Skyquakers

by Conway, A. J.

  Lara screamed his name as she watched him be carried away by the storm. An instant later, she and Moonboy vanished.

  Ned flew, caught in the vortex. He briefly looked up to see the gaping, angry eye, sucking up the city and chewing it all up into dust and glitter. Like everything around him, his body began to disintegrate. First his hands, from his fingertips down. He watched them turn to sand and be carried off in the wind. The rest of his body, his clothes, his face, his bones, shortly followed. He was swallowed into the abyss as nothing more than atomic dust, vanishing into the vacuum of the Skyquakers.

  CELL

  No one quite knew what to do with the captain. His escapades through the ship, his attack on his own crewmen, and the contaminated specimen he released back to Earth could only be explained by his warped mentality and deteriorating health. Since his capture and arrest, Captain had not stopped screaming and shouting nonsensical garbage, reaffirming to the others that his melancholy were to blame for his rampage. He had caused several injuries and damages to many parts of the ship and its crew, and several areas, including the animal warehouses and the beam platform, had to be completely shut down and sterilised following exposure to multiple biohazards. Securities had to be reset. Damaged infrastructure had to be fixed. The cloud was very delicate and even the slightest dint could cause catastrophic malfunctions. As for the bodily harm, crewmen were treated for their injuries, and one was found dead in the stairwell. If complete madness and disorder had been Captain’s goal, he had certainly succeeded.

  Engineer had to report to his superiors of the event, from whom he received harsh criticism for being unable to control his fellow officers and keep his ship safe from contaminants. Too many had died on his watch, both on board the cloud and in his terrain below. It only escalated Engineer’s frustration, knowing this would further delay his colonisation plans. He was falling behind in comparison to other operations taking place simultaneously around the Planet.

  As for the old fool, there was not much Engineer could do with him. Due to the captain’s complete psychotic breakdown, he was officially striped of his title, cuffed, and thrown into a makeshift cell down in the bowels of cloud, as a temporary measure for keeping the rest of them safe. They chained him to the pipes, naked, and left him there until he regained his mentality or succumbed to death – whichever came first. As a result, Engineer was now the most senior officer in charge, a position he had felt self-deserving of since their journey began.

  Meanwhile, Captain played the role of the senile, old coot whenever in the company of others, so to keep up the cunning charade. Inside, he was well aware of his actions and knew the melancholy had passed. He realised he had sacrificed his position for his child, but it was worth it knowing she had landed on Earth alive. Ultimately he had succeeded. He had managed to cause such a terrible disruption to operations that the culling of the other native specimens had now been delayed, mostly due to quarantine lockdowns and adjustments to security. He had Engineer’s child to thank for reigniting his spirit, but he was back at Engineer’s side now and had not visited him in his cell once since. He saw the boy take a hell of a beating from his teacher, an act which disgusted Captain and made others flinch, but who were they to say how one should punish their native? To most, they were property more so than guides; very few were shown respect or kindness.

  Captain spent his days alone on the cold, metal floor, chained by the ankle to the water and gas pipes. He was fed rarely and visited only once by his doctor, but mostly he was left with his own thoughts and the sound of steam running through a labyrinth of pipelines and air vents. Every now and then he considered adjusting a few loose wheels, filling the whole compartment with enough pressure to blow it apart, but he was lacking the strength and the mental capacity to bother.

  Two days into his imprisonment, Captain was joined by another.

  While he slept, or pretended to sleep, with his naked body curled up in the corner of the cell, he heard the heavy doors creak open and two guards in chemical suits stroll in. They dumped something on the floor and chained it up to the pipes on the other side of the room. They chatted to themselves about how their crewmen had just finished clearing a coastal city in preparation for the building of a massive colony. During the demolition, something small and animal was found entangled in the atomic debris of the beams. They would have incinerated it, but were suddenly ordered not to. One deliberated over whether it was safe to keep the biohazard locked up with their former captain, let alone on their ship in a conscious state, but the other waved it off and proclaimed the captain should be left to rot with the rodents. Then they left the room and sealed it tight.

  Captain rolled onto his side and sat up to see what the animal was. He immediately recognised it as a native. He heard it slowly drifting into consciousness, but because of the dramatic change in atmosphere, it was struggling terribly to breathe. It lay on its back, gasping for air, twitching and squirming. He couldn’t do much to assist. The pain of suffocation would last several hours, but eventually it would settle as acclimatisation kicked in.

  The native gasped, ‘I can’t… brea…’

  ‘Slow,’ said Captain, calmly. ‘Takes time.’

  The native panicked and struggled for several minutes, taking in big, painful gasps of air. Slowly it came to terms with the lacking oxygen and found a way to take in slow breaths other than startled gasps. It lay there on its back for an hour, semi-conscious, going through the phases of acclimatisation. Once, it turned its head and in the darkness of the cell, it saw the outline of something tall, thin, and naked sitting against the wall, watching him closely. The native couldn’t make out what the blur was, so its focus returned to breathing.

  Captain slept for a while, with the struggling sound of gasping in the back of his mind. He woke to the sound of scurrying feet coming into the cell, followed by harsh demands and loud objections. He woke and saw Vet, arguing with the guards that he had to see the animal, and that the condition they had left it in was cruel and unethical. Vet dismissed all their protests and barged into the cell in a gas mask. He ignored Captain and hurried to the animal’s aid, lying on the cold floor, pale, dehydrated, and still semi-conscious. He gave it oxygen from a gas tank, bringing it back to life, and began to quickly assess its pulse, heart rate, temperature, eyes, mouth, and blood with a pinprick and a small collection vial. Vet stood and shouted to the guards that this native was unwell and had to be taken to his clinic, but the guards had orders to keep it here. When he demanded from whom, they responded with a term which meant, ‘The bossy one.’

  Vet, enraged, stormed out again. The door slammed shut. Silence fell.

  Captain stared across the floor at the poor thing, lying there in the corner. It was getting better at breathing now. Its eyes were adjusting to the dimness as well, and it could see him in the shadows as he watched it. It stared at him, terrified, and then curious. On its back, the animal breathed between its lips, ‘S-ky-quaker…’ It blinked a few times, adjusting its vision. Without his headscarf, his poncho, or any of his dignifying robes, Captain’s full body was exposed for all to see. The animal could not make sense of his appearance, and scorned at him as though he must be hallucinating. It fell asleep.

  The bolted door to the makeshift cell swung open. Multiple pairs of feet came marching in. Captain receded back to his own corner, as far hidden beneath the pipes as he could be. Crewmen in chemical suits and gas masks came back in, but this time they were led by a small figure in silver sleeved-clothes, a native. Captain knew him as the boy who had helped free his Lo, but the others referred to him (behind his back, he assumed) as simply, ‘The bossy one.’

  With a barking order, Psycho’s two guards dragged a metallic chair into the cell and lifted the dopey boy from the ground. They chained both his wrists to the sides while he sat limp. The guards then stepped back to allow Psycho to examine the captured human sitting before him, head hung to his chest, shaggy hair covering his eyes. He briefly bent down to see his
face, then spun around to the guards and bellowed at them, in their own language, ‘You told me it was a girl. This is not a girl! It’s a boy, you idiots! Get out! Get out, both of you!’

  The guards sulked away and went back to their posts. Captain watched them leave and snorted at their spinelessness. Taking orders from a native? Engineer had done well with this one; he had turned his guide into a miniature version of himself. He had given him power and resources and allowed him to run his own armies and his own operations, while others of his kind simply stood by their teachers as accessories to their status. Captain was concerned for his one, for his own sake. He tried so hard to be loyal, but to which side? He could see the bruises on his face, the two-day-old black eye, while his suit hid the other injuries. His gallivanting around with the captain that night had resulted in severe punishment from an enraged Engineer. It looked as though he had learnt his lesson.

  Psycho, once alone in the cell, briefly turned and looked at Captain, watching him carefully from the shadowy corner.

  ‘Hello,’ he said.

  ‘You vanted this one for yourself?’ Captain asked, nodding at the poor thing, strapped to the chair.

  Psycho looked back at his catch with delight. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Vhy?’

  ‘Well, I was initially told a girl was beamed up, but I suppose those idiots aren’t quite schooled in distinguishing between genders. I just thought it might be… her.’

  ‘She’s safe now,’ said Captain, proudly. ‘And you helped.’

  ‘No!’ he cried. ‘You weren’t supposed to… she wasn’t meant to—’ He spun back to the chair and gritted his teeth. He wanted to touch the bruise on his cheek but he forced himself not to. ‘But this one… Oh, I remember this one. He was there. He was with her.’ He bent his neck like a curious bird and admired the boy’s sleepy face. ‘Wakey, wakey.’

  Ned slowly came to. He looked up into the smug, lingering eyes of a guy with slicked-back hair, dead eyes, and a cocky, teeth-bearing grin of self-satisfaction.

  ‘Good morning.’

  Ned blinked and remembered everything. He instantly lunged for the Suit’s throat, but he was immobilised by the chains.

  Psycho chuckled. ‘You remember me, don’t you?’

  Panic quickly set in. Ned stared around him at the enclosed compartment of pipes and vents, as though he was trapped in the shadowy engine room of a large vessel. It was still difficult to breathe in here, but very quickly he became conscious and aware of the events that had passed. He felt his heart beating in his chest, rage gushing through his veins. He looked down and saw he was a prisoner now, captured by a villain whose name he didn’t know, but whose pretty face he so desperately wanted to pound into the wall with his bare hands.

  Defeated, Ned lowered his head and muttered, ‘You’re a murderer.’

  ‘Heh,’ he snorted.

  ‘You’re a fucking murderer!’

  ‘I am a pioneer!’ Psycho roared, throwing his arms out. ‘You are an insect to me. Worthless, all of you. I can’t believe, after so many months, that there are still little shits like you running around out there. How the hell did you vanish like that?’

  Ned refused to say, although Psycho really didn’t care. He shrugged, ‘Oh, well. Nine out of ten ain’t bad. Or was it twelve? I forget to count. It wasn’t a personal record, that’s for sure. We did better in Sydney a couple of months ago. Do you know what I did with their bodies? Do ya? Huh?’

  Ned looked away.

  ‘Nothing,’ he chuckled. ‘Let the dogs take care of that.’

  ‘Stop it,’ Captain said from the other corner.

  Ned only realised then that there was someone else in the room. He couldn’t stop staring.

  Psycho snapped his fingers in front of his prisoner’s face, bringing his eyes back to him. ‘Attention! Look at me.’ He knelt down to him. ‘I don’t care about you. I don’t care where you disappeared to or how you’ve lasted out there for so, so long. I really don’t care if they throw you in a pod with the others or toss you back to Earth, but…’ He moved in closer, pinching his fingers as if holding something small and delicate. ‘There is one thing you took from me. I need it back.’

  Ned blinked a few times, but quickly caught on. He grinned. ‘She’s not here.’

  ‘You’re going to tell me where she is.’

  He laughed. ‘No, I’m not.’

  Psycho punched him in the gut. It was a strong hit; even Captain flinched and turned away in disgust. Ned doubled over, coughing and wheezing. Psycho shook off the pain in his knuckles and stroked back a strand of hair that had fallen out of place. He felt nothing, no sympathy. The boy didn’t cave though, despite the pain and nausea radiating through his every nerve.

  Captain hissed, ‘You are sick boy.’

  ‘Shut up, old man!’ he cried. He spun to Ned. ‘Where is she?’

  In response to his resistance, he hit him again.

  POSTCARDS

  Lara spent the next two weeks alone.

  Emerging from a strange vortex through time and space, she woke once again in an almost identical spot on the beach where she had appeared mere days before. The pristine blue waters and white sands of the Timor Sea were very familiar, except this time she was alone. Panic-stricken, she searched for her counterpart up and down the beach, in the mangroves where the dense shrubbery cut up her arms and legs, calling out his name to the treetops. She hiked inland through the bush to the wooden boardwalk and followed it up the cliff to the surfer’s beach house. She checked each room, but they were empty. She clambered up the staircase to the top deck and saw nothing but chairs and hammocks waiting for her in the sun. No one was here. She looked eastwards. There was a crater where a city had once been, and clear skies where she had moments ago witnessed a storm. It was hopeless. Ned was in the cloud now. She had watched him slip away from her fingers and be carried off by the wind as Darwin was sucked into a black hole. Almost instantly she speculated that he was dead, and if he wasn’t, she hoped he was not in pain. She wept for him.

  All she had now was Moonboy. The alien dog had followed her this time. He appeared on the deck by her side, looking up at her with his big, sad, alien eyes, as though he too felt something was missing. She knelt down to him, ruffled his shaggy black and white fur. He whimpered a little.

  ‘Yeah, I know, boy,’ she sighed back.

  With nowhere to go and no one to guide her, Lara made a home for herself and Moonboy in that cabin. She rounded up the foods in the cupboard which were edible and disposed of the ones which had begun to mould over and stink up the place. There wasn’t much to eat, so she had to ration what she had. There was rice, a few sauces, canned beetroot, carrots and peas. The bread and raw vegetables had moulded over, but processed foods such as Doritos, chocolate bars, and coffee still lingered about. She was not accustomed to the blackout and kept forgetting simple things like the lightbulbs, the refrigerator, the TV, and running hot water were all luxuries of the past. She made a campsite out of the cabin. She found a gas barbeque in the garage and brought it indoors to become her kitchen. She used the iron stovetop for most of her cooking, for boiling water, and for heat in general when the sun went down and the cabin became an igloo.

  Water was an issue, since it was severely lacking. Despite being surrounded by an endless ocean, finding something drinkable was difficult. The fridge contained a couple of bottles of Gatorade and a slab of soft drink. She collected the water from the bowls and basins of the toilets and kept them aside for boiling food. The small pile of essential supplies she had gathered on the kitchen table was frighteningly meagre, made up mostly of rice and processed or canned foods, with no vegetables, meat, or dairy. After rationing everything out as thin as possible, she struggled to find a way to spread it all across a week.

  ‘How did he do this for months?’ she asked Moonboy out loud. ‘Living alone, fending for himself, no electricity? A week of this and I’ll be dead.’

  Moonboy just stared up at her with his to
ngue dangling from the side of his dopey mouth.

  ‘I wish Dylan was here,’ she said. ‘I wish Baba was here too.’

  Each morning began with a walk down the surfers’ secret boardwalk to the enclosed beach, in hopes of finding evidence that Ned had fallen from the sky and returned. The ocean still moved with the gentle pull of the current, and the mutated forms of nature were all that inhabited this place. Earth remained undisturbed by any new footprints.

  She swam a lot. She borrowed the surfers’ boards and attempted to try them, but failed comically. Moonboy couldn’t stand the water, so was constantly barking at her from the shoreline as though she was in mortal danger. When surfing failed, she headed west and went exploring around the rock pools. All submerged wildlife – corals, crabs, fish, jellyfish, molluscs – were somehow immune to the events that took place in Melbourne that November day, and undoubtedly in every city worldwide. They were the only things she considered hunting, but her survival skills were shoddy. In the outback, most things were considered poisonous until proven otherwise, animals, plants, and insects alike. This left her with very few options. As for the mutated wildlife, their growing numbers were as evident as when she and Ned first landed here; the birds, lizards, possums and foxes had all changed, some beyond recognition. A new ecosystem was slowly developing around her; food chains had been broken and reassembled. She could see the scale of the Quakers’ plans when she sat and admired it for long enough. As wondrous as it was though, it left her with nothing but dread: they were evolving and she wasn’t. She thought of the dingoes. The camels. The possums. Christ, what next?

  At night, she ate her rationed food on the upper deck, surrounded by anti-mosquito candles. Moonboy lounged beside her and his florescent fur shone green under the moonlight. He was her living nightlight in the unruly darkness, allowing her to see her way around in the bush, allowing her to read a book in bed before she fell asleep. It became more and more natural to have him around, and he, in turn, took comfort in her while his true master was away.