The Obsidian Blade

by Pete Hautman

  By the time he had circled the room a dozen times, the corpse had completely disappeared and the machines were following Tucker en masse. He could no longer avoid them by moving every few moments. Each step he took produced an immediate response; the tiny bumps in the floor came and went within seconds. He figured he could keep moving for a few hours, but he couldn’t walk in circles forever. Did the machines care that he was alive? Did they know?

  He stopped and watched the machines form around his feet. Squatting, he pressed his palm to the floor. Several of the tiny robots trundled over. He forced himself to leave his hand there long enough for the robots to nip into his flesh. It felt like being poked by a dozen pins at once. Tucker jerked his hand up, stomped the rest of the robots off his feet, and continued to walk. Maybe by sampling his flesh, the robots would realize that he was alive.

  Moments later, his offering of flesh seemed to have an effect, but not the one he had hoped for. The entire surface of the floor changed texture, becoming sandpaper-rough as thousands of machines formed on the surface. Each of them emitted a tiny puff of smoke. The hazy, vaporous layer rose up from the floor, becoming fainter as it climbed up his robe. By the time the haze reached his chest he could feel himself growing dizzy. Moments later his knees buckled and, with his last glimmer of consciousness, he sank to the floor.

  TUCKER OPENED HIS EYES. HE RECOGNIZED THE CEILing, or rather its color: the most neutral beige imaginable. He was lying on his back on what felt like a thin mattress. A low mutter came from his right; he turned his head. A bug-eyed alien wearing gray coveralls stood a few feet away. It reached out a gloved hand and touched his abdomen. Tucker felt a prickle of fear, but the fear faded as quickly as it had come, driven off by a soothing, numbing wave of comfort radiating out from his belly.

  “Point four cc tramophine,” said the creature.

  Tucker realized that he was looking at a human being — a woman, by the sound of her voice — wearing cups of metallic mesh over her eyes. Her silver hair was cropped close to her scalp, and several black, jewel-tipped wires sprouted from her ears like antennae.

  “Anxiety levels falling. One point two,” she said. Her accent was weird, but he could understand her. He could see her eyes through the mesh. She was not looking at him; her eyes were focused on something he could not see. Tiny lights flickered across her irises. He felt weirdly peaceful and calm.

  “Level zero point five,” the woman said.

  “Where am I?” Tucker asked.

  “Mayo One Fourteen.”

  He wasn’t sure if that was an answer to his question — she still wasn’t looking at him.

  “Are you a Medicant?”

  She did not answer his question.

  “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “Exit Tech Severs two nine four.”

  “That’s your name?”

  She turned to face Tucker. “Yes.”

  “Are you going to make me into a work zombie?” he asked.

  Exit Tech Severs frowned slightly and returned her attention to the lights dancing on her eyes. “Injuries level one. Minor contusions, dehydration, anxiety level zero point four seven.”

  Tucker sat up. He was wearing only a pair of filmy shorts and the same blue foot coverings, but this time there was no tube affixed to his abdomen. A man with antennae sprouting from his ears, but no eye cups, was standing beside the open doorway. In his right hand was a device about the size of a cell phone, which he held pointed at Tucker.

  “Can I have my clothes?”

  Exit Tech Severs was speaking rapidly, but not to Tucker, or to the guard. “Internal functions normal, mentation twentieth-century neurotypical, immune system ninety-nine point seven percent operative; patient appears alert . . .” She cocked her head and appeared to be listening to something. After a moment, she turned toward Tucker and said, “Certain of your functions have been enhanced.”

  “Are you talking to me?” he asked.

  “We have harvested your appendix.”

  “You took out my appendix?”

  “We harvested its contents. The appendix is a rich source for atavistic bacteria. You should suffer no noticeable effects. Is this acceptable?”

  “What if it’s not?”

  “The bacteria will be reintroduced to your abdominal cavity.”

  “Oh. No, thanks. How come you’re even talking to me? Last time I was here, nobody told me anything.”

  Exit Tech Severs was staring into space again, absorbing information from her eye cups. “You have been here before,” she said after a few seconds.

  “I was in a place just like this. Only the people had colored buttons on their chests and these metal things on their heads. With lights on them.”

  “That technology is obsolete.”

  “Are you a Klaatu?”

  “Klaatu are discorporeal.”

  “You mean they’re ghosts,” Tucker said.

  Exit Tech Severs hesitated before replying. “Yes.”

  “What was that place I was in? With the dead guy.”

  “The portal that delivered you here is one of several our techs have captured and adapted.”

  “What do you mean, ‘adapted’?”

  “The portals have been acquired from various locations and moved here.” She opened a compartment under his bed and handed him his coveralls and the robe his father had given him. “Clothe yourself and come with me.”

  Tucker pulled on the coveralls but left the robe behind. He followed Exit Tech Severs out of the room into the hallway. The guard stayed close behind.

  “Where are we going?” he asked.

  “You are being discharged,” she said.

  The floor shuddered. An instant later came a sound like muted thunder. The guard went rigid.

  “What was that?” Tucker asked.

  Exit Tech Severs’s lips were moving, but she was making no sound.

  “Was that thunder?” Tucker asked.

  “No. Come with me.” They followed the hallway to an elevator and ascended. As before, the elevator opened onto a rooftop. It looked like the same roof they had taken him to the first time, but instead of one disko, there were five of them, trapped within a framework of metallic girders and cables.

  Beyond the rooftop, the city spread in all directions, as far as he could see. A plume of smoke was rising from a nearby structure. Tucker started toward the edge of the roof to get a better look, but the guard grabbed him by the arm.

  An explosive sound hammered Tucker’s ears; the building shifted violently. Exit Tech Severs lurched against him and the guard, and the three of them fell to their knees. One of Exit Tech Severs’s eye cups popped off and skittered across the rooftop. Her eye was blue. An instant later they heard several more explosions. The hum from the captured diskos seemed to get louder.

  “What’s going on?” Tucker asked.

  Exit Tech Severs consulted her remaining eye cup. “This unit is under attack.”

  “By who?”

  “Lambs,” said Exit Tech Severs.

  “Plague,” muttered the guard.

  “What plague?”

  “There is no plague,” said Exit Tech Severs. “The Lambs’ religious frenzy precludes all rational thought. You must go now.”

  The guard hoisted Tucker to his feet and pushed him toward the leftmost disko.

  “Where does it go?” Tucker asked Exit Tech Severs.

  “I do not have that information.”

  “What information do you have?”

  “Portal two three seven emanates particles in accord with certain aspects of your genetics. You are being returned to your proximate point of origin.”

  Tucker considered the previous places he had been. The chances that he would end up someplace he didn’t want to revisit were daunting. “What if I refuse to go?”

  Exit Tech Severs fixed him with her cupless eye and tipped her head toward the guard. “The facilitator will enforce your departure.”

  Another explosion shook
the building.

  Tucker took a deep breath and stepped into the disko.

  Iyl Rayn, seeing her carefully placed diskos being captured, modified, and sometimes consumed, decided to take action.

  Cloned avatars were not unknown to the Klaatu — they had long been used to facilitate communication with corporeals and to perform other tasks requiring the manipulation of matter. Although actual memories could not be projected into a clone, it was a simple matter for the Boggsians to create a blank using DNA obtained from each individual Klaatu prior to his or her discorporation. This blank clone would be grown to adulthood in a virtual-reality crèche, where it would be imbued with such attitudes, beliefs, ethics, and information deemed suitable by its Klaatu originator. Multiple avatars were possible, though the practice was frowned upon by the Cluster.

  Iyl Rayn, undeterred by the objections of her peers, ordered a trio of cloned bodies from the same Boggsian technicians who had constructed her diskos. She then set about designing an education for each of her avatars, with special attention given to those qualities she felt she had lacked during her own flesh-and-blood existence.

  — E3

  KOSH FEYE POPPED OPEN ANOTHER CAN OF BEER, walked unsteadily out of his workshop, swung one leg over the seat of his Harley, made himself comfortable, and took a sip.

  Probably not a good idea to go for a ride, he told himself. Nine beers was nine too many.

  He took a bleary look around at his little slice of heaven.

  Garden needed weeding.

  Barn door half off its hinges.

  Adrian’s Chevy parked all kittywampus, with the windows open.

  No Tucker.

  Kosh took another swig of beer. He couldn’t believe that he missed having that kid around. He thought about Adrian. His brother had asked him to do one thing in fifteen years — take care of the kid for a few weeks — and Kosh had failed. He thought about the day Tucker had wrecked the dirt bike. He’d been furious, but at the same time, he’d been seeing himself at that age, just as boneheaded and suicidal. No, not suicidal, just not thinking that he could ever die. And now Tucker was gone, maybe dead.

  His thoughts returned to Hopewell. The girl, Lahlia, jumping into that thing on the roof. He had no doubt that Tucker had preceded her. What had they been thinking? He should have gone after them. He had tried. He really had. But he had hesitated too long. The disk had disappeared.

  Kosh had stayed in Hopewell for two weeks, waiting. The Beckers, of course, searched everywhere for Lahlia. Kosh endured several interrogations from the Hopewell County Sheriff. He did not tell the police that he had seen the girl disappear into a magic disk — that would have landed him in another institution. Ronnie Becker also fell under suspicion, but with no evidence against either of them, the police turned their attention to searching the fields and woods with an army of volunteers, and investigating rumors of suspicious strangers.

  They found nothing. The girl — and Tucker — had simply disappeared.

  The disk never returned. After another week, Kosh closed up the house and drove home to Wisconsin. And began to drink.

  It wasn’t helping.

  Kosh leaned back on his bike and looked up at the roof of the barn. He squeezed his eyes closed, then looked again.

  “Son-of-a . . .” It was back. He fell off the bike but managed not to spill his beer.

  One minute later he was dragging his extension ladder over to the barn. The ladder was tall enough to bypass the missing rungs. Kosh climbed, still holding his beer, and soon found himself standing shakily on top of the roof, glaring at the pulsing disk.

  He let out a string of curses. The disk absorbed his words without comment. He took another gulp of beer and wiped his mouth with his leather sleeve. Part of him wanted to jump into the disk — if only to punish himself for not going after Tucker and the girl when he’d had the chance. But what then? Would he arrive on top of the World Trade Center again? He could bring his own ladder. He might find Tucker there. He might be able to bring him back. . . .

  A tendril of black smoke snaked out from the disk. Kosh inhaled through his nose. The unmistakable tang of burning jet fuel. Fire and brimstone. Were the towers already in flames? If so, the disk might deliver him to a time after the towers collapsed. He would fall a thousand feet onto a pile of smoking rubble. And even if he did find Tucker again, would it be the same Tucker? Did the disk in Hopewell also lead to the Twin Towers?

  The disk’s surface swirled into a pattern he had not seen before, a sort of stuttering, grainy spiral, then flashed bright green. A small, slim figure leaped from the disk and landed lightly upon the roof.

  It was a girl, maybe seventeen or eighteen years old, with long yellow hair tied back and dark eyes hard as stone. She wore a sleeveless black tunic with a metallic sheen to it, black leggings, and thick-soled black boots.

  “Hello, Kosh,” she said, looking from his unshaven face to the can of beer dangling from his fingers.

  “Do I know you?” said Kosh.

  “You don’t remember me?” She half smiled.

  Kosh squinted, trying to bring her into better focus. A fine white scar, beginning at the corner of her left eye, scrolled down her cheek to her jaw. It actually looked good on her.

  He said, “Lahlia?”

  “I am Lah Lia no longer. I am the Yar Lia. You can call me Lia.”

  “You’re old. I mean, older ’n you was.”

  She regarded him with a look of disappointment.

  “You’re drunk,” she said.

  Kosh nodded; there was no point in denying it.

  “How long will it take for you to get sober?”

  Kosh took the question literally. “Four or five hours,” he said. “Depending how sober you want me. Not that I see much point in it.” He gestured with his beer to include both the girl and the disk. “This all makes way more sense when I’m wasted.”

  She took the can of beer from him, sniffed it, made a face, and dropped it.

  “Hey!” Kosh said.

  The can rolled down the roof, leaving behind a trail of foam, and disappeared over the edge. Kosh heard a faint clank as the can landed on something metallic — probably his bike.

  “Tucker is in trouble,” she said.

  “Tucker?” A surge of hope cut through his alcoholic haze. “He’s okay?”

  “No. He needs us.”

  “Us?”

  “Yes. Do you think you can climb down off this roof without killing yourself?”

  “I have no idea,” Kosh said honestly.

  She rolled her eyes. “Come on.” She held out her hand. “Let’s get you sobered up.”

  Kosh began to tilt to the left. She grabbed his arm to steady him. He tried to pull his arm free, but the girl’s grip was uncommonly strong. Kosh looked over her head at the disk, and the old fear came crashing back.

  “Do I have to go in that thing again?”

  “We do not need a Gate to get where we’re going,” said the Yar Lia. “We can take your bike.”

  TUCKER LANDED ON HIS FEET. I’M GETTING GOOD AT this, he thought, looking around. He was on yet another roof. The disko floated several feet above his head. The roof was flat, large, covered with tiny gray pebbles pressed into soft asphalt, and surrounded by a knee-high wall. Tucker approached the wall and looked down onto a street four stories below. He knew at once that he was looking at the busy main street of a small town. Cars were angle-parked, facing into the crowded sidewalks. There was some sort of festival happening. Several vendor carts along the sidewalks were selling minidonuts, hot dogs, and other carnival foods. Except for the cars and people and all the vendors, it looked a lot like Hopewell. In fact — was that Krause Hardware across the street? And, two doors down, the Pigeon Drop Inn.

  Hopewell!

  Tucker’s chest swelled, and tears filled his eyes. He knew exactly where he was — on the roof of Hopewell House, the old, boarded-up hotel. No sign of murderous priests, scary pyramids, or frozen-faced Medicants. This
was his Hopewell. He looked back at the disko that had delivered him. Was it the same disko that had delivered Lahlia to Hopewell? How many diskos were there in Hopewell?

  Tucker tried to pick out a familiar face, but the crowd below was made up of strangers who didn’t have that small-town look. Some were too well dressed, like the portly man wearing a suit and eating a hot dog, and the woman next to him in high heels and a white dress. Others looked like tourists, in jeans, colorful shirts, clean athletic shoes, and sunglasses. Many had binoculars or cameras hanging around their necks. A lot of the people looked Hispanic. That wasn’t unusual — a lot of seasonal workers showed up in Hopewell for the harvest. Several young people wearing yellow T-shirts were moving about in small groups.

  He spotted old Emil Janky outside his barbershop, shooing away a cluster of yellow-shirted teens who were blocking his doorway. That was reassuring — for a few seconds, he had feared the entire population of Hopewell had been replaced by strangers. Leaning out over the parapet, Tucker looked toward his father’s church, but his view was obstructed by a large banner strung across Main Street:

  Pigeon Daze? Tucker could make no sense of that — unless he’d gone back to when Lorna Gingrass had killed those two passenger pigeons. . . . But no, the cars were all later models. This had to be about the same time he had left. Except, according to the banner, it was now September.

  He found a large trapdoor on the southeast corner of the roof, pulled it open, climbed down a steel staircase, pushed through another doorway to enter the hotel’s fourth floor, and stared in astonishment.

  The last time he had been in Hopewell House — he and the Krause brothers had sneaked in one day — it had been home only to barn swallows, paper wasps, bats, and dust. What he saw now was a pristine hallway with fresh paint and new carpeting, illuminated by a row of ornate wall sconces. An enormous mirror hung at the end of the hallway. Tucker approached it slowly, gawking at his new self: a lanky young man with a soft, patchy beard, a longer chin than he remembered, and floppy hair hanging nearly to his shoulders. His gray coveralls made him look like a janitor, or an escaped prisoner — except for the blue plastic boots. Moments earlier he had been eager to run out onto the street and find a familiar face, but now he wondered if anybody would recognize him. And even if they did, there would be questions. He was not ready for questions. He needed time to think. And new clothes. A barrage of problems tumbled through his head: he had no money, he didn’t even live in Hopewell anymore, he still had no idea where his mother had gone, and his father . . . Was his dad even alive? The only way to find out would be to somehow return to the tomb.