by Paul Jessup
* * *
And oh. From the pile of refuse and doll parts crawled out what was left of Sugoi. He had been hacked apart. Glowing intestines hung from his body and sloshed on the floor as he moved. Head shaved. Legs twisted and broken. Arms pulling him along. One eye only a shattered hole. The good one glanced all around.
She was going to throw up. No. Hold back. Hold it in.
“Yes. Brother. Yes. You are heart. Good heart. Keep us living. Keep us safe.”
“Thank you. I do keep you all safe from those nasty two headhunters and the ship’s other dolls, don’t I? He’s grateful now, so grateful. And to imagine! Once we were bitter enemies. And now? He’s docile and he loves his baby brother.” He got closer and closer to Itsasu. “See these scars, these scars all over me? They tried to make me like the others, but I’m smarter than that. I’m better than that. I escaped and ripped their marks from my skin. That damned language. That damned vile alien language! I tore it out with my own teeth,” eyes looked wistful for a moment as he continued, “though I can still feel it. Like a drum beating in the back of my thoughts. A whisper, an echo, but in a steady rhythm that calls to me. Do you hear it, Itsasu? Has it left its mark inside you, too?”
A shake of his head. Like dispelling a fog. And then, and then. “Never mind that, never mind. You know, we have a lot to offer you, here in the center of it all. I can keep you safe from them. I can keep us all safe from those headhunters and vile dolls who want to experiment on us ... stay here with us and I can keep everyone safe and happy.”
“Okay.” Itsasu’s voice was nervous. Broken. Fearful. But did she have any other choice?
Ortzi stammered a response of his own. “Okay? Are you certain my love? Okay?”
A shrug. So nonchalant of her. But she knew this was danger. A danger she had to push through. Like fire it will burn around her but she’ll live. “I guess so.”
“Excellent,” Hodei said, “that is such good news. Now that I know what side you’re on we can really get down to business. Have you met your doubles yet?” And he looked her right in the eyes with that intense glare. “No, no. You haven’t. I would be able to tell by looking into your eyes. Seeing your doubles changes you, like it changed me.”
“Doubles?” Did she even want to know?
“I’ll explain, come along. We’ve got so much to do.”
And with that he led them out of his enclave and farther back into his maze inside the maze. All with their entourage of broken dolls and Sugoi following closely behind.
* * *
So hard to keep it all in her head as they walked about. Twisted passages. Turning and turning. Then he would stop, show them this room or that and give them names like “kitchen” and “dining room” and “guest room” and “bone house” and “ghostlands” and “waspcorner.” Some of the rooms were filled with doll parts scattered about. Others housed strange organic machinery. Wasps covered in eyes, fluttering about and always watching.
Oh nervous, nervous, the wasps made her so nervous ... all those eyes watching, watching ...
Finally they rested for a moment. Big table. Long table. Covered with odd stains and crawling genetic material. Little blobs of skin and machinery wheezing. “This is where I experiment. This is where I build and code and change this labyrinth. Do you like the looks of all this, Mari? Does it make you feel so overwhelmed with the wonder that is I, that is me, that is Hodei? I would lie if I said I haven’t been looking for you all these long lost broken years. I have! I have been looking and looking. But all I found where your doubles, your damned silly doubles and those just won’t do! I needed the real thing, Mari. The real true Mari and nothing else would do. Can’t you see? Don’t you understand?”
Itsasu felt like the need to stay quiet was important in this moment. There was a danger here. Any minute and she felt that cruelty hidden behind his eyes could lash out. And then what? Then they would be like Sugoi. So quiet she stayed. Quiet. Let Mari speak for herself and nobody else.
“Hodei, Hodei ... what do you want me to say to all of this?” A voice that felt like Mari’s pure and right voice again. No longer tainted by bird beaks and bird words.
“What? What do you mean? Don’t you see what all this is? It’s a quest for authenticity and a hunger for a life before ours changed and everything else became different and broken and so wrong. Someday I may even get the echoes of the sakre out of my head. Oh, their whispering, that horrible whispering ...”
Mari hopped about on Ortzi’s skull, still resting in Itsasu’s lap. “There is nothing but authenticity? I don’t understand. Everything changes, even without the new body parts or whatever. Even the patuek, it all changes. Every part of us is constantly changing all the time, all while the cold heart of the universe tears at us. We aren’t defined by our inability to change, Hodei. We are defined by our entropy.”
Good, good. She’s speaking in a way she’d never heard Mari speak before. Changed, yes. But a razor intellect that felt different. Even though she spoke with the same voice the words were barbed wire. Maybe all of her fluctuations were good for her. Either way, Itsasu kept quiet. This might get them all killed. But that’s okay. Would it even matter? They would probably just send in the thalna and the dolls and repair everything and they would be all okay again ...
* * *
A heartbeat stop. Wait. He keeps the dolls out. He has his own dolls. This might not end well ... they might actually die here ...
Hodei laughed. What a brutal sound. “You haven’t changed a bit, have you? Always so obstinate. The doubles weren’t like that at all, no not at all. Do you see what I did to my brother, the brute? Could you see how hurt and horrible he was? I did that for you, Mari. I did it because of how he hurt you. How he threatened to kill you.”
Mari ruffled feathers and pecked at the air. “You’re no better. Doing what you did. Doing what you do now!”
Slam. Double fists down. Itsasu couldn’t help but flinch. Ortzi clackered and vibrated in her lap. He was worried, too. She could tell. What a horrible moment. What could they do? Part of her wanted Mari to be quiet. To shut up. But that part of her was fading fast. No, no. If she would die, she would die. Maybe that would be for the best ... such sweet oblivion after such a long harrowing life ...
“We are not alike! I have my doubles, but even they don’t have the same spark that I have inside. That creative lightning bolt that burns me at every moment. They can’t make what I make, build what I build! I tore them to pieces and used them for parts. So useless. So broken. How could you compare me to any of them? Don’t you understand the thirst for the real that calls inside of us? We are not defined by our entropy. No! We are defined by how we fight it. On how we push against it and destroy it.”
A pause. Even Mari was scared now. Even though she wasn’t before. As if this eruption of violence reminded her of someone else. Someone long ago she thought she loved but threatened her every waking moment. “Don’t you see?” A sad whisper. “Look at yourself. Look at your fists. You are just like Sugoi. You are. Entropy or no entropy.”
A collapse in his chair. His head hung low and his eyes pinched shut. Tears. Just a little, nothing more.
“I still hear her, too. The beautiful love of all loves. I hear her whisper in my head, and you know what she says? She says you’re right. Oh. What am I doing? Mari, Mari. I do feel so intensely for you, I do. But I guess we can let that slide. Do you like my heart, though? Do you like what I’m doing with the ship? It’s so beautiful, so right. Even if I only did it for myself and not for you after all. Can’t you see? Don’t you agree?”
And Mari lifted up and flew through the air and landed on his shoulder. Quick peck against his neck. Tiny bird kisses leaving red moons along his skin. “It is.” A sigh mixed up in her words. “Yes, yes, Hodei, it is. Will you keep us safe? Even though I could never love you. Will you still keep us safe from the dolls and the headhunters?”
A smile with shut eyes. “Yes. I promised and I will keep that
promise. But first, I have to show you the enemy, and then I will show you the battle plan. We will keep you safe, yes. But we expect your help in return.”
* * *
The enemy was the labyrinth ship itself. The egia core. The walls. The crumbling facades. The mozorro cleaning and running about. The dolls of the ship itself that still stalked and hunted them and wanted to cut them open some more. Peek inside their glowing intestines. Perform maybe a few more experiments on them. And the enemy was Basa and La. Those two lonely headhunters.
Hodei explained all this as they trawled the ship. Babbling as they moved from his inner labyrinth into the outer rooms. “They work in conjunction, all of them, all of them, all of them. Don’t you see it? Can’t you? Can’t you see it?”
His words were rapid. As they moved about. They rode on the backs of giant geckos. Crawling across the walls. Their epidermis more like transparent shells than skin. And Mari fluttered above them and carried Ortzi’s skull in her claws. As Itsasu followed. Her gecko moved quickly. The bones and viscera visible beneath transparent skin. Slick against her worthless legs.
They had strapped her on. Much to her chagrin. She’d wanted to use the wheelchair. Even if she would lag behind them. She had no sense of control now. She desired that sense of control again. “What do you mean they’re in conjunction? Do you mean they’re working together?” Her voice was sore and her throat was raw. Like she’d been screaming all night while sleeping.
“Yes. It’s so obvious when you realize it. I mean, at first I thought they were separate actors, you know? I watched them each move about, and I assumed since there was no heart they could not be working together, right? How could they! They had no way of communicating. At least, that’s what I thought. No central hub to give them orders, none of that. And yet, and yet. I started to notice little things, little things ...”
She didn’t like the way he talked. It sounded unstable. She heard a panic in his voice. A paranoia. She’d heard someone else talk this way before. Seeing connections in everything. Connections that didn’t exist. Drawing elaborate nonsense schemes out of thin air. That paranoid voice of unreason. Crumblereason. Tumbledrownedreason.
When all logic becomes knotted webs of paranoid glee. Oh that heart that bastard heart of her egia had talked just like this and see what happened. Almost dead. Over and over again. Almost dead. And now stuck here trapped here. “What little things are those?” A tremor in her voice? No, no. She had to hide it. He had to think she was genuinely interested. This was a precarious situation.
“The patterns. They always followed patterns. The patterns flowed from one to the other, as if they had some higher purpose. And what was that? Oh, at first I thought it was a cure. They were looking for a cure to the sakre ...”
A pause. Like he knew what he was about to say would sound bonkers. She had to nudge him to finish. Did she want him to finish? Maybe. Some curious part of her needed to know the extent of all this. So she nudged him with words as the geckos scrambled over the walls and into a long, desolate hall filled with shadows and haunting blue lights.
“I thought that, too. Isn’t that why we’re here? It makes sense. Especially if we have doubles, like you said? They must’ve made clones of us, to see if we held the cure inside of us. Little did they know the cure was a daughter of a super nova ...”
The geckos stopped. As if he controlled both geckos with his mind. And then his face. All red, all angry. Oh no. What was this? Something new. Something horrible. This was not the Hodei from before. How could he have changed this much? Filled with such cruelty. Oh what happened to you, what happened ...
“No.” His words were calm but carried a bite to them. “No, not at all. That’s not the case at all. Didn’t you hear? Can’t you understand me? They have ulterior motives. They don’t care about a cure, nobody ever does, do they? No. They care about a weapon. Don’t you see? Some part of us still contains that sakre inside, sleeping. Waiting to wake up. They’re trying to wake the poison within us, once they know they can, they’ll drop us in hostile worlds. Millions and millions and millions of us! Doubles and clones and every one with that virus sleeping away. Tick, tick. Until they give the command and whooom! It spreads. Those words, those horrible words ... they spread. Wiping out entire planets, entire galaxies ...”
And like all crazy, rambling prophets of paranoia his words were mad but contained a sick sort of truth to them. No, no. Don’t want to believe it. Don’t want it to be right. It’s crazy. It’s maddening ...
And yet.
“I don’t know about you, but I don’t want some poor copy of me being used for a weapon of war. Come along, come along. Let’s go and get some mermaid bones. I have so much to show you.”
And they climbed farther and farther. Arriving at a room that was one large tank. Filled with ice blue water. And bodies floating inside. Still, so still. Like planks with wild hair. These were her. Yes. Oh. These were her doubles. All in one place. Floating and waiting to be woken into the harsh light of this world.
Act IV: A Collapse of Suns
... wait wait did she see that? Was that a real thing over there out of the corner of her eye? There, nestled into the dark underbelly of the room with her doubles, there ... on the floor, on the ceiling. An old egia of sorts. An escape pod, barely enough for one person. But strong enough to pilot through the black and back. Oh, she’d flown those before. Might even have an entanglement engine inside ...
Did Hodei see it? Did Hodei know about it? A soft glimmer blink of blue light and she knew it was still functional. Even from here. She had to figure out a way to get to it. It looked like a shell of a thing. Lined with vines and ivy patterns. Skulls, tiny skulls, all over it and decorated. There were grime and muck and bits of strange, lifeless plants still clinging to it. Yet even from here ... she could see the cracked dials ... could see yes, maybe, yes ...
This could be a way out.
Did Hodei see her watching it? Looking at it? Staring?
No, no. He wasn’t aware at all. He probably thought it was just junk.
File this away for later. This could be her way off this quarantined rock. Follow Hodei and play the fool. Just for now. Just until the moment feels right ...
* * *
Hand against cool glass. Face next to it. She leaned forward on her gecko. Touching. It felt so unreal. The condensation against her skin. Someone had been cleaning these. Keeping them nice. Neat. No dust. No grime. Unlike the rest of the ship. Faces just like her face. All those mirror images floating, floating.
They call her to them. Join us. Join us. Come into the dark cool water. Become a mermaid just like us.
“You can’t be serious.”
Hodei rode his gecko up close and stared at her. Oh those intense eyes. “Can’t be serious? What do you mean? Explain.”
“You’re not going to use these for spare parts. No. I can’t ... I just can’t have you taking me apart like that.”
He hummed. “Maybe not spare parts, then. Maybe an army, then. Though,” a pause, glancing at her frail body, “Don’t you want me to fix you up nicely? Give you limbs you can really use. Truly your own limbs! Not worrying about rejection or anything at all. We can do that, we can. Take just a few apart and build you up nice. Consider it ... reclaiming yourself from yourself.”
She looked at Hodei. Glared at him. Did he believe what he said? Or was he trying to manipulate her? So sick of that manipulation. “No,” she said. “I would watch myself suffer and die for each limb, wouldn’t I? You would have to murder a double of me, destroy a clone of me ... all to fix me up and make me better. I don’t want to watch you kill me each time. I don’t want to be haunted by ghost limbs.”
“Fine, fine, fine. Suit yourself, I’m only trying to help, I am. But we need them, we do. All of my doubles are broken things. And Mari here’s too changed to use her toros like this. I promise we won’t tear them apart, but we do need an army. An army of dolls is more resilient than an army of doubles, it is true
. But an army is an army, and we can use your doubles, yes. And we need it sooner than soon. They’re coming for us. I can feel it.”
Itsasu turned back to the tank. “Who? Who is coming for us? The dolls? Basa and La?”
“All of them. Can’t you sense it in the air? There is a change in the architecture of the ship. They can’t move this labyrinth here, not the maze inside a maze, no. But you can feel the rest of the ship turning, moving, changing. It always changed when they go on the hunt ... but, this will be the last time. The last time, I swear it. We will use your army of doubles with my dolls and take the ship forevermore. They will no longer hunt us. No longer use our doubles as a weapon of war. We will win and the ship will be ours.”
She hung her head. Closed her eyes. Moons of darkness surrounded her. The feeling of Mari pecking her on the shoulder and she opened her eyes once again. “You don’t need me here, you don’t. Why am I even here ...”
His hand on her shoulder. She flinched. The hand felt wrong. Like a dead hand.
“We do need you here. I can’t seem to wake them, only you can. Only the original can wake them up and make them live again. Mari’s been changed too much, else we would get hers, too. But you, you can wake them ...”
She turned and looked into that tank again. All those sleepers. Did she want to wake them? To see millions of herself? Like fractals spinning out into the labyrinth ...
“What of Sugoi? What of his toro, his doubles?”