Keystones: Altered Destinies

by Alexander McKinney

  “I can fly him to a hospital,” volunteered Sebastian, seemingly anxious for an excuse to leave the building.

  Deklan blinked and examined Sebastian. Although tall and broad-shouldered, if you ignored the wings, his erstwhile rescuer didn’t seem to be muscular, but it was a chance he was willing to take. He knew that emergency services had to be overwhelmed with cases from The Sweep. Anything that got him to a hospital faster was a welcome suggestion. “Thanks. That would be great,” he replied to Sebastian.

  Susan wrapped Deklan’s leg with practiced fingers, eliciting a wince from him, before she turned her attention to Brownie. Deklan took that as his cue to test his weight on the tiled floor. The throbbing was more bearable but by no means pleasant now that he’d received first aid. He tottered to the door and stopped outside. Being carried through the air by a stranger now didn’t seem like such a great idea. He gasped as a stab of pain shot up his leg. “What do I do now?” he asked when his stomach muscles unclenched.

  Sebastian moved behind him with his arms passing under Deklan’s and clasped across his chest. With a few quick flaps of the Keystone’s wings, they shot into the air.

  Deklan gripped Sebastian’s arms with all of his remaining strength as the ground dropped away beneath them. Sebastian’s body was parallel to the ground, and Deklan hung from his grasp like a sack of potatoes. In a detached way Deklan was able to appreciate the experience of flying, but in a more personal, front-of-his-cortex way he was terrified.

  Deklan closed his eyes, shutting out a view of the distant ground below. He tried to ignore the odd lurches that were part of being carried. With every beat of Sebastian’s wings they’d go up, but between beats they’d sink down. Each time Deklan was certain that he was going to crash to the pavement.

  A minute or so later they arrived at the hospital’s emergency entrance, the one used by incoming ambulances. The people gathered there pointed at Sebastian and almost ignored Deklan completely. Despite recent events a shirtless Sebastian with massive white wings drew onlookers’ attention.

  Deklan placed his injured leg on the ground with great care and began to hobble into the hospital, each step accompanied by a painful throb. He then paused and turned to Sebastian. “Thanks for the lift and for the rescue. I’m Deklan Tobin, by the way.”

  “Sebastian Diamond.” Sebastian looked everywhere except at the gesturing people.

  “Well, if I can ever return the favor, here’s my card. It has all of the contact info you need to reach me by Uplink.”

  “Thanks.” Sebastian examined the card before putting it in his pocket. “You’re a stuntman?”

  Having already turned back to the door, Deklan called over his shoulder, “Yeah, but it didn’t do me much good today.”

  Sebastian grinned, looked up, and with quick wing beats took to the sky. A crowd of onlookers watched as he darted away.

  The entire exchange had taken perhaps thirty seconds, but Deklan felt feverish as he walked into the emergency room and was surrounded by patients complaining about animal attacks. People had been attacked by cats, rats, mice, dogs, hamsters, chinchillas, rabbits, and other more obscure rodents.

  As he took a seat, an unpleasantly warm sensation stole over him. He drifted on a cloud and listened to the stories of others in the waiting area. Many of them were more serious than his encounter with Mittens. One lady complained of her pet rabbit, Mr. Fluffykins, igniting and burning down his hutch as well as her house. Others had been on the receiving end of mice who spat acid at them. One man was covered in a black tar-like substance sprayed at him by his cat. Someone complained of being chased by a rat that was two meters high at the shoulder.

  A nurse came through the ward to determine which patients needed immediate attention and which could wait. Seeing the blood on Deklan’s clothing, she stopped. “What happened to you?” she asked.

  “I have a fever and. . . .” Deklan’s voice trailed off. That wasn’t true anymore. It had been, but his fever had faded while he was sitting and listening. He could still tell her about the wound, however. “I was attacked by a dog here.” He pointed his finger at the wound and touched his leg. There was no pain. His heart skipped a beat in surprise.

  Deklan reached down to explore under his bandages with his right hand. Lifting the fabric, he stopped and stared. All evidence of his wound had disappeared. He noted with some confusion that the arm that Mittens had savaged was still furrowed with cuts.

  He looked at his leg again. He didn’t even have any scars. He quickly ran his hand over his thigh, feeling for any inflamed tissues that might still hurt. There were none. The spreading blackness had also receded.

  With a dawning sense of excitement, he pushed his blood-saturated bandages down a fraction of a centimeter to reveal his unbroken flesh, marred only by an occasional spot of dried blood. Deklan tried to provide the nurse with some sort of explanation but failed. “Sorry,” he stammered, “but I think I’ll be on my way.” He noted with great pleasure that walking was no longer painful.

  He wanted to get back to the vet to have the dog that bit him analyzed, but he also wanted clothes that weren’t covered in blood. As he left the hospital, Deklan came across a nearby clothing store.

  Despite the establishment’s proximity to a hospital, the lone sales attendant was not accustomed to patrons wearing bloody and shredded attire. “Sir,” he whined, “you can’t come in here dressed like that!”

  “Relax,” answered Deklan. “It’s an outfit for a costume party. I had a late night and didn’t bring a change of clothes.”

  “You still can’t come in here like that. You’ll scare away our other customers.”

  Deklan looked around the store. Unless he was very much mistaken, he was the only customer. “There are no other customers,” he observed. “Where are the pants?” Deklan marched toward the men’s section despite the poor clerk’s continued objections.

  Keeping pace with Deklan, the clerk tried to maintain a maximum possible distance between the two of them. Grabbing a few pairs of pants and a T-shirt, Deklan made his way into a changing room. Choosing pants that fit him, he walked over to the register, where the now resigned clerk let him swipe his Uplink to process payment.

  Disposing of his old and bloodied clothes in a trashcan on the street, Deklan then flagged down a taxi.

  Venom

  Deklan buzzed the bell at the vet’s office, impatient for her to answer. After allowing the passage of a minute, he buzzed again. A shadow appeared through the glass of the door before it swung open.

  “Oh, it’s you,” Susan Anthony said.

  Deklan rewarded her with a flat look to make sure she understood just how much he appreciated that greeting. “Thank you for the warm reception,” he replied. “Did Brownie make it?”

  Susan bobbed her head up and down. “After I stitched him up, Paige insisted that she take him home. With anesthetic and antibiotics he stands a fighting chance of survival.”

  Deklan craned his head, trying to see beyond her, but all he glimpsed was the white waiting room behind her lined with posters that pertained to the anatomy of dogs and cats. “Good,” he said. “Can you tell me where that stray dog is?”

  “The one you killed?”

  “Yes.”

  Susan pointed down the hallway toward an open door. “I have it on an operating table. Why do you want to know?”

  “Well, for one thing I’d like to know whether I have rabies. I’d also like to know what the hell it did to my leg.” Deklan uttered the words with a calm that did not reflect his level of interest.

  Susan didn’t catch his deeper interest, and her words were offhand. “I’m testing the venom right now. And you don’t have rabies.”

  “Oh, well, that’s good.” Deklan replayed the last bit of their exchange in his mind. “Wait,” he added. “Venom?”

  “Yes.”

  Only Deklan’s wide eyes and wrinkled forehead betrayed him. “The dog had venom?” he asked again, just to make sure tha
t he had not misheard.

  “Yes.”

  Deklan had to check her response one more time. “You mean, like a snake’s?”

  “A similar method of delivery, but you interrupted my analysis of the venom itself. Do you want to see what it is? I have to say, since you’re here rather than at the hospital, chances are that whatever compound entered your blood stream must not have been too toxic to humans.” Susan paused. “Even so, I’m surprised that you were in and out of the ER so quickly. I didn’t know the turnaround time was that fast.”

  “Yes, well, it was a slow day. Can we go see the readout?”

  Following Susan down the hallway, Deklan spotted the dog that had attacked him. On the autopsy table it looked smaller and less threatening than he remembered. Perhaps, he wondered, he could have found a more humane way to end the confrontation.

  Mild embarrassment colored Susan’s words. “Sorry,” she said. “I try keep scenes like this tidier for my visitors, but you caught me mid-job.”

  Deklan blanched and turned his head away from the animal. “That’s okay, but could you put a sheet over him?”

  Susan walked over to the chromatographer and hit “Print,” replying, “Sorry, no sheet, but I have the results. Shall we go to a different room?” Susan grabbed the printout and headed for the door without waiting for a response.

  Deklan followed her out after taking one last look at the dog’s corpse. In another room that was a replica of the previous one, a look of puzzlement washed over the vet’s features. “What did the hospital do to you?” she asked. “Be specific.”

  Deklan’s left hand explored the hollow behind his ear. “Um, well, they didn’t do anything.”

  Susan’s eyes left the printout to stare at him. “Excuse me?”

  “When a nurse came by to examine my leg, I realized that I wasn’t injured anymore.”

  Susan’s eyebrows shot up along with her voice as she replied, “The wound, the swelling, the spreading black flesh?”

  “All gone. So I’d like you to tell me about that venom now.”

  Susan looked at the paper in her hand and then back at Deklan. “The proteins contained in that venom should have progressed through your leg with a cascading effect, beginning with inflammation and ending with the flesh in your leg and body rotting off after necrotizing.” She paused in her description. “Can I see your leg, please?”

  Deklan rolled his pants leg up to mid-thigh. Clean, unblemished, pale skin was all that was left where before there had been a wound.

  Susan’s next words were bitter. “Well, congratulations. You’re a Keystone with a useful ability, and all I got was this.” Susan pointed at the far wall. A beam of light issued from the tip of her finger to the wall.

  “I guess I am,” admitted Deklan, “and I guess you are too.”

  “Yes,” replied Susan, “and how lucky I am. Now I don’t need a flashlight to check a dog’s eyes when I’m examining him.”

  Deklan spread his hands, palms up, and smiled a nervous smile, careful not to look too happy. He wanted to defuse her irritation, not exacerbate it. “How do you feel about tentacles or extra limbs?” he asked.

  “Having wings like your friend’s wouldn’t be too bad.”

  “I only met him today,” he responded.

  “I still wouldn’t mind having wings.”

  “If it makes you feel any better, being bitten and poisoned hurt like hell, and being flown to the hospital by Sebastian wasn’t a picnic either.”

  Susan flicked a beam of light into Deklan’s eye. “For some reason you are nearly immune to poison and injury.”

  Deklan decided to change the conversation’s trajectory. “There were a lot of people in the ER because of freak accidents involving animals.”

  “You said that it was a slow day.”

  “Yeah, but it wasn’t.”

  Susan gave him a flat look before asking, “What kinds of freak accidents?”

  “Oh, you know, the usual venomous bites from non-venomous creatures. Bunny rabbits that burst into flames. Attacks by a rat that was two meters at the shoulder. Nothing too out of the ordinary.”

  “I feel as though your story ends with a question,” said Susan.

  Deklan hesitated, unsure of where to start. “Have your clients been bringing in odd cases?”

  “One or two, yes, but what of it?”

  “Did Paige tell you how Brownie was injured?”

  “She said something about a cat. It didn’t make much sense.”

  “My cat, Mittens, ripped the front door off my apartment and then disemboweled Brownie.”

  Susan’s brow furrowed. “Was your door damaged or flimsy?”

  “Before Mittens’ escapade? No.”

  “Where are you going with this?”

  Deklan hesitated again. Where indeed was he going with this? “I’ve just been in a hospital overflowing with people injured by animals that weren’t all trying to attack them. In a lot of cases the injured people were just collateral damage. You have clients bringing in animals exhibiting various degrees of Keystone traits. Just outside your office I was attacked by a stray dog who turned out to be a Keystone.” As Deklan finished speaking, his vague surmises came together, and he saw the problem.

  Susan rotated her hand in a get-to-the-point gesture. “Yes?”

  “I came here to confirm that the dog that attacked me was a Keystone and not just a mongrel with a nasty set of bacteria in its mouth.”

  “Why?”

  “There are approximately two billion people on the planet, right? How many animals are there?”

  Susan looked perplexed by his abrupt line of questioning. “What?” she asked.

  “How many animals are there? What I’ve seen and heard today proves that we’re not the only species to have developed Keystones. In fact, from the conversations I’ve overheard, a plethora of different species are exhibiting Keystone traits.”

  Susan pulled a face and drummed her ring finger on a table before asking, “Are you suggesting that humanity is in danger from non-human Keystones?”

  “Yes. I think that things are about to get very ugly.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “The only sensible thing. I’m going to take a holiday.”

  Susan blinked rapidly, her eyelids rivaling a hummingbird’s wings. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I think that either you segued into another conversation or had a stroke in mid-sentence.”

  “A holiday to the Terra Rings. We’re the most populous species up there. We’ll have the advantage.”

  “What if you’re wrong?”

  “Then I’ll have visited the Terra Rings, which is something I’ve always wanted to do anyways.”

  The Terra Rings

  Jonny had finished his video of the rat scurrying across the Elevator’s glass exterior and enjoyed the rest of his trip after having been paid an exorbitant amount of money for very little work. The Elevator finally reached the space-side terminal, where he disembarked along with his fellow passengers.

  Space-side terminals were always impressive. After you stepped out of the Elevator, an entire wall of glass gave you a perfect view of the spinning Terra Rings. They were massive on a scale impossible to imagine for someone who’d never been off-planet. They were also a bit irregular. People imagined them as smooth bands spinning in space. The second part was true, but countless shuttle bays, shipyards, and other irregularities dotted their planes.

  Several travelers peeled off and headed toward a tour station; others bee-lined for the massive window that stared out into space. It was always easy to identify the tourists. They were the ones who were clumsy in zero gravity. Jonny overheard the tour introduction:

  Like the space bridge itself, the docking station is in geostationary orbit, approximately thirty-six thousand kilometers above the surface of the Earth, an orbit that is only possible along the Equator. However, the Terra Rings revolve around the Earth. Three concentric bands make between six and seven rev
olutions of the planet on a daily basis in order to simulate standard gravity. Constructed before the advent of the Doppler-Bubble Drive, the Terra Rings started their existence as an outpost on the end of one space bridge that had been built for the express purpose of capturing near-Earth asteroids and mining their raw materials. Such pursuits became more profitable due to nearly limitless solar energy and the absence of environmental regulations. People migrated to space en masse for the manufacturing jobs created during this process. . . .

  The prerecorded voice dropped off as Jonny moved farther away, gliding from handhold to handhold.

  He lived on Ring Two and was most interested in determining when his section would pass this docking station so that he could get home. He scanned the departure information. He was in luck. The next rotation meant that passing onto Ring Two near his home would be feasible within twenty minutes.

  Transferring from the docking station to the Rings was easy. There were three large capsules in which you waited, depending on which Ring you wished to go to. At regular intervals these capsules were shot toward the passing Rings, where they would match velocities and dock. Meanwhile three other capsules would replace the three leaving the station, ferrying goods or passengers that were headed to the station.

  Jonny entered his designated capsule, which to his amazement was more than half full. He checked his Uplink and saw that traffic to the Rings had risen since The Sweep.

  There were reports that Ring-dwellers who had been Earth-side had chosen to cut trips, vacations, and excursions short. Thinking of his own experiences, Jonny couldn’t blame them.

  The wait for the capsule launch felt interminable, as all waiting does when you’re impatient for a result and too anxious to distract yourself.

  Jonny had two immediate goals, getting home and calling Derek. His grinding impatience ended when the countdown timer began: “Capsule departure in thirty seconds. Capsule departure in twenty seconds. Capsule departure in ten seconds. Capsule departure in five, four, three, two, one.”