by Kondor, Luke
With that, the sound was gone. Replaced by a calming quiet. Somewhere water was dripping and hitting a stone floor. The sounds of the cats replaced with a peaceful pitter. He wondered where he’d jumped to. What part of the galaxy had he teleported himself to now? What far-off land had he wandered upon? It didn’t feel like Luna’s moving machine.
He opened his eyes and looked around.
“Oh,” he said as he scrunched up his face. “Well … that didn’t work.”
He knew exactly where he was. He’d been there many times. He was back in the prison cell in the castle. The familiar poking holes lined the walls. The familiar sliver of light under the doorway. And the familiar smell of damp and feet and stone. He rubbed his eyes to make sure.
Yes, definitely back in prison.
“It didn’t work,” he said to the darkness. “It didn’t bloody work, you idiot. A load of good your whizzing with purpose made. Back to square one. Unbelievable.”
He dropped to his knees and placed his hands against his face. He didn’t know how long he’d been in that land of cats. Months, years, centuries, or maybe just a few days. He’d not been outside long enough to see the moon rotate around the parent planet. All reference of time had gone.
In the cold, as his adrenaline dissipated, he felt his open wounds sting. All that blood he’d lost. And yet his body was still functioning. He needed food. The thought of survival seemed increasingly pointless to him. How much easier would it be to tell the cats to kill him? Just behead him. Get it over and done with. Screw this living thing.
“What are you doing?” the whispering voice said. “Why are you sitting there?”
“I’m stuck,” he said, feeling the tears well in his eyes and the phlegm pour from his nose. “I can’t … I don’t think I can do this anymore. I tried to whizz with purpose, like you said, but I’m just back in this stupid prison cell and I’m pretty sure the cats will soon find me here and will kill me anyway, so … no more. I don’t want to do this. I’ve had a good run, but … time to call it quits.”
“The door,” the voice said.
“What?” Moomamu said, wiping his nose with the back of his hand.
“Have you tried to open the door?”
“Oh,” he stood up and wiped his eyes. He placed his hand on the prison cell door and the thing swung open with such ease he could’ve sneezed it open. “Oh right, I see. Very good.”
He stood there for a second longer, not sure what to do next.
“The star-door,” the voice said. The anger was obvious in his voice now. Moomamu was really testing his patience. “Go and use the star-door.”
“Right,” Moomamu said with a new vigour. He pointed to the air. He wasn’t sure why. He was recalibrating his thoughts. “The star-door. Yes. Right. Makes sense.”
He stepped into the castle, repeating the steps he’d made the night before. As he made his way he definitely did hear the whispering voice sigh.
JoEl The Engineer
No more collateral. He’d had enough of that the night before. The parents. Keep things clean and easy. That would be the professional way to work, the correct way, the efficient way, but sometimes things don’t work out how you plan them.
The job posting said that there were one hundred and thirty-eight children somewhere within this structure. Where, though, he wasn’t sure. He could ask Tech Admin, but he was already pushing his monthly usage on that.
The elevator stopped descending and the doors split down the middle and unveiled a large grey office. Cubicles of glass and partitions. Chairs and desks and phones in row upon row. A plant on the floor by his feet. A single trunk reaching upwards to his waist and spreading into fingers of green. The alarm above his head spun and sang, still whirring after the collateral from upstairs.
He inhaled through his nostrils and the skin on the back of his neck fluttered. The skin was loosening already. He had to get the job done as soon as possible.
He looked around. No children. No children smell. No children sound.
“You there,” he said, pointing to blonde-haired woman hiding behind a desk. She yelped when she realised he was talking to her. There were twenty or so people doing similar things: hiding behind their computers. “I’m not here to hurt you,” he said and smiled. It was human etiquette to show teeth when smiling, but the skin of his face had become too loose now from the Earth air.
“What do you want?” the blonde woman said. Her voice was shrill and distorted by sobbing and shaking.
He took a few steps forward and looked over the desk, leering down at the pretty blonde thing. She looked up and he could see the thick layers of makeup plastered to her face. Through the red lenses, he could see that her heart rate was elevated. He could see that she was a female, ovulating, and from the beads of moisture on her forehead, he could see that she didn’t get enough Vitamin D in her diet. He reached over and grabbed the flap of her shirt collar and pulled her upwards. He didn’t yank her, no, he was polite. He simply guided her to his eye-level.
“Tell me, where am I?” he said.
“You’re …” She tried. “You’re in the IPC HQ building.”
“Yes, yes, but what is this room?”
“It’s the marketing department.”
“Marketing?”
“Yes.”
“And what’s that?” he said. He could tell she was confused by his line of questioning.
“We … well … I guess, we look to find the most efficient ways to communicate honestly our intention with a potential customer’s needs.” As she said this her pupils drifted to the top right. She was accessing her memory banks. She was giving him an answer she’d given many people, many times before.
“Yes, but what is marketing?”
“Well, it’s the business of promoting and selling products or services, including market research and advertising. Developing keen promotional instincts that work effectively in promoting a product or service to the people who are the target demo.”
JoEl felt annoyed by the lingo. His skin grew flustered. He exhaled. He was getting annoyed.
“Demo?” he said.
“Demographics,” she replied.
Still holding onto her collar with one hand, he reached inside of his jacket with the other and pulled out the Railer. She burst into tears when she saw it. JoEl told her not to worry. He then turned and fired it. It didn’t shoot a bullet. It wasn’t even loud. It made a zipping sound as it launched an unseen projectile. A second after firing and an IPC security officer, dressed in all black, fell out of his hiding spot behind a partition wall, a single metallic dart poking out of his left eyeball.
“Now,” he said as he reholstered the Railer. “What was your name?”
“Jackie,” she said. “Please don’t kill me. Pleasedontkillme. Pleasedontkillme.”
“That depends. Are there any more of your hiding patrolmen?” he said, smiling again.
She looked behind him, to another partition wall, and then back to him.
“Oh,” he said, lowering his voice to a whisper. “Are they behind that wall?”
She nodded.
“Marvellous,” he said. “Now stay here, my dear. Don’t run away, because I promise you I will find you if you do.”
He turned, and walked towards the partition wall, pulling the Railer out of its holster. His free hand twitched and continued to do so as he neared the wall. He looked back at the office room one more time. A man in a suit with a beard was under a table crying, talking to himself about going home, seeing his wife. Another, fatter woman wearing some sort of headset was beneath her computer. Her eyes were closed. She was rocking back and forth talking about God and going on about having sex one last time.
He shrugged before leaping and rolling around the partition wall. Jackie was not lying. There were three of the patrolmen, in their black attire and body armour. Their insignias branded on their chests and shoulders in white. They didn’t have any guns. Instead, they had black clubs. He fired the Rail
er and it zipped into one of their faces, just above the forehead, right into the mushy grey stuff, and then fired at another of them in the kneecap. The bone popped as it split and he fell to the floor and screamed. The other one was quicker and more assertive. He jumped at JoEl and swung the club towards JoEl’s head. JoEl easily caught the bat against the side of his left arm and used his free hand to grasp the man’s face. He clutched the face so hard his fingers made an impression in his flesh. The patrolmen howled in pain as JoEl lifted him off the ground by his face. The screaming stopped as the man’s mouth closed up. This man wouldn’t suffocate, though. He’d be dead before then. JoEl continued to squeeze with the one hand until the skull split along the back, the sounds like a tree collapsing over itself. He slammed the man down into the floor, splitting the head completely.
“Marvellous,” he said as he stood back up and flicked the bloody flesh from his hand. He walked over to the partition and wiped the rest of the matter off against the wall. Jackie was still there. More shaken than before. She’d maybe never heard a man scream as his skull cracked before?
Always a little shocking the first time you hear it, JoEl thought.
“Jackie, dear, tell me, where are the children?” he said as he walked back towards her.
“The children?” she said, her eyes flittering. Looking for anything to lock onto other than his lenses or the blood on his hand. She looked at the others hiding behind their desks, trying to find out who would save her now the patrolmen were dead.
“You know what I mean,” he said, lifting his hand towards her face.
“The children,” she said. “Yes, okay, okay, the children, they’re down in the Academy. It’s the bottom three floors of the building.”
“Marvellous,” he said, doing his best to smile. His hand dropped to his side and he looked back to the open office. “Do you hear that, ladies and gentlemen, the children are down in the basement, all in one nice package. And you, Jackie, will take me there, will you not?”
She didn’t say anything. She cried a little more and nodded. She walked over to the elevator and pressed the button.
“One second, Jackie,” he said after her. “I just need to finish up here.”
He looked at the workers, hiding beneath their desks. He lifted his hands to the air and they vibrated faster than before. The force of the movement in the air buzzed. A minute later and the workers screamed until their mouths shut.
“Collateral, my dear Jackie,” he said with a chuckle. “So much collateral.”
Cape Canaveral, January 31st 1961
Dr Liz Cooper
“Ladies and gentlemen,” said one the commanding technicians. One whom Liz had never been introduced to. He was as prim as the rest of them. Starch in his collar, boots, spine. Whatever he could starch was fair game. “Take a deep breath. Get ready for this. Because we’re about to make history.”
The control room burst into applause and a couple of the engineers let out a “woo”.
The control room itself was made of three rows of long desks. Each row of tables had an array of equipment with needles and knobs and people wearing headsets, readying themselves to push buttons, or to deliver news, or to simply look important.
Liz wasn’t allowed in the midst of it. As it was, her job was done for the time being. They let her stand at the back of the room. They told her that she’d be able to watch the magic as it happened. As she stood there, waiting, she felt sick. She rearranged her glasses and wiped the sweat from her brow. Her white coat sleeve had a dirty smudge on it. The dust in that air had stuck to the sweat on her face.
“Beautiful,” she told herself. “Just fucking beautiful.”
“Talking about me again, Liz?”
She turned to see Donald enter the room, politely shoving past a few of the other onlookers glued to the back of the room. He wasn’t wearing a lab coat or any other overalls. Just in his civilian clothes. Jeans and a plain black t-shirt. His hair unkempt. A little flushed in the face. When he caught up to Liz, the smell on his breath confirmed it. Like he’d been smuggling a barrel’s-worth for the last couple of days. The whites of his eyes were scoured with red lightning bolts and his normally perfect complexion was dried and cracking across his brow.
“Donald, are you drunk?” she said.
“No. Well, I mean, I’m not gonna lie. I had a drink or two this afternoon, but …”
“What?” she said.
“Well,” he reached out and placed his hand on her shoulder. “I just thought you might need a little …” His voice trailed off each time. The alcohol had ruined his ability to finish sentences. Still, drunk Donald was better than no Donald.
“Thanks,” she said as she placed her hand on his.
“Okay, standby, mission is a go.” One of them, sitting on the first row, on the left, spoke loud enough for everyone in the room to hear, but directed his speech into a piece of plastic stuck to the side of his head.
Five.
The Alberts. That’s what came to Liz’s mind in that moment.
Four.
The four previous missions.
Three.
Four innocent chimps strapped inside V-2 rockets.
Two.
Parachutes didn’t deploy. Lost in the desert.
One.
Dead from heat exhaustion.
Lift off.
The energy in the control room switched in a second. The mixture of excitement and fear was palpable. This was Kennedy’s legacy. No, it was more than that. In that moment, it was humankind’s legacy.
“Roger, lift off, clock has started.”
The roar of the rocket could be heard through the walls. Outside, somewhere, Miss Sam was hurtling towards heaven.
“Liz, I need to ask you something,” Donald said.
“Can it wait?”
“No, I don’t think it can,” he said as he stepped into her line of view of the control room. He bobbed his head to meet hers and smiled. He looked goofy. He looked fun. He was pissed. Seeing him like that, in that moment, of all moments, struck Liz as funny. She chuckled. She couldn’t help herself. And Donald wasn’t helping with that face of his. What was he trying to do?
“I’m sorry,” Liz said as she calmed herself down. “Sorry … what, what did you want to ask me?”
“Liz, we’ve been working together for how long? Two years, nearly three? And we’ve worked very closely. Like, we’ve practically lived with each other for all this time.”
In her peripheral vision, she saw one of the technicians on the back desk lean over to the person on his right. Concern over his face.
“Yeah, we’ve worked together for a long time, Donald,” she said. “What’s your point?”
“And … well … remember that time where we had to stay up for twenty-four hours straight?” he said, nodding and smiling.
“Yeah, I remember. The fever?” she said.
“Yes,” he said. “Poor chimp nearly brought down the whole animal kingdom.”
The technician on the far right stood up. He removed his headset and turned to look at the others. More of the technicians were looking confused now. Removing headsets, dialling knobs, pressing buttons.
“Yes,” she said, only partially listening now, her attention drawn to the confused faces on the control panels. “I remember.”
“And now, it may be coming to an end and it got me thinking y’know … I think we really had some fun, and … well, I know I like you, and, potentially, you might feel the same way?”
Liz wasn’t listening now. She murmured the word “Sorry” to Donald but then brushed past him towards the control room. She heard him say something about a date, but she couldn’t be sure.
The technician was now standing up, talking directly to the colonel. Whatever he said shook him. He seemed to physically feel the words punch him in the ear because he recoiled with each syllable.
“What? What do you mean, it’s gone?” he shouted.
The room went quiet. Everybody
looked to the technician. He was young. A deer in headlights. Eyes wide. Shaking.
“Well sir, it’s gone. The rocket has just, well, it’s vanished, sir.”
For a second everyone in the control room looked at each other, dumbfounded, kicking their toes against the floor, looking for an answer nobody had.
“Shit!” the colonel yelled.
Donald walked to Liz’s side and looked into the control room.
“Alas poor Yorick,” he whispered as he placed his hand on Liz’s shoulder, “For I knew him well.”
Ian Foster
Ian Foster. A man who’d spent the last portion of his life jumping around the educational system, teaching science to children who didn’t want to listen. Children who would spit at you when you weren’t looking. Little bastards who thought their few years of existence was somehow worth more than his own — a man who’d spent his prime years in the seventies. These kids had no idea. Oh man, the drugs, the parties, and well, the free love. Nowadays it cost him a hundred pounds, and double that for penetration.
It was only in the past five years that he’d found himself working at the Seamont House Boarding School. A school that was so well-funded he could afford to buy his first suit. Not one of those cheap ones you find in a supermarket that does clothes on the side. A proper, tailored suit. Of course, he’d added his own flavour. A floral shirt, something from the good old days, along with his yellow glasses and his big greying beard. He was a real eccentric-type. His hippie ex-wife, Floraline Rivertree, would have been impressed.
Yes, Floraline was also the name of his favourite brand of butter. It’s what had first attracted him to her.
Oh no, this wasn’t a school to mess around. The children were different. They were attentive. They were caring. And they were smart. Scary smart. He had to up his game, reread some of those old textbooks. Crack out the biometrics. Twelve-year old children should not know more about osmosis than him.
The Seamont House was only a front. Something shoved together by the IPC — The Indigo Parade Collective. A company that found its roots in some new age book about psychic children. A company that turned its attention to everything, to making money, to getting into politics, non-lethal weaponry, pharmaceuticals, even a craft beer brewery, anything that helped to fund and further the mission of finding the indigo children.