Close Your Eyes

by Paul Jessup

“Don’t.” Words surly, on edge. Still tense. Those two could come back at any moment. And then what? Itsasu did not like the promises they held. She turned Mari’s head around in her hands. They’d murdered her. “We need to get out now.”

  Ortzi chattered. “I would look around first, just for a second. Take a peek at this little alcove, don’t you think?”

  Itsasu glanced around and saw long glass tubes filled with green liquid. Inside floated bodies. Headless bodies. Naked and marked with strange, living tattoos. The designs resembled a language. Like words. But not quite. Almost like mathematical equations, but not quite. She felt something stirring in her mind. She knew that language. She knew it. A tickling. A vague feeling of being lost and trapped.

  “No, no, Ortzi … we need to leave now. We have to.”

  “I understand,” he chattered, “they could be back at any moment.”

  “It’s not that, oh, I wish it were something as simple and mundane as that.” She had to close her eyes, she couldn’t keep them open. Not now. Not anymore. The words were trying to dig into her thoughts. To come back full force and take over everything. A whispering of blue light kept them away. But for how long? How long? They whispered green light and it hurt to hear them. Hurt in her bones and skin. Hurt in her heart and lungs. “This could be the end of me. We have to leave right now.”

  “What’s wrong? I don’t understand, can’t you see? Can’t you open your eyes?”

  Shook her head. No, no, no. “You’ll have to guide me. Can you do that? At least until we’re out of this room. Could you do that for me, please?”

  “Oh, my love. Of course I can. Of course.”

  A nod of her head saying yes. She used the rod to tap the ground and listen. Her other hand clasping Mari’s head still. But dangling out in front of her. Unseen, yet searching for the seen. All the while her husband’s skull barked out commands: straight, straight, a little left, yes. A little more. Now then, the crack’s right ahead of you. Yes, yes, right there, right ahead of you. You can open your eyes now, you can. Just open your eyes. Can’t you see it? Can’t you?

  “Are there any tubes in my line of sight?” Her words came out harsher than she’d wanted them to come out. Clipped and cruel. But she couldn’t risk it, not now. There was no Arigia to save her anymore. Yet, if Hodei survived ... perhaps she had survived, too ...

  “Tubes in sight? What are you babbling about ...”

  That slight tingling feeling in the back of her mind. Those horrible words starting to form, letters speaking to her ...

  “I can’t look at any of the tubes, okay? It would be the end of me. Pure and final end, like you were before I built this AI. Do you understand?”

  “I do and I don’t. But that’s beside the point, I think you should be okay. Open your eyes, the crack’s ahead, and we can walk out and into the labyrinth beyond again.”

  A smile. She opened her eyes. Yes, no tubes in her line of sight. The crack right there, staring at her. Welcoming her back into that grim grotto. Their own skull light now bright and flickering in the labyrinth beyond. “I never thought I would be so happy to see the labyrinth again. Yet, here I am. Happy to leave this hellish place.”

  And then they crawled through the crack again. Into the room lined with skulls. For a moment she thought of gathering them up, all of them up, and trying to save them from whatever horrible rite La had planned for them. But there were too many, far, far, too many. So she left them there. Much to her chagrin, she left them there. With a promise on her lips.

  We’ll be back. We’ll be back soon to save you all.

  Act II: We Were Monsters

  A return to their home, to that tiny cramped place. And she nervously placed the skull and severed head on the vibrating table. Look at them there. Face to face. A symmetry. Perfect. Like a mirror. Jeweled skull to dead skin. Butterflies limp, no longer moving.

  A sadness, yes. What hollow victories these were. The flame flickered on the dead forehead still. The colors not like real colors. But heavily desaturated. Colors you would spy in some strange waking dream. Colors you want to reach out and wipe away.

  “Oh, love, oh, dear. What are we doing here? Just waiting until the labyrinth spins again?”

  “I don’t know right now.” All she knew was that she was exhausted. Haunted, hungry. That whole thing had taken so much out of her. Leaving her drained and needing to collapse and maybe sleep and sleep some more for a million years.

  “Ortzi, can you be a dear and scan the defenses? Check to see if it’s all up and tight and no one’s tripped a thing?”

  Yes, she knew her voice had that weary wheezing sound. A voice she hated. Near sleep and slumber time. Even though she had new limbs and skin all perfect and tight they were not perfect. She had to use so much energy just to keep them viable. Just to keep them moving. Just to keep from collapsing and falling apart. Like a rag doll smashed on egia floors.

  Remember, remember, don’t remember. All those things on her own ship ... all those horrible things that led her here ...

  “Let me see, let me scan.” Ortzi’s jewel eyes flickered and spun around in his skull. A flicker of amber light and a beam like a laser in smoke crawled over the room. Searching, searching. Looking over ribs and spines and all to find weakness. “Nope, all of our weirding modules are in place and ready to snap, yes. Nothing tripped at all, and no fingerprints of foreign invaders.”

  A laugh. She cupped her hand against her mouth. To hide the shell of her teeth. “Oh, Ortzi. You would think I would be relieved wouldn’t you? But I’m not. Instead it just makes me feel so sad and lonely. So lost and alone.”

  “I’m here for you,” he said. And once more his voice seemed unlike himself. A hollow, mechanical sadness. “I’ve always been here for you.”

  “Yes, true. Except for that time you were a corpse in a tube.”

  “Oh.” He turned to face Mari’s head again. And stared at her for a moment. A disturbing stare. She hadn’t seen that look before. A new look. A daunting look. Something inside Itsasu quivered. Like her nerves waking up now and on fire again.

  Don’t remember pulling the wires from your skin and don’t remember rising up to face the heart of the ship ... no, no don’t remember at all any of this ...

  * * *

  “Love my love my dovey love. I think there is something in her mouth.”

  “Wait. What.”

  “Look, look. A triangle of stone? No. Teeth? No. Look at her lips. Look and see. Is that a beak? I can’t quite tell.”

  And he was right. She saw it now. Glanced down, moved forward, and laid her own head on the table between the two other heads. Another perfect symmetry of circles. Facing Mari. Eclipsing her. A shadow planet betwixt moon and sun.

  Between the lips, there. Peeking out, there. It did look like a stone. A small sharp triangle of rock placed between her lips. No, wait. There, a beak? A beak. Maybe.

  “What the hell ...”

  And then the flame tattoo flickered and dimmed and then became nothing but a smear of ash on Mari’s forehead. The lips pushed open, more and more, and, oh, what the fuck, oh, what, what is that? What the fuck is that? A little head split out between the lips. Tiny, feathered bird head with two eyes like tiny black stones. Blue feathers. Jewel feathers. Translucent in the damp room light. You could see the bones beneath its skin. Tiny bird bones filled with holes.

  “Do you know what’s going on?”

  Ortzi clattered his teeth. “Oh, no, not at all, no love, sorry love, not at all ...”

  Mari’s skull became cinder and lopsided. And then smooshed and caved in. And then a pile of ash and nothing else but ash. The bird shook out. Feathers and all. Glanced around the room with those stone eyes.

  And then spoke.

  “What am I doing here? Itsasu, where are we? Are we dead? Is this some virtual server storing our thoughts until we get new bodies?”

  No response. What response could there be? She spoke with Mari’s voice. With the same lilt on
her tongue and sweetness in her throat. Itsasu stuttered back. Sat on her breathing bed. All she wanted to do was go to sleep. But there was no way she could sleep. Not now. Not at this moment.

  “I, I don’t know Mari,” was all she could say, “I really don’t know anymore.”

  “Are we still in quarantine, at least? Are we?”

  “She is,” Ortzi said, jewel eyes flickered at Itsasu, “but I don’t think we are. Are we? I don’t think so.”

  Mari the bird hopped about for a second. A clumsy gesture. She lifted her wing. Curiously gazed at it. Looked through it. “I’m a bird? How did I become a bird?” A glance at Itsasu.

  Shrug. “How am I supposed to know? You were a severed head, and now you’re a bird. I guess you could say it happens, and I guess it does. At least here in the Labyrinth. Ortzi, maybe you can help. Can you scan her for a bit? See if you can pry some secrets from our friend,” Itsasu leaned back and laced her fingers behind her head. Stared for a moment as the light crawled across the ceiling. Shadows like water reflecting lamplight. Haunted. Ethereal.

  Ortzi clacked in response. “Yes, yes, of course. I’m going to scan you now, okay? Okay.”

  Mari stopped flittering about in her new birdbody and stood perfectly still. Like a stone. Like a jewel. Was Mari even a real thing? Were any of them real things? Itsasu knew that her body was a mismatch of all these new parts. Even her memories had been wiped and restored and rebooted so many times over the centuries. How can any of this really still be her?

  “Hmm,” Ortzi said, “Such a tiny bird brain in that skull, how is it holding all those infinite human memories? I wonder, I wonder. What’s your purpose? Why do you exist? To house the consciousness of Mari? And why, oh why. Such a tiny little organic machine. Meat gears grown and stretched and attached. Wicked, blue fluid pumped into those little veins. Why do you still exist? And how, how do you exist with Mari inside that tiny bird skull of yours?”

  Oh. But Itsasu started to gain a flicker and nudge of understanding. A burning feeling deep down inside her thoughts. Like flaming jigsaw pieces snapping together. Oh, anger then. The dolls had done this to Mari after all.

  “It’s like the sakre, isn’t it? The language virus. It killed us and the others because the consciousness was too big for our little human brains. That was it, wasn’t it? Is that what she is? Some experimental test for a cure?”

  “Killed?” Ortzi babbled now. “Killed? You’re not dead, I can see you right here. I’m the dead one and she, she,” his head spun at Mari, “she’s a dead one, too. But you’re no ghost! You’re the only one of us who is not a ghost.”

  He sounded insulted. He hadn’t sounded like that in so long. So much of his AI made him so subservient and worshipful to her that this irritation took her back. A shock, yes, a shock. Yet, a thrill. She needed him to be something more than just a nodding head. “I was dead, and so was Mari, and so were so many of us. And yet, somehow, I remember being called back from death by the most beautiful song and a harrowing blue light. Electric blue. Bluer than anything else I’d ever seen. And I remember, at times, that language virus speaking through me. Talking through me. What beauties it showed me right before death, right before overwriting us. It was so big in our skulls, so devouring in our minds ...”

  She stood up and walked forward again. Sat down on the floor in front of the table. “Don’t you remember, Mari? Can’t you remember? I can sense it’s connected, it has to be.”

  Mari the bird hopped about. “No, no, I can’t remember that. All I remember is waking on this ship and the countless parade of dolls tearing me apart. First I thought they were your dolls, even though that’s not right. They didn’t look like your dolls. But then I learned of the quarantine, yes. All of that. Right before they tore me apart and burned something into my head. Next thing I know I’m waking up in here, with you. Once again, all over again, just as before.”

  Itsasu laid back on the floor. The ceiling water soothed her. And she needed that. So much of this moment was fraught with stress. So much of it tied tight to her heart and threatened to devour her.

  “What do we do now ...” Ortzi whispered to her. “What could we possibly do now?”

  She sat up again. “We rest for a bit, just a bit until I’m better. And then we go out and patrol some more and see if we can catch that grotto again. I have a feeling we might find some answers there. And right now we need answers, desire them more than ever before. It’s not just about loneliness now, nor just about the horror of our experiments. It’s about survival.”

  No response and she hoped that was a yes and that they all agreed with her. Maybe it was foolish. Maybe it would be her death waiting for her. It didn’t matter, not right now. She needed answers more than anything else. And the only place she could imagine there being any answers at all was back in that grotto. Surrounded by the secrets of the severed heads.

  * * *

  ... just not that other room, no. She did not need to see those tubes. Did not need to witness the horrible words once again and risk infection ...

  * * *

  But of course of course of course. The siren sounded before they could go. A simple harsh sound. Repetitive. Tearing through the ears and the mind. So loud can’t move can’t think can’t do a damned thing. It was time for the experiments once again. No, dammit. Those experiments once again. Itsasu moved quickly. Hiding the skull and the bird amongst the debris.

  Can’t let them find those things. No, no. She couldn’t lose Mari or Ortzi again. Not again. And then braced herself. Sat down on that wobbly chair. Organic and grown from fungal vats. Leaned against the darkness and held on tight. Knowing what was to come. What was to happen? Heart pound pound drumming in her chest. Hands clenched tight. Until knuckles white and head full of aching from that sound. That sound. That wailing siren of a sound.

  Then silence. A snap of crisp light. As her weirding modules fell to the ground.

  A hiss of gas filled the room. Woozy groggy thoughts wrapped in cotton all bundled up and constricted. Body swayed yes once and twice then crash to the floor. No, no, can’t move my hands again. Can’t move anything again. Here it comes. She hated these moments more than anything else. The moments of numb paralysis caused by the gas. She wished they’d put her to sleep for this and oh just knock her out. But they never did. Never could. Why not ... why not ... why not ...

  She saw the dolls slide into the room. Those animatronic wax creatures of the heart. How she missed her own dolls. How she missed controlling them from her glass tube. To exist in more than one space at a time! How freeing. How joyful. Yet here she was confined. Limited in reality. And about to be torn apart and put back together again by the thing that’d freed her. Once upon a time a long time ago in a galaxy far gone and distant ...

  The gravity grew loose and the dolls floated toward her. Tiny porcelain things. As tall as a small child. Girl dolls and boy dolls with glass eyes and stuttering movements. Dressed in little suits and little golden dresses. Hair all wild in microgravity. As they floated toward her.

  They carried scalpels and giant lizards that could be used for parts. Strange machinery that growled with amber lights. Coated in gold filigree. The machines pumped and burned and Itsasu tried to move or do anything but she was stuck. Frozen in time. Paralyzed. Yet she felt everything. Even the cold air on her skin as they gently sliced her open. The way her insides burned in the light. Her viscera began to glow then. Her intestines. Lungs. Heart. Even her blood. Those loose drops that floated in bubbles around her body. Freed from the constraints of gravity.

  Even the blood glowed a haunted red color.

  This was new. This was a first. My insides have never glowed before.

  They lifted and pushed and poked at such things. The dolls seemed interested in the glowing. Obsessed with the light from her insides.

  And so they turned and looked at each other and nodded. One of the girl dolls spoke. With a voice like a cartoon child. “It’s time then, she’s ready. Let’s se
e if we have the cure ...”

  What cure? What’s going on? Something is different now. Something has changed. What will they do to me? Will I become a severed head like the others? What will come of my existence ... scattered, broken ... left hollow, rotting on the floor ...

  Push of insides back into her body. She felt their hands on her intestines. Felt them on her bones. Felt like sandpaper inside of her. Touching every piece. Then closing it back up with burning light. A laser, a beam of shadows. And then one doll finger came forward with a single glowing beam of fire. It touched her forehead.

  Oh, was that it? Was that the fire tattoo? Oh, what have they done to her! What have they done ...

  And it felt like her whole mind was expanding and exploding. And she was infinite and terrible and consumed by everything ...

  And then it stopped. Everything glowed for a moment more and then faded, faded. The dolls slid out of the room as she floated down to the ground. Completely exhausted and worn out from her surgery. Before she could move. Before she could talk. She drifted into shadows and fell into a soft, uneasy sleep. Plagued by unseen screams and the feeling of drowning. Her forehead ached with an empty burning sensation.

  * * *

  She finally woke and turned groggy eyes up to the ceiling to see Mari. Bird Mari blue and distinct as she fluttered along the edges of the walls. The sound of those wings. Flapping, flapping. As she pushed against the room and knocked down drawings and maps. What was she doing? Was she trying to get out?

  Itsasu’s whole body felt numb. She tried to stand. Wobbled and pushed herself up. It took a few tries. Struggling to control these new limbs. Walking was horrible pain. Each step like a step on broken glass. She couldn’t do this. Not yet.

  So she sat down on the one lonesome chair. And felt it breathing against her bones.