot?”

  “Stop it, I’ll trip,” Gerald warned as Ilrica tried to slip off his shoe.

  “Perhaps we should graft on a third arm for him while we are at the hospital,” Trahzi suggested.

  “You will do no such thing!”

  “Fine, I’ll ride on his back then,” Ilrica said, jumping onto his shoulders.

  Gerald grunted.

  “Ooh, me too,” Zurra said, slithering up on top like a snake.

  Gerald groaned.

  “Woo hoo,” this is fun up here,” Zurra cheered, perching atop Ilrica’s head.

  Trahzi touched her chin. “I have never tried that before. I wish to try it as well.”

  “Please don’t,” Gerald wheezed.

  Trahzi disappeared in a flash of fire, then reappeared on his back with the others.

  “My... spine... is... going... to... snap!”

  They finally settled on taking turns. Half way through Zurra’s turn, they rounded the corner in front of the hospital, and Gerald saw the most horrible thing he had ever seen.

  The assassin was sitting in a hover chair, having been wheeled out to the sidewalk in front of the hospital and left there to sit in the sun. She couldn’t move. The wind had already whipped off one of her blankets. It lay there crumpled up next to her chair as pedestrians walked around her.

  Her lavender eyes were scared.

  “Hey, just what is going on here?” Gerald asked, bursting through the front doors.

  The receptionist peeked out over her desk. “What now?”

  “Why is that young girl sitting out there by herself?”

  “She doesn’t have insurance, she’s not an alliance citizen. Hospital policy doesn’t allow us to keep her once her condition has stabilized.”

  “How can you be so cruel?”

  “She’s healthy enough to be checked out.”

  “She’s catatonic! What is she supposed to do out there? She can’t feed herself. She can’t even walk.”

  “We’ve posted notices all throughout Central Core. If she has any family, they are welcome to come pick her up.”

  “So, this is how we treat people in the Alliance? We leave them out in the street to starve?”

  The receptionist sighed. “Resources are limited. If we gave everyone as much medicine and care as we possibly could, the Alliance would go bankrupt in a day. So, we make determinations of who will receive care based on their need and value to society.”

  “That is so heartless.”

  The receptionist slammed her palms down. “I know it is, but that is how socialism works. If there was infinite money we could take care of everybody, but we can’t, so we take care of who we can when we can, even if some fall through the cracks. You think I like it? My own mother had to wait eight cycles just to get simple throat surgery.”

  Gerald turned around indignantly and walked out the door. “You say you hate it, but you don’t do anything about it.”

  Gerald unlocked the hover chair and extended the handles as best he could with his good hand.

  “What are you doing?” the receptionist called out from inside.

  “I’m doing something about it!”

  Dozens of heads poked out the windows and doorways to watch as Gerald began wheeling the assassin up the street. The girls followed behind him, not sure what to think.

  * * *

  The assassin looked around, her eyes confused, as her chair was positioned in the corner of Gerald’s room back in the palace. Gerald used a special tool called a kurn, kind of like a mortar and pestle, to mash her food into a simple paste with his good hand. Singing softly to her, he held up the spoon and waited patiently until her eyes finally fixed on him. Then, once she had watched him take a couple of bites himself, he put half a spoonful in her mouth.

  It dribbled out over her chin, but he scooped it back in with the side of his spoon and then repeated the process. On his fifth try, the quiet singing, the example, and the taste of nutrition on her tongue finally kicked in, and her mouth moved, clumsily sucking down some of the food.

  “Good job,” Gerald praised, making his voice high and pleasant.

  “Interesting,” Trahzi observed as she watched. “So, it’s kind of like feeding a baby.”

  “Yes, very similar,” Gerald said, feeding the assassin another bite.

  “Geri’s an old pro at this kind of stuff,” Zurra boasted. “Back on Earth, Mr. Carmichael locked himself in his house and played True-Life until he only weighed seventy pounds. It was Geri here who nursed him back to health; he was the only one who could get him to eat.”

  “Do you guys realize how crazy this is?” Ilrica said, waving her hand in front of the assassin’s eyes to get a response. “She tried to kill all of us. Why are we taking care of her?”

  Gerald prepared another spoonful. “You know, Ilrica, if I was only kind to people who never tried to kill me, right now I wouldn’t have any friends at all.”

  Ilrica clucked her tongue. “Touché.”

  “Besides,” he continued, preparing another bite. “She’s all alone. She doesn’t have anyone in the whole universe to call her own. No one to care for her. In a way, she’s like the kids back at the orphanage.”

  Zurra seemed like she understood. “You saw someone in need and you moved to help them. Just like you did for me.” She wrapped her arms around him and hugged him deeply.

  “And for me,” Trahzi said, placing her hand on Gerald’s shoulder warmly.

  Gerald placed a hand on top of Trahzi’s. “Thanks for understanding, guys. I have to do this.”

  “Well, I’ll see you guys later,” Ilrica said, kicking herself off the table.

  “Where are going?”

  “Me? Oh, nothing. I’m just gonna go upgrade my attack barriers and add another layer of defenses to my crystronics.”

  “Any particular reason?”

  Ilrica pointed a finger at the assassin. “Because when you finish nursing that weapon back to health, it’s going to turn on us, and when it does, I want to be able to protect myself.”

  Ilrica flicked her tail and walked out. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  * * *

  Dust was kicked up in all directions in the dry field. The young girl lay there, her sunken golden eyes devoid of everything, even the will to live. Her dry blue skin cracked where it was pulled taught over her ribs. She was almost skeletal. Only a few clumps of pink hair clung to her cracked scalp.

  Lights danced around the field as something descended down from above. It was long like a spear, yet no one held it, nor had it been thrown. Lights like moons and stars played off of it, looking here and there as it slowly came to a rest. She wondered if this could be one of the alktyries, servants of Genshaw, come to bring her at last to join her sisters in the great halls above.

  As the spear came to a rest, she realized it was large, like a house, but made entirely out of metal. Its nose opened up like a beak, and a long metal tongue rolled out, with a man at the end. He ran over to the young girl and checked on her. Placing his ear to her mouth, he detected the faintest of breath. He picked her up, and for the first time in days, her eyes moved, finding his.

  He spoke to her in a strange tongue. It was not the language of the hill people, nor the people of the plains. It was so unlike anything she had ever heard before, it all mushed together into a kind of soothing groan. But the sympathy in his eyes she did understand, and she rested her head against his chest, and closed her eyes.

  * * *

  The young girl marveled at the room she was in. The walls were made of metal, so shiny they looked like still waters. How anyone cou
ld amass this much steel in one place seemed unbelievable to her. Her father had possessed only a single knife made of metal, and it had been passed down from his father, and he from his. She could still remember how much care her father took of that blade. She never tried to touch it, nor asked to, for everyone in the family knew that if it were to be damaged or lost, they would not have the money to replace it.

  The bed she lay on was softer than anything she had ever felt. The food she was given was warm, flavors unlike anything she had ever tasted. Truly this must be the realm of the gods. Truly this must be kamman, the barge that takes fallen warriors across the river salice into the halls of the dead.

  The young woman took comfort in this. Her fight was over. She had been found worthy by Genshaw. Finally, she would have to fight no more wars.

  The man who had rescued her came in and looked her over. Her skin was beginning to look healthy and blue again, fresh pink hair growing from her head. The sharp angles on her joints were disappearing as she regained her weight. He checked on some of the metal boxes on the wall. Strange sounds came from inside, and the young girl wondered what kind of creatures he kept inside to make such strange noises.

  He nodded in satisfaction, and sat beside her bed. His skin was not blue like hers. It was a light brown, as was his hair. She wondered if it was because he was made from clay. Some of the old stories talked about Genshaw forming servants with his hands from the silt of riverbanks. Surely this man must be one of them. She felt honored to be in his presence.

  “Hee’hidzin,” he said, pointing at himself, smiling warmly.

  Realizing he was telling her his name, she responded in kind.

  “Lyssandra.”

  * * *

  Lyssandra Bal opened her golden eyes as morning came. Her room was empty and featureless, save for a simple blanket that she lay upon, and one other thing.

  She sat up and knelt before a small holo-recorder. The playback button was worn down, almost to the nub. Straightening her hair, she pressed the button.

  The recorder spun to life, and the image of Hee’hidzin appeared before her. She looked up at him, her eyes full of complete devotion. As he stated the message she had watched every morning since the day of his death, she repeated the words along with him.

  “Lyssandra, my love. If you are viewing this message, it means that I died before we were able to destroy the Trahzi. They are learning faster than I expected. The questions they ask lead me to believe that they will soon betray us. I am accelerating research into unlocking the secrets of the Ooinaru Juu-san, but if they turn on us before it is ready, I fear we will not be able to realize our dream of a new world. A world where you and I can live together forever.”

  Lyssandra reached out to touch his cheek, but the image flickered and dissolved at her delicate touch.

  “But do not despair,” he continued. “The tyranny of the old ones will still come to an end, but you must be strong, and carry on without me. Ragnarok will respond to my soul, even after it finds a new vessel. Find my heir, follow him, serve him as you have served me, and bring him to Ragnarok to fulfill our destiny.”

  The image flickered away, and Lyssandra lowered her head obediently. “Death cannot keep us apart. I will find you again, my love, and I will serve you. I reswear this day that my life exists to obey you, and only you.”

  Making her way to the command deck, Lyssandra took some satisfaction in the way the crew fearfully snapped to work, redoubling their efforts upon seeing her. If she could not have their love, their fear would get the job done just as well.

  She stood and watched with satisfaction at their progress. The six rings were back in their place in the stone altar set at the center of the deck, the ancient arcane energies reaching out from the ship, calling out to Ragnarok like a beacon. There, before her in the darkness of space, a hole had been torn, and Ragnarok was emerging at last from the shadow realm to which it had been banished. Already it was taking form again as it was pulled out. It was slow, glacial even, but it was happening. Already the outer claws were firmly back in realspace, extending out like spider legs, weapons arrays so numerous they looked from this distance like fine insect hairs.

  It wouldn’t be long now. There was just one more thing she needed.

  She walked over to the intelligence desk, where Erusal was conversing with the officer there.

  “Your time is up,” she said, drawing her saber hungrily. “I asked for Gerald Dyson’s head or yours, and I will now have my head.”

  “General, there has been a new development,” Erusal said warily.

  “It can wait,” she said, lifting her blade up to strike.

  The intelligence officer went white as snow.

  “No, it can’t,” Erusal said, stepping between them. “We have found the heir.”

  “You what?”

  She resheathed her blade as the men brought up their findings, each of them aware that their own lives hung in the balance.

  “As you know, last month a rumor circulated that one of the gypsy caravans had happened upon a young man, and positively identified him as the reincarnation of the ArchTyrant. But we could never figure out which specific caravan spawned the rumor.”

  “Oracles are a tightly knit community,” the intelligence office said nervously, “and they rarely allow themselves to be...”

  “Get on with it,” Lyssandra said impatiently.

  Erusal chuckled. “Right. So, it turns out, that the following day, a member of the Assassin’s Guild was hired to kill a young man. Normally, this would be unremarkable, but this man was no noble, no member of the yakuza or any of the established crime families. He had no status worthy of such a high level hit. At least, according to my sources within the guild.”

  “So what?”

  “So, separately, these incidents meant nothing, until we overlapped them. It just so happens that this young man who was targeted visited an oracle on blank the day before his termination was purchased. So, I dug further. Going back through the records, his profile matched up perfectly. Given the standard gestation rates for his race, he was conceived the very day of the battle of Embers. The very moment the ArchTyrant was killed, in fact.”

  “A lot of people meet that criteria. We’ve been down this route before.”

  “Yes, but knowing who he was and where he was allowed me to track down the specific caravan that was on blank.”

  Erusal tapped a rune and a holographic projection of an oracle appeared before them. She was tied up, gagged, and afraid.

  Lyssandra stepped forward, her face alight. “You found the oracle that identified him.”

  “Yes, General, and she was most cooperative. She confirmed that the man she read and the man sentenced to death by the assassin’s guild are the very same person.”

  Lyssandra’s face darkened. “But that would mean he is already dead! You’ve wasted my time. Now, we’ll have to start all over again looking for his next incarnation!”

  She reached for her pistol, but Erusal stopped her. “No, General, the boy lives.”

  “What? How?”

  “The hit was called off before the assassin could get to him.”

  “Really?” she said, a smirk forming on her lips. “Good for us, bad for the old ones.”

  She stepped forward, more excited than any of them had ever seen her. She was as giddy as a schoolgirl, nearly jumping out of her skin.

  “Show him to me,” she said, biting her lip in anticipation. “Show me my master who I am to serve.”

  The two men looked at each other warily.

  “What are you waiting for? Show me.”

  “General, I...”

  “SHOW ME! I’ve waited a lifetime for this. Let me see my beloved’s new face!”

  Erusal sighed and tapped the rune. A window appeared with the image of Gerald Dyson.

  “Wha... what is this?” Lyssandra asked, backing up. “This is a joke, right?”

  Erusal shook his head. “No, General, there can be no d
oubt. The reincarnation of the ArchTyrant, is the human Gerald Dyson.”

  Lyssandra grabbed her head. She looked like she was about to pop. “It can’t be... It just can’t be.” She fell to her knees, her eyes jittering wildly.

  “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  “So, according to multiverse theory, when you decided to have orange juice this morning, a new universe was created where you had grape juice instead?”

  “Yes, that is the theory.”

  “But decisions don’t work that way. They aren’t binary. In reality, you could have had slightly more juice, or slightly less juice. You could have sipped a little bit more or gulped a little bit less, you could have drank a little more slowly or a little more quickly, you could have had the glass set down in one place or slightly to the side. So are you telling me, that this morning, an infinite number of universes were created to cover all the possible outcomes of you drinking juice, down to one molecule more or less juice, and down to one atom to the left or to the right of the glass, and down to the planck shorter or longer duration?”

  “I suppose.”

  “So, I would ask you, mortal. What makes you so blasted important that you would think that we gods would go and create an infinite number of new universes based solely on what you had for breakfast this morning?”

  “Um...”

  -Excerpt of interview between Stephen Hawking and Anessa, Goddess of the Eastern Spiral

  Gerald nearly collapsed as the door slid open to his room. Ilrica and Trahzi followed him in, looking no better themselves.

  “Hi, guys!” Zurra greeted from where she sat next to the assassin’s bed, a collection of holo-dramas playing in windows around her. “I took good care of her while you were gone. Praise me. Praise me. Praise me.”

  “Thank you for watching boy bands and reading comic books,” Gerald said as leaned against the wall.

  Zurra puffed out her cheeks. “Hey! They’re not comic books, they’re graphic novels.”