The Book of Apex: Volume 2 of Apex Magazine

by Jason Sizemore

  “Let’s strap you in,” said Stella.

  Whoopee!

  It always surprised her how warn Stella’s hands were. Kerri looked forward to the slight shock, the mass of long, dark hair bent over the tubes and dials that was so much like hers—dark like her daughter’s might have been. Kerri closed her eyes and felt her essence flow out of those tubes like silken ribbons. It was Patsy Cline who kept her here, not Stella, not this android who might-have-sort-of-not-really resembled the daughter Kerri almost-maybe-never had. A daughter who played prison warden and stuck her like a pincushion and… She would not think about what perversions The Bastard did to Stella beyond that door at the top of those stairs.

  That door at the top of the stairs squealed open. Kerri remembered the last time The Bastard had come to visit, so long ago; she still fell to pieces every time she saw him. Now, after all this time, he wanted to see how she liked her little gift. He wanted her to thank him.

  Thirty-five thousand angels screamed in the hinges and cried in his shadow as he walked down, heavy step by heavy step. Kerri kept her eyes closed. She imagined seven chins, sausage fingers, a gluttonous stomach rolling over his waistband to hide his severely inadequate manhood. She saw the blackness inside him, the inkblots in his eyes that gave proof to the Elder God who had eaten his pirate soul. His cologne triggered her gag reflex. Stella squeezed her hand. Whoopee.

  Ribbons, not blood. Red silk. A poor man’s roses. A ball gown and a crown on her head; all ways about here belonged to her, and off with his head. Pins and needles. The straps bit into her thighs. She had lost enough weight for Stella to tighten them a notch.

  “Hello, wife,” said the voice that made her wish she had electrocuted herself a long time ago. Nanomeds be damned. Would that the cancer had taken her. “How’s my golden blood today?”

  Kerri opened her eyes and denied the angel she saw: wheat-blond hair, eyes as blue as the sky was, once. That flat stomach that did not have her spear thrust through it mocked her, teased her, tortured her. She wished she could take her own share of his worthless, mortal blood and watch it spread out on the floor, seep around the bolts and through the cracks, down into the worthless soil of this wretched world that the universe had balled up and tossed in the waste bin. The Bastard and this planet deserved each other. Why are you here? Her head-voice cried. Why are you still alive? Why haven’t you crossed the wrong person or been hit by a meteor? Why haven’t you dropped dead from the evil inside you? Why hasn’t the earth opened up and swallowed you piece by dark piece? Stella looked sad. The bunker trembled as Kerri’s heart cried gold coins into her husband’s leather pockets. Aftershock. Or premonition. Or both. Nanomeds were magical things. They made the recipient slightly more than human…and any enterprising harvester slightly less so.

  His eyes had cried for her once, one solitary tear, the first day he’d strapped her into that chair, the first time—she had thought—he’d sold his soul to the devil, and the first time he’d sold her superblood on the black market to those vampires. He had made her believe it was her idea, made her think that this selfless gesture was for him, for their future, made her believe he’d loved her even half as much as she’d loved him. He had played her from the beginning, even before he’d bent down on one knee and asked her the question she would always regret answering. He was all lies. He was a mosaic, made up of exotic, multicolored pieces of lies.

  But that tear haunted her, that tear shed from those eyes that had looked at her in a moment of sadness. It was easier for her to live this unlife, to survive this pain, if she believed he was truly evil, that he had never had a soul, that he had never loved her. He wasn’t a good enough actor to pull off actual emotion. What then, what was that damned tear?

  “Have you ever been lonely? Have you ever been blue?” Kerri sang aloud, more for Stella than for herself this time. She wished her heart really was broken beyond repair and not fertile ground for more torture. Her mind continued its escape. Ribbons, not blood, poured out of her. Garters, not straps around her thighs. The toughest decision she’d make today would be which shoes to wear. Then again, not really. Red shoes went with everything.

  And then the pain stopped. The blood stopped flowing. The straps fell away, along with her fantasies, and she was naked before him. “Surprise,” he said. “Go, if you want to go. I wonder which of us will be the happier.”

  This time Kerri stopped herself from laughing. Always the head games with him. Always the gifts, absolving him of all wrong-doing. Even the way he had phrased the sentence—if she left, it wouldn’t be his fault. Nothing was ever his fault. And now he gave her freedom? From underground cage to doomed planet. How magnanimous of him. Five years, blissful and blameless.

  Kerri’s head pounded. The glasses on the table shook as another contraction seized the planet sick with ague and ready to spew forth her boiling crimson insides. She could feel the nanos already replenishing the bits of her that she’d lost. She could feel the earth around her and the pressurized chaos it yearned to release. She could feel Stella beside her, feel Stella’s love for The Bastard. But AIs couldn’t love, so the love Kerri must have been feeling was her own. It made her want to vomit. She’d been so wrong, for so long.

  The Bastard pulled the shunt from her. He collected the tubing, leaving Kerri to awkwardly bandage the hole in her numb arm with a stray scrap of rag. Not that she needed it; the nanos would heal that too, soon enough. “Stella and I are leaving,” he said. “It’s not safe here. Roger Garrison’s offered us a place on his ship.”

  It had never been safe on this planet. The Bastard would only be leaving if he had gotten a better offer somewhere else, on someone else’s dime. Kerri looked at the blood bag Stella held, not even half full.

  “Oh, don’t worry,” he said, as if she would. “I’ve been injecting Stella with your blood all this time; the nanos have finally taken hold and started to replicate. I’ll still have something to fall back on.”

  Worry? Why would she let herself worry? The feelings she shared with Stella suddenly made sense. Kerri braced herself on the IV pole and stood shakily before him. His height made her feel small. He didn’t deserve a goodbye. He didn’t deserve to hear her speak. He didn’t deserve to watch her walk away. But he did deserve something.

  Kerri slid the IV pole over to Stella—she didn’t even have to use her head-voice. The nanos read Kerri’s thoughts and transmitted them to the AI receptacle now pumping with her blood, her heart, her desires. With all the strength Kerri didn’t have, Stella took the pole, broke it in half, and stabbed The Bastard in the heart.

  Whoopee.

  My blood, my daughter. You fool. He slid to the floor. She felt taller. Now you know what heartache is. She waited for the light in the blackness of his eyes to dim, just to be sure.

  Kerri made her way up the stairs without a backward glance; Stella followed. Upstairs, she changed into some of Stella’s clothes and packed a bag. She did not vomit in the drawers of Stella’s extensive lingerie. She was proud of herself for that.

  It was dark outside, and the air smelled like brimstone. She waited until they had walked at least half a mile before she sent her message to the wind. The nanos released the magnetic field she had been using to keep the bunker in one piece. With a rush the earth shivered again and imploded, crushing the bunker like a tin can, cleansing the evil that had been done there with elemental fire, and burying whatever love she’d once known in a coffin of black glass.

  Now that she didn’t have to hold that anymore, power flooded through her. The Bastard had never known her true potential, and before now Kerri had been too afraid to unleash it. He had only known the submissive wimp she’d been. He would never meet the woman she’d become. She was proud of that.

  But while her blood could protect her, it could not save the world. Nor would it ever truly heal her. The pain would fade. Her strength would return. She would live, and she would not sail this next ship alone. That was enough. “Where is Roger Garrison’s h
old?” she asked Stella. “It’s time to go.” Time to move on, just like Patsy would have.

  Stella took the duffel bag from her and pointed east. “This way. Not far,” she said, her dark hair clouding around her alabaster face, making her look like an angel. There was a drop of blood on her cheek. His blood. Kerri wiped him away.

  “Thank you, Mother.”

  Kerri picked at the rag on her arm and pulled off the makeshift bandage. She wanted nothing on her body that reminded her of him. She was in no danger of bleeding to death; the hole where the shunt had been had already begun to scab over. It was shaped like a tear. She tossed back her hair and started walking, following her angel across Hell. Walking, always walking, today, tomorrow, and forever.

  TO DREAM OF STARS: AN ASTRONOMER’S LAMENT

  Peter M. Ball

  The first time he sees the Royal Observatory he is three days shy of his twelfth birthday. It’s spring, a clear night, the stars unveiling themselves in small groups as the sky overhead grows dark.

  The tower rises from the hills, dominating the uneven horizon, a crooked silhouette against the twilight. The glowing dome at the tip points at the emerging stars, the length of the tower twisted like the four-joined finger of a great and alien hand. He feels the strangeness of the building, a discordant note casting echoes in the chambers of his heart, but the otherness calls to him regardless. John Flamsteed is promised to God in both body and spirit, but he knows his heart and mind now belong to that tower forever.

  “Eyes off it,” his father orders, cuffing the boy across the back of the head, and John falls forward, clinging to the horse’s mane to keep himself in the saddle. The older Flamsteed rides on, glaring at the observatory. “It’s evil,” his father says, “and dangerous yet. You will not look at it. You will not even think of it, or the creatures that dwell within. Do you understand?”

  John Flamsteed nods, used to obedience without understanding. His father sees evil where other men see nothing, though perhaps this once John can see the hint of corruption his father fears. He averts his gaze, but the tower remains. It looms on the fringe of his vision, a constant threat. The sight of it pulls at his heart, luring him as though he’s been hooked on a silvery strand of twine wrapped around the tower’s domed tip.

  They have three days of business in town, just long enough for John to hear the stories. He absorbs them, one by one, the details coalescing as he weaves rumour and folk-tale together. There are those that tell him the yellow texture of the tower comes from tiles made of dragon bone, that its twisting mass is held upright by prayer and dark magic. The accusations of magic perturb him, an affront to both God and reason, but he listens and nods and asks again when the moment presents itself. There are folk-tales aplenty to hear, but none to satisfy his thirst for comprehension.

  On their final night in town, his birthday, John Flamsteed skulks out of the room he shares with his father. The moon is a thumbnail sliver overhead, a sliver so brief its presence barely registers against the scattered wash of stars. John Flamsteed stumbles through the unfamiliar streets, toes catching the rough cut cobblestones, tripping his way into the open fields and the hills beyond. The air smells fresh and clean, but the aftertaste is sour. He climbs the unfamiliar slopes, his young body straining against the rough terrain hidden by darkness.

  The Observatory serves as a compass, allowing him to orient himself against the empty darkness the tower casts against the endless stars. Eventually John stands at the base, staring up at a tower tall enough to brush against sky. John Flamsteed examines the pale shingles, stands close enough that he can reach out and touch their worn exterior with the tips of his young fingers. They feel like the smoothed edge of a predator’s incisor, noble, deadly and beautiful in a single moment.

  He thinks of the stories the townsfolk tell about children raised to the Astronomers Royal, kidnapped and replaced by changelings, stripped of their humanity by the Astronomer’s training. In the lonely light of the thumbnail moon, John Flamsteed makes a promise. He will return here, one day, free from the shackles of his father’s assumptions. He will give himself over to the stars and the Others, all in the name of God and his country. Damn the impossibilities, he will enter the tower and join the ranks of the Astronomers Royal.

  All he can see is the long teeth, clusters of bone-yellow fangs that shine as they jut away from her gums. His eyes are closed but the image stays with him, echoing through his head as he waits for the first teasing bite. He can feel the length of her tongue, the cat-lick rasp of it as she works her way along his thigh. The image of those teeth growing larger and stronger as the tongue works up his leg, the damp warmth of her breath sliding over him. He wonders what it will feel like, that first piercing bite. What will happen when she starts ripping and rending his flesh while he’s trapped beneath her bulk.

  The Other begins her work. There is no hint of teeth in their interaction. No teasing bites or sharp incisors against his skin, but the quiet menace of their arrangement lingers. It is difficult to forget those teeth, even for one such as him, trained and equipped to handle the intricacies of the exchange.

  She raps his forehead with a six-knuckled hand, uses the brief flash of pain to focus his attention. He forces his eyes open and meets her gaze, staring into her gold-flecked pupils that have seen more than he can imagine. He ignores the quiet menace of her grin. This is, after all, what he longed for as a boy. It would not do to fail the public trust after all he has done to earn it.

  “Focus,” she hisses. Her voice is awkward to listen to, a croak full of slant inflections and awkward syntax. “You are not here. Your thoughts on the moment must be here. Very important. Focus.”

  She lowers her head and the tongue works its way across the plump line of his stomach, leaving a trail of sticky fluid in its wake. He forces himself to focus, to keep his eyes on her. He lets the image of her teeth dissolve.

  “It’s important,” she says, murmuring, the tongue working at the fold of his belly button. “Must be present. Must be here. To lose focus would be bad, very bad. Very bad for both of us.”

  And Flamsteed swallows, just once, acutely aware of the way his Adam’s apple bobs and dances with the gesture. He focuses on the moment, on the rasp of the tongue and the needle pricking as she suckles, the pain that starts boiling through his chest. He focuses on the long teeth and the tongue built for sucking marrow, the tongue that coils around him like a serpent as the Other explores his body. He keeps his focus and he watches her, gives himself over to the moment.

  “Good,” the Other says. “Good. All is well. Now stay with me. Stay with me. Stay with me through the pain.”

  He learns the danger of ambition early. There is a stray moment as they rode home; his father asks about the future and Flamsteed answers honestly.

  “I wish to become an astronomer,” he says, and the statement is followed by the stinging pain of a backhanded blow, the whistle of the wind as he tumbles into the dirt.

  “Foolishness,” his father says. “It is an insult that you consider such a thing.”

  And perhaps it is. John Flamsteed curses his own inattention, the foolishness of revealing himself so soon. It’s easier than acknowledging the foolhardy desire, that he wishes for something that cannot be earned, that can only be bequeathed by the Other taking a child at birth. His lip drips blood as he climbs back into the saddle, dark spots staining the cracked leather. His father’s dark eyes are on him, blazing with the angry flame of the Almighty, and John subsumes the pain with practiced ease. He will not seethe in front of his father, will not allow himself to be distracted by thoughts of the tower.

  He looks forward with due attention, keen eyes tracing the winding road leading him to a future filled with grain and trade and the secrets of malt. His father lectures him through the endless hours it takes to reach home: on the evils of the tower, on the devilry of the outsiders who journey there, on the taint that lingers over those who live in its shadow. As always, the lecture revolves aro
und the same words: “Better we had destroyed the place when his Majesty fell in the war. Better that the heavens had remained the palace of God alone.”

  And through it all John Flamsteed nods, dabbing his bloody lip until the dried crust forms. He probes the small wound with his tongue, feels the tiny spark of pain that exists beneath the chrysalis of hardened blood. He can endure this, if it is necessary. John Flamsteed defines himself by his ability to endure, to survive the rigors of life as his father’s successor.

  And that night, as he slumbers, he dreams of the tower. The Royal Observatory, the stars above it, the quiet thrum of its walls when he placed a palm on its surface. He wakes an hour before dawn, sweating and heavy under the covers of his bed. One hand is raised to press the wound on his lip, to let the pain burn beneath the fleshy pad of his fingertip.

  The sharp nails pierce his flesh, digging in below the surface, drawing out a feeling that’s almost pain, right on the edge of it, a sharp bite that reminds him of stabbing his finger with the nib of his finest pen. John Flamsteed remains still, his breathing shallow, trying not to disturb his lover’s concentration. He feels the fluid seeping into the membranes of his skin, spreading out like an ink-splotch on wet paper.

  Something in the back of his mind, some scrap of his brain that struggles to retain a semblance of the ordinary, tells him that he should be panicking. It’s a voice he’s learned to ignore many lovers ago, a voice that’s subsumed in the name of duty. Flamsteed lies back, soaks into the hard mattress. He sighs, unsure if it’s prompted by pain or contentment.

  “Turn,” she orders. This one’s voice vibrates like a mosquito’s wing, high-pitched and delicate. He rolls over and feels sharp fingernails walking the length of his back, each step another needle-prick. There is a faint stirring of real pain now, down beneath the layers of muscle; a dull ache in the hollows of his bones, the first real register of his body protesting the intrusion.