Corpus Chrome, Inc.

by S. Craig Zahler

  The pixels dispersed and then rendered

  Arthur, twenty-four and strong, and Father, old and white-haired. They stood in the garage of their house; they looked up at a white rocket that was twenty meters tall. On the side of the rocket was painted its name: Truth.

  “It looks good,” commented Father. Arthur said, “Thank you for helping me.” “You’re welcome.” Arthur’s eyes glowed; Father’s eyes glowed.

  “Let’s go,” Arthur said, “I want to see outer space.” “We should eat dinner first, in case we are gone for a long time and can’t get hot meals.” Arthur nodded and said, “Okay.”

  They walked into the house.

  They walked up a hallway that was covered with pictures of Mother and waved to them.

  They entered the kitchen and sat at the dinner table. A white monkey brought them each a big bowl of spaghetti and meatballs. To the monkey, Arthur said, “I want grated cheese.” The monkey did not move. Arthur repeated, “I want grated cheese.” The monkey did not move. Father said, “Please give Arthur some grated cheese.” The monkey grated imported cheese over Arthur’s spaghetti and meatballs. Arthur said, “I was thinking about the rocket and forgot to say please.” Arthur laughed and Father laughed; their teeth glowed.

  The white monkey took the empty dishes. Father said, “We should probably use the bathroom before we go into outer space.” Arthur nodded in agreement and said, “You can go first.” Father went first; Arthur went second.

  They walked into the garage. Arthur leaned a wooden ladder against the nosecone of the rocket. Arthur said, “You go first. There is one last thing I need to get.” Arthur hurried from the garage.

  Father climbed the ladder to the rocket’s door, which was eighteen meters from the ground. Father reached over and typed the code. The door slid open. He went into the nosecone; the room was conical. Father climbed into one of the pilot seats; his back was horizontal and his feet were in the air. He looked through the windshield and saw the ceiling of the garage. Father buckled his seatbelt and waited for his son.

  Arthur entered the nosecone and typed in the code. The door slid shut. He took the seat next to Father and buckled in. Father saw that Arthur held Honcles in his right hand.

  “Ready?” asked Arthur. Father’s eyes glowed; Arthur’s eyes glowed. Father said, “Yes.” Arthur pressed the ignition. The engines roared. Truth shot through the garage ceiling. The windshield filled with blue sky and scattered clouds. The rocket shook. Father took Arthur’s hand and said, “I’m scared.” Arthur squeezed his father’s hand and said, “So am I.” Arthur’s belly glowed; Father’s belly glowed.

  The rocket rumbled. Clouds flew past the windshield. Seven birds dispersed.

  Two fighter jets pulled up alongside Truth. “Land this rocket ship!” said a fighter jet with a crackly voice. “Right now!” demanded the other fighter jet. “No!” Arthur and his father yelled together. “We will shoot you down if you don’t land!” said the first fighter jet. “Pronto!” added the other fighter jet. “Go ahead and try!” replied Arthur.

  Arthur said to his father, “You steer while I handle this.” Father leaned over and grabbed the steering wheel. Arthur took out two joysticks.

  The fighter jets fired ten missiles at the rocket. Arthur used the joysticks and shot ten anti-missiles that neutralized the threat. The fighter jets fired a flank barrage. Arthur shot back an anti-flank barrage. The fighter jets fired three anti-aircraft warheads. Arthur shot back three anti-anti-aircraft warheads. The fighter planes gave up.

  Father pointed at the joysticks and said, “You’re good with those.” “Thank you.” “I’m very proud of you.” Father’s heart glowed; Arthur’s heart glowed.

  Truth sped towards space. The blue sky darkened.

  Ten defense satellites converged ahead of the rocket. The satellites shot lasers. Arthur spun the rearview mirrors around. The lasers were deflected. The satellites exploded.

  Truth sped towards space.

  A mechanical bird landed on the windshield and yelled, “You can’t go into outer space!” Arthur replied, “You can’t make us to do anything—you’re a mechanical bird.” “The Global Senate sent me!” yelled the mechanical bird. It showed Arthur documentation. “We’re going,” said Arthur, firmly. “You can’t!” “Why not?” “Because!”

  Father turned on the windshield wiper. The mechanical bird caught the wiper with a talon and broke it. The mechanical bird pecked its beak against the windshield. A small piece of glass chipped off. The mechanical bird pecked the windshield again. A small crack appeared. Honcles sneaked into an air-conditioning vent.

  “That damn mechanical bird is going to compromise the integrity of this ship!” cried Arthur. The mechanical bird raised its beak for a final assault. Honcles, now outside, threw his arms around the mechanical bird’s neck. The two machines fell off the windshield. Arthur screamed, “Honcles!”

  Truth sped towards space.

  Arthur wiped tears from his eyes. Father said, “Honcles was a hero.” “He was.”

  Truth sped towards space.

  Arthur said, “We’re almost there.” Father said, “You should make sure your seatbelt is secure.” Arthur checked his buckle and said, “It is.”

  The rocket plunged into a gelatinous wall. “This doesn’t feel like space,” remarked Father. “No, it doesn’t.” Truth plunged through kilometers and kilometers and kilometers of gelatin. Arthur saw a satellite stuck in the gelatin. Father saw a toy helicopter and a bottle rocket and a wrench. The windshield was covered with slime. The engine rumbled.

  Truth transcended the gelatin and splashed into green water.

  “It looks like space is underwater,” observed Father. “Seems like it,” said Arthur, confused. “Will the ship work in water?” “Yes. Truth is waterproof.” “I taught you that word.” “You did,” said Arthur.

  The rocket sped through the green water.

  Giant air bubbles drifted past the windshield, left to right. Father pointed to the right and said, “That way must be up. It’s where the bubbles are going.” “We’ll follow the bubbles,” said Arthur.

  Written upon the stage was the following:

  Truth followed the bubbles for seven months…

  The words dispersed.

  The rocket sped through the water. There was no air. There was no space. There were flooded moons, flooded asteroids, flooded planets and some suns surrounded by millions of kilometers of boiling water.

  Arthur pointed through the windshield to a moon made of copper and said, “I see some lights on over there. Maybe they’ll know what happened to the universe.” “Good,” said Father. “I’m getting sick of food pellets.”

  Truth landed on the copper moon.

  “We’ll need to wear helmets so that we can breathe underwater,” Arthur informed his father. They put on air helmets. “And we’ll need to leave through the airlock so that the ship doesn’t get flooded.” They exited.

  An alien with four heads drove a submarine up to the rocket ship. The alien got out of the submarine and swam toward Arthur and his father. The alien extended a tentacle to each man and shook appendages. “Are you hungry?” the alien asked with four mouths. “Spaghetti and meatballs would be nice,” suggested Father. “I can make some in my submarine, though it’s difficult for me to eat spaghetti.” “Why’s that?” asked Father. The alien waggled his tentacles. “These.” “Oh.” Arthur and his father entered the alien’s submarine.

  “What happened to the universe?” asked Arthur. “It got flooded,” the alien said with the three mouths that were not eating salad. “Did the Earth government do it? The elder scientists?” The alien lowered its four heads and said, “No. It was my race. We flooded it by accident.” The alien chewed salad in two mouths and with the other two said, “We put a bu
bble around the Earth to protect it.”

  Arthur said, “We flew through that bubble when we left the planet. We could’ve popped it!” The alien shook its heads and said, “It’s fifty kilometers thick—you can’t damage it. The fabric heals up when something passes through.” Arthur asked, “How long has the universe been flooded?” The alien answered, “For the amount of time it takes your world to swim three billion laps around the sun.”

  The alien brought the humans spaghetti and said, “I told your Earth leaders all about it so you wouldn’t bother with spaceships.”

  Arthur sniffed. He did not want to cry, but his eyes filled with tears that he could not control.

  Father asked the alien, “If the leaders knew, why didn’t they tell us? Why didn’t the leaders tell us the truth!”

  The alien pointed a tentacle at Arthur’s tears and said, “Because the truth would make everyone very, very sad.”

  The stage turned black.

  R.J. the Third whistled a C-sharp and said, “Sheer.”

  The opaque apartment windows became translucent. Daylight poured in and assaulted dilated pupils.

  Champ squinted.

  “What did you think?” inquired R.J. the Third.

  “Not very realistic.”

  Architect, teeth bared, paws extended and claws unsheathed, leapt toward the critic, hissing like a snake.

  Chapter V

  The Bifurcation of a Composer

  Sitting upon a buoyed stool in a Running Turtle coffee bar, Lisanne Breutschen awaited the arrival of her date. In the glass wall opposite, she appraised herself. A dark blue overcoat hid the beige silk suit that draped her petite wiry frame, and her pale skin glowed at sleeve ends and collar. Mounted upon her sinewy neck was a face wrought in angles: square chin, prominent cheekbones, large nose and high forehead, above which short blonde hair shaped like pencil-tips pointed in all directions. Her overall appearance was boyish, yet still feminine enough to garner the attentions of straight men who were not brave enough to explore their sublimated attractions to their own gender and in her saw a heterosexual solution. The thirty-eight-year-old woman thought she looked like a ghoul.

  For the thousandth time, Lisanne wished that the mirror image was not reflected parallel light, but the deceased person that it resembled—her identical twin sister, who had succumbed to pancreatic cancer two and a half years ago.

  She focused past her reflection.

  Outside Running Turtle, foam-rubber cars and vans jostled, bumped and jockeyed to get to and through the intersection. A six-wheeled ladybug bumped into a box van, the latter’s driver cursing from behind his soundproof window. The traffic orb changed from green to yellow, and three cars sped through the intersection until a red light glared. A padded stopwall shot up from the road, and the foremost ladybug bumped into the risen obstruction. Vehicles on the perpendicular avenue awakened, a flickering deluge of orange, yellow, blue, black, red, orange, blue, black, red, blue, green, white, green, and silver.

  Traffic in Nexus Y was rubber-weapon warfare.

  The petite blonde looked away from the window to the coffee menu that was embedded in the table. Since Ellenancy’s death, Lisanne had developed a taste—and ultimately a need—for the stimulant-loaded ichor: The caffeine- and dexaprine-laced beverage helped enliven her moribund mornings.

  She pressed her right pinkie finger to the espresso-cup icon and tapped it four times. In the box at the bottom of the menu was the price: 42 globals. (Her new habit was expensive.) The woman put her fingertips to the placard, and soon the word “Accepted” scrolled across the screen, chased by a cartoon turtle on a motorcycle. At the bottom of the menu was the ubiquitous flat taxation notice: “12% of this Payment has gone directly to the Global Senate.”

  Three seconds later, she heard a click and looked up. An aluminum turtle, feet and head waggling, descended from the ceiling and landed upon the table. Nestled in the flattened top of the oblate shell was her steaming quadruple espresso. She took the porcelain cup.

  The turtle said, “Danke, Lisanne Breutschen,” and magnetically levitated back into the ceiling. Many people were irritated by automated service, but Lisanne preferred it. She was not at all interested in exchanging false pleasantries with bringers, salespeople, hosts or waiters, and nothing made her feel quite as lonely as that moment when some stranger—a paid appendage of a mercantile unit—pretended to be her friend in order to encourage sales.

  The petite blonde sipped the espresso that the turtle had given her; the taste was of caramel, clove and rust. Caffeine and dexaprine warmed the spaces between skin and bone.

  With her free hand, Lisanne triple-tapped the lily in her ear. A demure woman said, “The time is twenty-thirteen.”

  Her date was tardy.

  Lisanne would stay until she saw the grains of her espresso, and not one millisecond longer.

  “I’m sorry I’m late,” Osa called across the coffee bar, plucking an errant twine of black hair from her mouth as she hurried to the waiting woman. “Sorry about that,” she added, and then threw herself upon a buoyed stool.

  “You were late the other time we went out,” remarked Lisanne, coolly.

  “I’m never on time—I’ve always been a late person.”

  “The correct adjective to describe a person who is always late is ‘discourteous.’” Lisanne set the espresso down; porcelain clacked upon the table like an exclamation point.

  Osa blinked as if struck. “It’s not a crime to be late. Things come up. Stuff can happen—especially in my line of work.”

  “Of course ‘things come up.’ I am tardy perhaps one in twenty times. But you said you were always late—that being tardy is your typical behavior.”

  “I can’t help it.”

  “That is nonsense. Being punctual is a choice—the considerate choice—unless remedial math is beyond your comprehension. You simply figure out how much time it takes you to get somewhere and then give yourself a little extra time, should some unforeseen delay occur.”

  “You’re harsh.”

  “And you have been an inconsiderate diva both times I’ve met you. Your time is not more valuable than mine.”

  Osa closed her slack mouth and said, “Should I go? Is this…like an impasse for you? Punctuality?”

  “Is it within your power to be considerate of others?”

  “I’ll try to be on time.”

  Lisanne frowned.

  “I’ll be on time,” corrected Osa.

  “That is the proper answer.”

  For the first time since Osa had arrived, Lisanne allowed herself to see how gorgeous her date was. The woman’s long face and tall stature revealed her Scandinavian origins, while her raven-black hair (braided with sapphires), dark eyes, sharp nose and sepia skin displayed her Indian ancestry. Her unique beauty was an enthralling physical force (one that had probably shielded her from many much-deserved criticisms throughout her lifetime).

  Bright white teeth were framed by painted lips into a smile. “That was quite a tirade,” said Osa.

  “Time is life. I take it personally when people are blithe about murdering little bits of mine.”

  “Um…you accused me of being a diva?”

  Lisanne grinned. “We should go—our reservation is at twenty-one sharp.”

  Osa smiled mischievously and said, “Wouldn’t it be ironic if your tardiness lecture made us late for dinner?”

  “I budgeted time for the lecture.”

  * * *

  The cab driver, a nineteen-year-old Brazilian man with gold-dyed dreadlocks, inserted his vehicle between a ladybug and a box van, nudged each aside and sped toward a yellow traffic orb.

  “If you slam us into a stopwall, we will get out and I shall dispute the charge,” L
isanne said to the cabbie’s hair. (The tendrils reminded her of an orchid that she had once watered in the Cuban Republic.)

  The cabbie thumbed the brakes, and the speeding car lurched. Pseudopodia gripped the waists and shoulders of the women in the backseat; inertia tilted their heads. The vehicle halted. In front of its rubber fender, a padded stopwall leapt from the road like an upside-down guillotine.

  The cabbie turned around and asked Lisanne through the clear plastic partition, “Are you famous? You look familiar.”

  “Please mind the road.”

  “We’re stopped now—just like you demanded. Tell me who you are. C’mon.”

  Lisanne did not reply.

  “A woman like that,” the driver said, pointing to the tall beauty, “doesn’t go out with a woman like you unless you’re famous or rich.”

  “I think she’s beautiful,” said Osa

  Lisanne felt her cheeks redden and, for a moment, saw herself as an attractive woman rather than a thirty-eight year-old ghoul.

  “Does she pay you to say that?”

  Osa pushed the release button. Pseudopodia retracted, and she flung the door, saying, “Let’s go.”

  The women climbed out of the car. Osa slammed the door, leaned over, grabbed the cab’s side bumper with her strong hands and said, “Help me.”