by SJ Davis
Jorge's vision sharpened again.
Mortenson stood, arm pressed tightly to his side, leaning on the wreckage of an overturned tank. His shirt was torn open at his midriff, and Jorge could see wet red beneath. His hair stuck up at crazy angles, his facial hair singed off completely.
“Well? You are not an angel, instead a vile and brutish beast!” More assertive, in the face of the creature, Mortenson had lost his maniacal leer and come to his senses. Far too late.
*Angel?*
The voice was the sound of a thousand, all raised at once, screaming, crying, shouting in anger. It spoke directly to Jorge's mind, echoing inside of his head over and over, overwhelming.
*Beast? Human, how little your kind ever knows.*
The words hurt Jorge, just their presence tearing though him.
Mortenson's mouth worked, nervously chewing his gums behind cracked and bleeding lips.
Waiting, or submissive? Jorge couldn't be sure.
One of the trailing tentacles snapped in the direction of the old man, the little mouth baring its teeth.
*Why have you summoned me? Brought me to this brittle mortal plane?*
“Knowledge! The answers to our questions. Those of a generation, of generations to come.” Mortenson gestured around him, “This, and you are the future.” The sermon sounded very flat now. Even Mortenson sounded uncertain, his voice wary.
Jorge thought he could see the old man tremble.
*I see. Humans are ever the predictable vermin.*
There was a savage, raw contempt in the creature's words. Jorge didn't know how. The voices never changed their pitch or altered.
*You could never understand your pathetic existence, or this frail, weak universe. The reality is beyond the understanding of such base, loathsome creatures.*
Jorge held a hand pressed to his skull, crunched into a fist, hitting the knuckles into his temple and trying to force the words away. Through narrowed eyes, he saw that Mortenson did the same, slumped over.
*In terms simple enough for your primitive minds, your world is near death. It is almost an empty husk, broken and fragile. What little life remains is grievously infirm. Greater creatures than you could possibly conceive, watch mankind spread like disease, and rot away the remainder. You are bound here to endure the eternal suffering of your kind, to putrefy with your world.*
“You lie!” Mortenson looked up at the impassive face staring towards him with undisguised venom in his eyes.
*Do I?*
The creature seemed darkly amused, the spiteful humour of a man watching another fail, delighting in his misfortune.
“This is no future!”
*That much is certainly true.*
The steel giant's face shook, tearing at the cables around it, the pistons of its neck bending as the metal twisted. The lips of the mouthpiece parted, broken in the middle by an impossible force, quickly opening into a yawning, gaping, dark void. Something from beyond emerged, a huge and bulbous egg shaped eye, with a dilated, all-consuming pupil. The whole head tore from the giant's shoulders, a thick neck of pale flesh interspersed with spines, rushing up and outwards from the giant’s innards. The metal around the chin broke, fracturing with an unusually liquid noise, and teeth, sharp white fangs grew into the space. The neck kept growing, long like that of a mythical creature, and turned on itself, so that the cyclopean eye was at the top, the face reversed.
A tentacle snared Mortenson's left leg, teeth sinking into his trouser, others snagging around him to secure his limbs. The old man managed to punch and claw at the first appendage for only a moment before his arms were bound. He screamed, eyes wide in terror, as the creature’s limbs dragged him towards that vile, toothy mouth held open wide. With a terrible crunch, it closed down and tore a chunk of Mortenson's torso away. Bright red blood rained down over the monstrous creature, mixed with slippery ropes of intestine and some purplish organ. The creature repeated the action again and again, teeth ripping through Mortenson with ease, the tentacles twisting and writhing over the blood as if drinking it.
Jorge's bowels loosened, and a second later when the smell of the carnage wrought before him assailed his nostrils, he gagged until he vomited. When he looked up, gasping for air, trails of his spit still stuck to the floor and the mess, the creature watched him, for the first time. Its face floated inches from him, the long serpentine neck snaked down to the ground.
*Interesting.*
Its mouth moved, foamy drool sliding out, in between an impossible amount of uneven teeth, pink from the blood. Jorge could see chunks of human flesh in the cavernous orifice. Once again, his body betrayed him, this time a warm wet feeling between his legs.
*And what did you hope to accomplish by summoning me, worm?*
“No-nothing.” Jorge could not tear his sight away from that fathomless gaze, could not lie to the impossibly ancient sentience facing him.
*Yes, I can tell. Your soul is different, and speaks to me in ways that you do not comprehend.*
Jorge did not understand, or know what to say. He wasn’t sure if he were even supposed to speak at all. He shook in fear silently.
The creature snorted through an opening on the metal faceplate that had appeared like a nostril. Its breath was a vile, toxic poison to match that of any smokestack in the world above, a million miles from the infernal, hellish place.
*What do you want, human?*
Without meaning to, Jorge's mind raced through his life so far. The loss that he had endured when his father had been taken away, the growing misery of his absence over the long years of the war. The disappointment and frustration when he had been lied to by the soldiers, and the pain that had scythed straight to his heart when his father was officially announced dead. The hatred for the advance of technology that had broken his family in half, and destroyed their community that had existed peacefully for a hundred years, longer. The contemptible city and its people, condemned in his eyes by their forgiveness and acceptance of lives spent ruining the air and the soil, eroding everything away.
Jorge saw red, violent anger and rage replacing the consuming terror. Embracing it felt like a release in the end, after the trials of the night.
“I want to destroy it all. I want to bring them to their knees.” His voice was a terrified squeak no longer.
*Yes, I can see that you do. Your hatred is visceral, enthralling.*
The creature rumbled, chest rising and falling. Jorge realised that it was laughing. It seemed to deliberate with itself. Finally, conclusion made, it spoke.
*Together, we shall embark upon your dream. Together, we shall watch mankind and its pathetic accomplishments burn. You and I, we shall drive them into annihilation.*
There was little that Jorge could do but savour the wave of satisfaction that washed over him, a warm feeling that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. It might have been artificial, induced by the creature, but Jorge didn’t care. Not anymore. For the first time that evening, for the first time in ten years, Jorge smiled.
The Servants of Orion
Faith Marlow
“Pen, I have gone as far as I am willing to go on this subject!” Dean Exeter pounded his fist on the top of his highly polished desk—golden wood grain enclosed in a glassy finish. The fountain pen leaped across a document, trickling ink. “I have tried, for your father’s sake, to be accommodating, to make allowances for you.”
“My father would want the world to know what we discovered, not for you to keep it stuffed in a basement!” Pen injected, sweaty conviction misted his forehead.
A vein on Dean Exeter’s forehead pulsed, thick and blue beneath his ancient, almost transparent skin. He inhaled deeply, swallowed the air, and glared at the young upstart on the other side of his desk.
“Your father was a great man, a scholar, philanthropist, and inspiration to many. This university mourned him. But I will not continue to make exceptions for you, Pen. My decision is final, and this discussion is finished. I trust there is so
mething you should be doing.”
“Yes sir. Thank you,” Pen said through his teeth, knowing he needed the old man more than he needed him. He left the stuffy hot, sauna-like office and made his way out of the University.
It wasn’t until he stood outside in the cool afternoon air, did he feel like he could breathe again. The light breeze dried his sweaty brow, pushed through the fabric of his shirt and wrapped around his body. Despite his horrible mood and fortune, he could not help but gasp at the beauty of the city in the failing light of sunset. Copper Ridge. On an afternoon with a good sunset, the entire city glowed orange, its name incarnate. The hue of copper steam pipes, with its turquoise patina at the soldered seams, the rust of unprotected iron in the humid atmosphere, the reflected light in polished chrome—all shades of copper, all shades of light, life, and time.
The University was the heart of the city. In its front courtyard was a garden with an enormous copper statue of an antique key at its center. The University was the key to wisdom, unlocking the past and safeguarding the future. All other buildings and structures in the city had sprung up to surround it in admiration. He watched dirigibles float silently in the distance to and from the airport and over the plateau that surrounded the ridge on which the city stood. Just as the University was the epicenter of the city, Copper Ridge was the transportation hub of the entire region. Anyone who was going anywhere would most likely pass through the airport during their journey, especially if traveling by dirigible. Its strategic position in the Appalachian mountain range was a good height for sailing and promised beautiful vistas for passengers. The west side of the mountains offered spectacular views of sandstone cliffs jutting out of the dense temperate rainforest, waterfalls, lakes, and meadows. Cross over the spine, head east and follow the Atlantic coastline for magnificent beach sailing. Copper Ridge was also situated against the Cumberland Plateau, opening the entire flatter Midwest of the continent up for easy air travel.
A part of his heart begrudgingly understood why Dean Exeter had shut him down. He had no way of knowing how his discovery of advanced ancient technology from long before the flare would affect, not only Copper Ridge, but the world, and neither did Pen. He couldn’t blame him for wanting to protect such an amazing city.
He slowly walked down the street in the direction of home, not wishing to hasten the journey by taxi. He listened to the sounds of the city, the humming of turbines, hiss and clatter of vehicles, horseshoes on cobblestone, and train whistles announcing arrivals and departures at the terminal. Puffs of steam boiled from stacks overhead, glaringly white against the copper sunset. As he walked by his fellow pedestrians, he looked at each face he could, knowing that each of them were as clueless as he had once been. He knew the truth, and so should they.
***
Pen struggled within his dream. In the world of his mind, he was retracing his steps through the temple he and Hitch had explored three years before. He could smell the earthy darkness, feel the perfectly smooth stone blocks, and hear nothing but ringing silence. He came to the stacked stone wall, irregular and out of place in the precisely constructed structure. As he tore away the stones, he could see only darkness but knew there was more. He could hear Hitch’s voice behind him, hollow and distant, as though shouting to him from the bottom of a well. He stepped over the disassembled wall and looked upon his discovery once more.
Inside the densely packed burial chamber, the escape capsule that held the ancient astronaut’s corpse called to him. The writing on the sides looked familiar, in the same way one who spoke only English would see similarities in German or Spanish, but he was unable to decipher it. What appeared to be a flag or badge with the crest of an unknown home country decorated the side, but it had been largely scraped off at impact. The windshield of the hatch was cracked. Again, he opened the hatch and the astronaut king came into full view.
He did not touch his crown or other gifts of gold that had been lovingly bestowed upon him, only lifting the large pendant on his necklace to have a better look at the engraving of the constellation Canis Major. Instead, as if instinctively, Pen wrapped his hands around the steering controls. He could feel warmth beneath his palms. After only a moment of contact, the instrument panel glowed into life after eons of dormancy. In his dream, he chose to not let go as he had initially done in his past, but held tight and watched the power and technological miracle of the anciently advanced craft reveal itself. The electronic aqua glow filled the entire room. Only when he felt the engine attempt to rumble into life did he move his hands, fearing it would crash itself against the wall and destroy everything. As soon as he released the steering controls, he woke from his dream.
It was the same dream he had walked through nearly every night for three years. The thoughts of their discovery being brought out into the light of the new world only to be buried in a different tomb consumed him, waking and asleep. It was a constant pressure, like a barely trickling faucet drumming against a kitchen sink, ever flowing but filling nothing.
Pen rubbed his eyes, yawing with his mouth wide open like a roaring lion. He rolled over and grabbed the phone receiver, turning out Hitch’s number on the rotary dial. It was a re-engineered artifact from the century before the flare, a sage green plastic model from the 1970’s that had somehow survived long enough to become useful again. A gift from his father on his twenty-second birthday, it was one of his most prized possessions.
“Yeah…” Hitch’s rough, sleep drunk voice spoke into Pen’s ear from the small speaker, through the numerous holes in the top of the barbell-like receiver. The curly cord snaked across his chest, off the bed, and crawled back up to the phone on the nightstand.
“Exeter shut me down, Hitch.”
“Pen?”
“Yeah, who else would it be?” he answered sarcastically.
The line clicked, the call ended. Hitch had hung up on him. He looked at the clock, only then realizing it was a quarter until two. Pen groaned, rolled over, and hoped he could go back to sleep.
Thirty minutes before his alarm clock was set to sound, Pen was startled awake by an insistent knock on his front door. He sprang to a sitting position and pulled on his pants as he hobbled across the room, tripping over the shoes he had discarded in the middle of the floor the night before. He opened the door, eyes still bleary with sleep.
Hitch, wide awake and dressed for work, offered no greeting. Instead, he sharply smacked the center of Pen’s forehead with his mechanical hand, right above his nose.
“Why’d you do that?” Pen cried out, stumbling as his ornery friend shouldered him out of his path. “Are you off in your head?”
“You’re calling me off in the head? You woke me up.” Hitch growled with a dry, flat voice similar to that of an unconvinced detective or private investigator. “Lucky for you, I am wearing my new suit, or I would have given you a proper anointing, you daft little bastard.”
Pen rubbed his face and wiped his nose on a handkerchief left in his pocket.
“Did you really come over here just to hit me?”
“No. I came to find out what you were going to do about Exeter. Unlike you, I wait until a decent time to call on friends.” He made his way to Pen’s mostly unused kitchen and made himself a cup of tea. “Hitting you was simply to improve my morning.”
Pen rubbed the red spot above his brow, pulled his black wavy hair away from his well tanned forehead and sat down at the table across from his protégé. “I don’t know for sure, but what I do know, is this. If ancient astronauts visited Cambodia and Guatemala, they went to other places. If we can find those locations, we might be able to discover more lost technology, something that Exeter cannot ignore or bury.”
Hitch sipped his tea, wiping his mustache neatly with his napkin. He knew what Pen was going to say next. His logical mind urged him to refuse, but his inquisitive heart tugged for one more adventure.
“Are you with me, buddy?”
“Well I can’t let you go alone and screw everything up.�
� He loosened his bowtie, turned his neck to each side, popping loudly. Pen thought he saw a faint smile creep up from beneath his thick beard and above the teacup. “You’re still a damn amateur.”
***
Five weeks later
Pen was barely visible behind the stacks of books that arced around him on the large library table. He had given up on doing very much research at home, choosing instead to spend every available minute of business hours within arm’s reach of any existing information. He swam through files, maps, his notes from the Cambodian expedition, and ancient texts recovered from other adventures—desperate to find a new direction.
After a week, the librarians had asked him to relocate from the center of the library to a table in a more “private” area in antiquities, so he could work undisturbed. He had been approached on several occasions for assistance from other patrons who believed he was a new member of the staff.
Hitch watched his young protégé, working at a feverish pace and oblivious that he had arrived, through a small gap in a bookshelf adjacent to his table. He looked as if he were a doctor whose patient’s life depended on his timely discovery. He was young and in inexperienced, but what he lacked in age and wisdom, he made up for in tenacity and work ethic. Once set in a direction, he was like the leaf cutter ants Hitch had observed in the jungle. Pen would not deviate from the path until he had accomplished his goal, no matter the cost.
Pen had called him just after the first rays of daylight, asking to meet at the earliest convenience. Crackling with energy, the younger man’s voice had been almost frantic. Hitch couldn’t imagine what he had discovered to have him so excited.
Despite being consumed by his task, Pen looked up to greet his friend as soon as he heard Hitch’s distinctively heavy cadence.