by Kondor, Luke
The online hacktavist group, Anonymous, said he “wasn’t too bad”.
“I’m sorry,” Nisha said. “I didn’t mean to pry. I don’t even know where I am … or how I got here.”
“It’s truly unbelievable that the world has lost such a talent without ever realising it,” he said as he took a step towards her.
“What?” she said. “What do you mean?”
He took another step, his finger scratching his chin. Nisha followed his eye-line to the image behind her. The boy.
“Dr Warwick?” Nisha said, but he didn’t answer. He paid her no attention at all. He walked on past Nisha and all the way to the wall.
“Somebody is killing the indigo children,” he said to himself. He looked at the image of the child like it was a puzzle. Like math problems were hidden in the boy’s eyes. “My indigo children.”
“Dr Warwick, can you hear me?” Nisha said, a little louder. “Dr Warwick!”
He stopped in his tracks and turned around. He looked around the room as his hand fell from his chin.
“Hello?” he said, looking around the room before focusing on Nisha. He looked angry. He paced towards her, reached his hand through her torso like she wasn’t even there and picked up a small remote. He pressed a button and the projector switched off and the image vanished.
“What’s happening to the children?” she said. “Dr .Warwick?”
It took her a second to realise she wasn’t even there. She was a ghost. Invisible and without a physical presence.
Dr Warwick turned around and walked to the door, opening it with a push.
“What’s happening to the children?” she shouted after him, but he didn’t answer. He was lost to the corner of the corridor she couldn’t see around.
“What children?” a voice said. A different one. A female voice, frail and tender.
“The children. They’re in danger.” The light in the room flashed and Nisha found herself in the TV studio again.
“Are you okay, dear?” the woman said.
It took a few seconds for Nisha to remember her name — Janet Bridge — the TV chef who baked. Or, as she called it, a bakerpreneur. Her guest on the show.
Her blonde hair was dried straw in the studio lights. Her eyes had a big circle of black around them and she wore a white jacket over a black dress.
Nisha looked around herself, the cameras, lights, the wall of crew in the dark.
“The children are in danger. The … indigo children,” Nisha said.
“I think something’s wrong with her,” Janet said to someone behind the camera. “Can we get her some water?” The old woman was playing the host. Normally Nisha would back that sort of thing down with a well-timed sarcastic comment, but it didn’t matter anymore. Nisha had a message to tell people. It was her job now.
“We need to save the indigo children,” she said, looking at the camera. “They’re in danger. Something’s killing them.”
Tom arrived at her right-hand side with the bottle of water. He placed his hand on her shoulder again and went to lean down to her, to whisper something.
“Neesh, chill, I think you’re having an aneurysm or something.” He put the bottle in Nisha’s hand, but she shoved it away, shrugged his hand from her shoulder and pushed past him to the camera.
“No, listen, this is important. We need to save the indigo children.” She wasn’t even sure what the words meant, but their importance felt real to Nisha. There was a reverence to each syllable.
The more she spoke and raised her voice, the more Janet shied away. “For fuck’s sake, take me seriously, we need to save the goddamn children before they’re killed.”
Tom waved his hands and the red light above the camera faded away.
The millions of Britons, eating their breakfast and watching the TV, had just been cut off. It didn’t matter. The internet would surely pick up on it. The message would be out there. It would go viral.
What was just a moment ago a cacophony of brewing chaos in the studio seemed to switch off when the camera went dead. Like it was all a part of the show. A play they’d been performing for the audience and the show was now over.
Somewhere a crew member coughed.
And then …
“Nisha, what the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Tom screamed. “We’re fucked! Do you understand? We are fucked!”
Janet, who didn’t sign up for whatever this was, stood up, removed her microphone and left as if it were business as usual. She even waved to Nisha as she left.
“Tom,” Nisha said, her eyes welling. “There’s something wrong with me.”
There was silence again and Tom ran his hand through his hair and said, “We can fucking see that, Nisha. We can plainly see there’s something wrong …”
Tom stopped talking. He turned his head and pointed at Nisha’s nose.
“What?” Nisha said as she ran her hand beneath her nose. She looked at her hand and saw a smearing of blood over the edge of her finger.
“You’re bleeding,” he said. “Your nose is bleeding.”
Luna Gajos
Back in Luna’s flat her world was full of images of the faceless child. A waking nightmare that had rooted its claws into the underside of her eyelids, forcing her to revisit the scene with each blink.
“Gary has mission,” he said as he leapt up onto the kitchen table, purring and walking back and forth. “Gary has mission.”
“Sure,” Luna said. They hadn’t even called the police.
“Is there food?” Gary said.
“Sure,” Luna said. The police would ask too many questions. “I’ll get you some.”
Why were they in the house in the first place? Coincidence? How could she explain it to the police? Tell them it was her cat’s idea. A sure-fire way to find herself locked in a mental asylum with the nut jobs who, for example, were convinced their cat talked and that they were able to talk to aliens.
“Gary hungry now,” he said.
Sounded like a crazy person to her.
“Sure,” Luna said.
She opened the fridge — already half-empty. Some milk. A half-eaten sandwich she’d not finished. Some slices of cooked ham. And a tin of cat food, half-eaten. By Gary, of course.
She grabbed a fork and scooped out the jellied meat into a ramekin on the kitchen floor. She wasn’t even sure what ramekins were for but they made fancy-as-hell cat dishes.
“How did you know to go there?” she asked as she sat back down at the table. “How could you know that child was in danger? Or even Moomamu. How did you know he was a Thinker? And the parasite? How do you know any of the things that you do?”
“Gary already told Tall One,” he said as he grabbed a meat chunk with his good paw and pulled it to his mouth. “Gary has chip in neck.”
“Yeah, you did say that, but I don’t know how that means you know stuff.”
“Chip is Network connected.”
“Like WiFi?”
“No. Similar. It connects Gary to the Freelance Network. It gives him insight into what’s happening around the galaxy. What jobs are being posted. Who has taken them. How much they will be paid for doing so.”
“And … what does that mean? Someone posted a job to kill that family?”
“No. Just the boy. The boy was the job. Parents must have gotten in the way.”
Luna felt sick. She could almost see the faceless child standing behind Gary, looking over at her. Unable to breathe. Unable to cry. Unable to ask for help.
“Some sort of Freelancer’s job to kill a fucking child? Why would somebody need that to be done? Hiring some hit-man like I hire a cleaner? Why? Gary? And on that note, why are cleaners becoming more and more expensive? It looks like I’m gonna have to clean the toilet myself.”
Gary stopped eating. He turned and looked at Luna. He looked at her with all the resolution a cat’s face could muster.
“Gary doesn’t know why people would want child dead, but Gary intends to stop it.”
“What?”
Luna couldn’t grasp what he was saying. The job was done. It was over. They’d failed. “The kid’s already dead.”
“That was the first,” he said. “I saw the buzz on the Network. There are many more. Many, many more. And once Gary has eaten he will re-connect and will try to find out where. He will find Freelancer who kills Earth children and he will kill him.”
Luna saw the restrained anger in Gary’s eyes. He’d appeared stoic and calm this entire night but the facade had dropped. Just a little. Just enough to betray him. The faceless child standing behind him wasn’t just Luna’s vision of her failure. It was Gary’s too.
“Okay,” Luna said. “Okay.”
She stood up and walked over to the phone on the kitchen side. She pulled open the kitchen drawer and grabbed a laminated green and black piece of paper.
“I’m getting a curry,” she said. “Do you want any?”
“Sure,” Gary said. “Gary wants meat.”
Moomamu The Thinker
The wind kicked dust into Moomamu’s face. He squinted and rubbed his eyes. Human eyes were terrible at dealing with dust. They went leaky and sore. Not ideal, especially when surrounded by a group of slaves who wanted to kill you.
The slaves, a handful of cats and a single human, all holding weapons and pointing them at one another, were ready to fight to the death.
Killing, Moomamu thought. It was the worst thing that living creatures gave to the universe. Death. Primal. Mostly for recreation, for fun.
He looked up at the stadium full of furry heads and pricked ears and hissing mouths. The only two doors to the central dusty ring of the Scrapping Grounds were both locked. One with a heavy metal chains and bolts, and the other was a simple trap door in the floor that could only be opened from beneath. Both sealed now.
“Are you ready?” the shouting cat, Payton, bellowed. He wasn’t talking to the slaves. He was talking to the audience, and they responded with all the cheering of rabid madness.
Moomamu rubbed his eyes some more and noticed the slaves disperse and pair off. At first he thought he’d been left alone, but turned to see the fat ginger brute behind him. The one with half a tail, with whiskers the size of Moomamu’s arms. This was no pet. This was a mountain of a cat.
His skin felt cold at the certain death to follow. He looked at the other pairings of slaves, circling each other. The one on the right, with the metal helmet over his head and holes for his ears, and the other a shivering mess, urinating on the floor around himself. The stronger one had armed himself with a blade and the weaker one with a spiked-club. He looked like he was struggling to lift the thing. Poor choice.
Moomamu looked down at his weaponless hands and sighed.
Across the other side of the grounds, he saw the other human wielding a curved blade. His naked bronze flesh reflecting the sunlight. He wasn’t muscle-bound or battle-scarred like the cats, but he held his blade with confidence. The fabric tied around his head and mouth kept the dust out and any emotion from being seen. The human’s opponent, though, looked every bit as tough. He was pointing his long blade towards the human’s throat, readying to pounce.
Behind Moomamu were another pair of brutes, bodies covered with scars. They looked like they’d popped out of the womb fighting and had spent their lives clawing and biting between meals and sleeps.
“Wait,” a voice shouted, a posh twerpish meow from next to the shouting cat. The royal kitten walked to the edge of his booth. His wrists were covered in golden circlets and his tail looped with silver jewellery. This one was smaller. Possibly smaller than Gary. It wasn’t a fighter. It was a bald and ludicrous-looking thing. “I wish to make the fight more interesting,” he said, his voice a soft purr in comparison to the bellower. “I am a generous prince and I wish to incentivise the battle. Only a shallow prince watches a competition without giving a prize to its victor.” The crowd quietened. “I am not my father, strong of heart and cruel beyond reason, or my mother, with tail-fur too soft for the cold world of cats, and so I find I must strike a balance. Whoever is victorious in this battle will win their freedom, and the rest of you will be taken to the far-coast and your remains will be used as bait for the sea-worms.”
The crowd erupted again with cheers and Moomamu noticed another human next to the prince. A bald one with big eyes. The whites so large Moomamu could see them from all the way down on the Scrapping Grounds. He was a servant of some kind, holding a tray for the prince. But he was dressed well. Robed. Silver ringlets around his wrists. Shoes. For a second Moomamu thought the servant was looking at him, but he couldn’t be sure.
“Okay,” the bellower roared. “It is begun.”
With those words, the slaves took their fighting stances and began to circle each other. Apart from Moomamu and his opponent — the ginger mountain. He grinned at Moomamu and brandished his yellow-white claws. Moomamu looked down at his clenched fists and wondered if he’d doomed himself. What damage could his fists do to a cat that looked like it could eat rock?
From behind Moomamu there was a scream followed by a bell and then cheering. Moomamu caught sight of the cat who’d pissed himself. He’d taken a sword to the stomach and had fallen into his own puddle. The first kill.
Moomamu backed himself up. A step at a time. His opponent matched him step for step, still grinning. He had no weapons, but his claws were out, almost as big as his yellowing teeth — sharper than the parasite who’d once tried to eat him.
“I don’t want to kill you,” Moomamu said to the cat, but he ignored him. He lowered his head, placed his front paws on the floor and slowly crept towards him, readying to pounce. “Please,” Moomamu said. “I’m a Thinker, not a fighter.”
The crowd erupted again as the bell rang a second time. Another had fallen. In his peripheral vision, he saw a head rolling across the floor leaving a mist of red in its wake. Moomamu had almost figured out where the head had come from when his opponent leapt forward, teeth out, claws reaching to his face. He screamed the word “No” and fell onto his side and the ginger mountain flew over him, catching Moomamu’s shoulder with his claws as he went. The mountain flew too far, though. He fell into different battle altogether and found a wayward blade dash him in the throat.
The crowd cheered as the mountain tumbled, clutching his wound. The opportunistic pair who’d been fighting each other repeatedly stabbed the mountain as he fell. Over and over, before unsticking their weapons and starting back on one another.
Moomamu clutched his gushing shoulder as he ran towards the giant double doors at the edge of the grounds. The crowd hissed at his cowardice but he didn’t care. He was a survivor, not a warrior.
More bells rang. More slaves fell.
As he reached the doors he saw the chain for what it was: a monstrous lock that would take several cats or men to move it, never mind untangle it.
He fell to the floor, his back against the wooden doors, hot from the sun. Rivulets of blood fell through his fingers and ran down his side into the sand where they dried into little dirty red balls.
“What the …?” he began as he looked back out into the grounds. The bronze human, in the distance, was a blur of metal and sun. There were five cats left and the human. The cats started on the human together. The first one leapt towards him but within a second the human dropped to the floor and ran the curved blade down the cat’s stomach, releasing its innards to meet the floor. Even from this far away Moomamu could smell what was in that cat’s stomach. The human fought like a champion. Another of the cats slashed at him with a blade and another started behind him with the axe, but in a daze of twisting and slashing he took the head off one and the arm off another before sticking it in the neck, leaving great arcs of blood in the sky.
The remaining two were on either side of him, a couple of smaller ones. Moomamu could hardly see what happened as the human kicked one in the face, then threw his curved blade at the other where it found its home in the cat’s forehead. He then grabbed the first one, who was covering his nose in
pain, and twisted his neck, giving it a 360-degree view of the whole audience before dropping it to the sand.
Moomamu felt a sense of hope. The humans were winning. He might survive after all. The din coming from the crowd was one of confusion. Some were cheering at the bloodshed and others were outraged by the human’s adept fighting skills. How could he beat a group of cats? He didn’t even have claws!
The human kicked up a wooden stick, one with a blade fixed to its end. He caught it and waved it in the air. Perhaps to celebrate the human victory. But then, like magic, the human wasn’t holding it anymore. The stick had vanished.
It took Moomamu a second or two to catch a glimpse of it in the air. Small at first, as it reached upwards, but then it grew larger on its way down. He could hardly see through the sunlight as the thing slammed into the wood by his head, splintering it. Moomamu shrieked before realising it hadn’t actually hit him.
The humans hadn’t won. There could be only one survivor in this fight. It was all against all. But Moomamu had no reason to be angry at this human. It wasn’t like the broken human who’d killed Marta. This was simply a human fighting for survival. He saw the bronze human plant his foot on the cat’s head and pull his curved blade out. He wiped the blood off against its fur and started towards him. He knew he was going to have to do something soon because this human was walking towards Moomamu with the intent to kill — to survive.
Nisha Bhatia
“Oi!” the runner said as Nisha pushed past him.
He bent down to pick up his plastic coffee cup which had spilt onto his canvas trainers. Nisha didn’t stop to say sorry. She didn’t stop to say goodbye to Tom or the rest of the crew. Her nose was still bleeding and she needed to get out. It was the one thing that was clear to her. Get. The. Fuck. Out.
She ran down the busy corridor, full of crews from different productions, all chatting about nonsense. She avoided eye contact as she made her way to the lift.
“Going down,” said the automated elevator voice as it opened and she stepped inside.