by Rune Skelley
Brad chuckled. “Who saved whose ass a minute ago? I’ll be fine.” When Fin stood there dithering, Brad yelled, “Go!”
Fin ran. Each rolling wave lifted him for a glimpse of the distant, dark shape. He couldn’t decide if it looked any closer. It seemed bigger, but not more distinct. If anything, the hazy shimmer around it increased.
His destination’s true nature wasn’t clear until he topped the final ridge.
What he’d thought might be a mountain was a chaotic, shifting city. Structures of every conceivable type all heaped together and in constant motion, like a mosh pit made of buildings. Around the edges, whole districts calved off like icebergs from a glacier, only to sink and disappear. Other zones crumbled, or melted, or folded in on themselves. New neighborhoods grew like mineral crystals, elbowing existing structures aside.
That churning shape embodied the personality of the Collective Id, everyone’s core structures piled up in one place.
Thunder echoed around the smooth, crater-shaped zone surrounding the construct. Fin looked for signs of an impending storm, but the booming noise wasn’t thunder. It was the Id bellowing “Two! Two!” over and over.
He now knew without doubt where he had to go.
*** *** ***
Rook was back inside her tower, the structure at the core of her mind, with no idea how she got there. From where she lay in a nest of black feathers, she saw the trunk with its round top and the table with the tea set. She saw also that the trapdoor was padlocked and the sole window blocked by iron bars as thick as her wrist. A low, chaotic rumble was the only sound.
An ache stretched her abdomen, the skin taut as a drum, ready to split.
Two babies, she remembered. Two babies inside her now in a space accustomed to one. She hoped her body would adjust quickly. They would only get bigger before they were born.
Inside her head, and in her heart, Rook felt their twin vibrations coming together in a single clear tone. They were both Thumper.
Rook could feel Fin, too, distant but strong as ever. He was safe. Kyle’s hum was gone, which suggested he was too. Good.
She rolled onto all fours to get up, then waddled to the window like a drunk. She grasped the bars. Outside, where she expected a moonlit forest, she instead saw a grand ballroom, all gilt molded ceiling and crystal chandeliers. The breathtaking beauty shuddered, becoming the interior of an immense, empty sports arena. That spectacle lasted a few seconds before warping like a funhouse mirror to show Rook that, in fact, her tower overlooked a rat-infested alley in an anonymous city with a swirling green sky.
The scenery lurched again as her tower sank like an elevator, dropping toward someplace new. Rook couldn’t tell if she was moving or if the world slipped and whirled around her. It felt like a bad motion simulator. A blast of cold air shot in, carrying the scent of cotton candy, but all Rook saw was a vast expanse of tin rooftops and rickety chimneys.
She slid to the floor and tried to figure out what the hell was going on. This was the tower from her own mind, but the green sky told her she was still in the Id. How could that be?
The rumble Rook had been hearing became a roar of frustration bouncing at her from all sides and echoing in her stone chamber, battering itself into hundreds of separate voices, all yelling at her, Two! Two! Two!
Definitely still in the Id.
“They’re safe. I have them both,” Rook said. She massaged the tight skin of her belly, hoping to ease the discomfort.
Thief!
The voices cohered into one single voice, albeit one with many overlapping edges.
You can’t have two two-in-ones! You should have one two-in-one! Only one! One for you and one for your twin. One and one are two. Two mothers and two babies, and the babies are two-in-one!
“Tough shit.”
You ruin everything! So much hard work! Years and years and years and years and years…
“Shut up!”
The word ‘years’ kept rebounding around the room as the Id went on. If you bear both chimeras it’s the same as only one. Worse. Two is the answer. Two!
That single word echoed around and around the tower room. Rook crawled to the trapdoor and yanked on the padlock. It held, the iron fittings in the floor solid and unyielding.
Rook grabbed a butter knife from the table. She splayed her bare legs and feet to the sides and hunched over her belly as much as she could, working at the tumblers in the heavy lock.
And still Two! Two! Two! echoed.
*** *** ***
It’s complicated, but so simple: Complete the complementary Completer to collect a complete complement of Completers. The complementary Completer is a complex conundrum with the components all cast, confused and circulated. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men put the Completer together again.
With a complete complement of complete Completers, the chimera children can be two. Two! The cure for loneliness!
*** *** ***
Rook gave up on the lock. She tried using the knife to pry the brackets out of the thick floorboards, but only succeeded in ruining the blade. She puffed a few loose strands of hair out of her face and struggled to her feet.
There must be something else she could use to escape. The rounded-top trunk sat against the wall opposite the window.
Rook hoisted the lid and was disappointed to find a large collection of baby dolls, and little else.
Make that chain again!
The voice startled Rook. The babies in her womb wriggled.
Make that chain again!
Rook turned and saw a spinning wheel in the center of the room, atop the trapdoor.
Make that chain again!
“No.” She bent over the trunk, intent on her search.
Make that chain again! It made two one. It will work again. It will make two one.
“What the fuck ever. I’m not doing it.”
I need that chain to make your twin again. She will bear one chimera. You can keep one chimera. Two mothers. Two chimera children. It will work. It will work. It will work if I have that chain.
“Make it yourself.”
You! You must make it! You! It is of you!
“No.”
You are my grandchild, my heir! You will do this!
“No.”
Rook reached the bottom of the trunk and found a keyring. None of the keys looked big enough for the padlock, but she would try them anyway.
You owe me! You agreed to the bargain! I helped you spin the chain.
“Then spin it yourself.”
Rook shoved the spinning wheel off the trapdoor. Which key should she try first?
Invisible hands grabbed her. They knocked the keyring to the floor and dragged her to the pile of feathers. Rook struggled, but it was like fighting against a storm wind. It forced her hands down into the feathers, curled her fingers around fistfuls of them. It buffeted her body, forced her to her knees. The spinning wheel screeched across the wooden floor, charging at her.
Make that chain again!
Rook’s heart raced in terror. She’d thought the Id couldn’t touch her, and more important she thought it wouldn’t. It needed her as a vessel for its precious chimera. It wouldn’t dare hurt her. Or so she thought.
Make that chain again!
*** *** ***
Fin sprinted over the mirror surface and onto a long ramp. Without slowing down, he entered the Id’s core through a set of massive gates on shrieking hinges. He pelted up a broad boulevard, desperate to reach Rook and escape this landscape of madness. The walls at either side encroached as the street’s pitch steepened under his feet. It buckled and became a narrow, uneven flight of stone stairs ascending a dank tunnel. Groaning echoes reverberated with the shifts of neighboring zones. Fin ran faster, dust stinging his eyes.
The top arrived unexpectedly. Fin nearly overran the edge of a corrugated metal roof, seizing a TV antenna to stop himself.
A street paved in a checkerboard of asphalt and marble rose to meet him.
The Id’s voice boomed down.
Make that chain again!
It was yelling at Rook. Fin could feel her vibration shift in pitch as the strange command repeated several times. It made him even more desperate to reach her, to protect her.
Streets slithered and shifted wherever Fin looked as he ran, buildings rotating their stories like Rubik’s Cubes.
Rook’s signal drew Fin into a junkyard of split-level houses in surprisingly neat stacks.
He heard Rook’s voice. In pain. Nearby.
“Rook!”
He heard her wail again, like a blade to his heart, and speeded up. A light glowed in a house ahead of him.
The ones on the bottom were crushed enough that he could grab the edge of a roof and pull himself up. He clambered onto the porch of the house with the light. The door stuck because the opening was off-kilter, but two determined kicks got it open. The whole stack of houses wobbled and slouched, but Fin dashed inside.
He ran into the carpeted living room and saw Rook lying on her back.
“Rook!”
Her eyes fluttered open, and she smiled. Her belly was flat again. He blinked back tears and said, “Oh, no. Oh, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Rook still smiled. She said, “It’s alright,” and her voice sounded odd. The whole situation felt unnatural, but that wasn’t surprising given where they were.
The building lurched, and Fin remembered kicking out part of what held it up.
“We have to get out of here.” He scooped her up, and she wrapped her arms around his neck. He put one hand on the back of her head.
She kissed his palm. He felt her cheek and nose and chin against his hand.
A shudder raced through Fin. He looked at Rook’s face, saw her gazing sleepily into his eyes, and at the same time felt her face in his hand on the back of her head.
This wasn’t his wife.
The tingling signal wasn’t coming from her. He’d been stunned by seeing her, lost track for a moment, but now he could tell.
He staggered, trying to drop her. She cooed and wouldn’t let go. Fin ducked out of her grasp and reared away. She looked mad now, took a step toward him. The house heaved and a window shattered. When she turned her head toward the noise, he saw both of her faces in profile.
Gagging, Fin bolted for the kitchen. The Rook-like creature screamed, “Stop! Stay!”
He kept moving, out the back door and onto a deck overhanging the roof of a lower house. He vaulted the railing and slid down the sloping shingles. The dual-voiced screams persisted, begging him to stop but spurring him on. Hanging from the rain gutter, he dropped to the ground and rolled.
He came up running and got his compass lined up on the true Rook once again.
A clamor of crashing, thudding noises started. When it got louder, he broke into a flat-out sprint. The avalanche of houses overtook him on both sides, exhaling dust clouds laced with glass and two-by-fours. Fin made it past the end of the junkyard just before the way was blocked by debris.
He stumbled, coughing, into a market square with a fountain at its center spraying emerald flames. Colonnades lined the open space.
Motion caught his eye, and Fin edged closer to the coldly fiery fountain.
Someone darted from behind a pillar. It looked like Rook, but didn’t line up with the real Rook’s vibration.
She ran a few steps and stopped. She put her hands to her head, howling as her body was wracked with convulsions. Reminding himself she wasn’t real didn’t make it less painful to see. Her spasms were so violent she blurred, then she became two of herself. The two false Rooks stabilized, stared at Fin for a second, and broke into a run.
He couldn’t make his feet work, hypnotized by the doppelgängers racing at him.
They ran in perfect unison, stride for stride, until they bumped into each other and stuck fast. For a few strides they kept coming like an entrant in a demonic three-legged race, but their forms tangled and they tripped. The sight of their distorted, partially merged limbs broke Fin’s trance. He ran toward Rook’s signal, giving the twisted, screaming mess on the ground a wide berth.
Another one blocked his way, arms outstretched. This Rook’s agitated tattoos swarmed over her skin, engulfing more and more of her. Soon her arms and hands were completely black. The shadow flowed up her throat and onto her face.
The black was shot through with bright green sparks. Fin recoiled at the horrid odor of burnt flesh. She fell away in flakes as green fire passed through her, and disintegrated into a pile of ash and glossy black bones at his feet.
Fin tried to harden his heart against these nightmares, but couldn’t shake the feeling he was watching the real Rook in torment. He ran, clinging to his wife’s mental signature to hang onto his sanity.
Up one more block, past an escalator to nowhere and through an archway painted like clown makeup, Fin found a network of canals from a radioactive Venice. The canals, full of the Id’s seething green, wound among an ever-shifting array of structures, with one constant at its center, an ivy-clad tower of red brick. Fin knew instantly it was Rook’s, and she was inside.
*** *** ***
As his feet fell into a labored rhythm, Brad’s mind fell into a mournful loop. It replayed his heartbreaking encounter with Kyle, witnessing the attack on Fin, and its horrible end. Brad told himself he couldn’t have saved them both, but the loop replayed over and over as if one of these times he would.
Kyle’s death was unreal, made all the more by grieving for him six months ago. The fresh tears on Brad’s cheeks were not for that. He wept for his failure to keep Kyle safe from monstrousness.
Brad didn’t know how long the skipping record of depression spun in his head. Too long. Time to focus on the son he could still help, not be waterlogged by sadness over the one he could not.
The looming shape Fin was running toward was closer now. Brad could pick out some details and understood it was a city. A terrifyingly chaotic one, thrashing and grinding. Gnashing skyscraper teeth jutted from gums of ramshackle favelas. Whole blocks were created and replaced in seconds. It was like Frank Gehry and Antoni Gaudí were duking it out in some insane architectural deathmatch choreographed by MC Escher.
He looked for anything else that might be Fin’s destination, wanting an excuse to avoid the churning madness. What he saw was a bright glow traveling beneath the surface on a course to cut him off from it.
If the pyramid wanted to keep him out, he knew he must try to get inside.
*** *** ***
Across footbridges and drawbridges Fin ran toward Rook’s tower until he reached its foaming, swirling moat of green tie-dye. He didn’t trust it not to swallow him up if he tried to stand on it.
Rook copies spilled into the streets all around him, emerging from corners and doorways. Some tumbled into the canals as the horde flowed over the bridges, all converging on Fin.
“Holy fucking shit!”
Crying and moaning, they grasped at him and clawed at his clothes. His eyes couldn’t tell the real Rook from these horrible simulacra. He focused instead on her vibration, trying not to look at the swarm as he fought its clinging undertow.
The ersatz Rooks fell apart into more copies, and the copies collided. Sometimes they rejoined into a single, miserable unit. Sometimes they both vanished, their flocks of tattoo rooks freed from their skin and flapping away. Soon the tattoo birds darkened the sky.
The liberated rooks were following Rook’s signal like a homing beacon.
One of the tattoos alighted on Fin’s arm and pecked him. It was the size of a horsefly, and its beak and claws dug into his skin. He swatted it, and when he moved his hand away he saw he now had a perfectly executed tattoo on his arm, a tiny black bird about to take flight, its mirror image on his palm.
The cloud of tattoos flowed in a swooping orbit around and around the tower, some clinging to its walls with each circuit.
He shouted, “Rook! Rook! I’m here!”
“Fin! Fin!
” came the response from above, and with it a cool wash of relief. “I’m up in the tower!”
“I know,” Fin called back. How would he get her out? He studied the tower, watched the birds accumulating, and saw them arranging themselves to recreate at giant scale the rook-of-rooks tattoo on her shoulder blade.
*** *** ***
Hearing Fin’s voice gave Rook hope, even as she also heard her own voice coming in through the barred window. Her own voice, multiplied a hundred times, crying out in fear and pain.
The Id tightened its hold, squeezing the breath from her. The spinning wheel’s pedal started pumping, driving the wheel to blinding speed. Rook’s hands were thrust toward it as the Id tried to force her to repeat the miracle of spinning feathers into a silver chain. Her arms quivered as she resisted.
Make that chain again!
The furious wind stirred the pile of ebony feathers into a tornado, filling the room with thousands of darts. Rook clamped her eyes shut and strained to shield herself, but could not move her arms.
She felt a sting on her left arm, then another on her shoulder. It felt like a swarm of wasps. The sharp, burning pain brought a surge of adrenaline. Rook broke free of the Id’s elusive grasp, hauled in a tremendous lungful of air, and dropped the feathers she’d been holding.
No!
“Fin, help!” Through the swirling, swarming mass of feathers it was hard to find the window, or the trapdoor. Where were the keys?
More stinging bites assailed her, needles jabbing. Rook reached to swat them away, but they weren’t feathers at all. They were tiny birds. Her tattoos. Her left arm wore a speckled sleeve of them from below her elbow, up and over her shoulder. Hundreds more, maybe thousands, swooped through the air, mixing with the feathers.
The Id was trying to remake Brook and Bramble. That's why it wanted the chain.
“How many of me are out there?” she yelled.
“Tons!” Fin yelled back. “They’re falling apart, but more keep coming! Watch the tattoos! They sting!”
“I know!”
The copies were breaking down, setting their tattoos adrift. Each inky bird that came home to roost brought a minuscule piece of Rook’s self back to her, the seed the copies grew from.