Dark Currents

by Sulivan, Tricia; Nevill, Adam; Tchaikovsky, Adrian; McDougall, Sophia; Tidhar, Lavie

  “I was tired. I work five am shifts, goddam it –”

  “But now I’ve got the proof. Well, if she’s what you want then you can have her. You can have each other – two DC dummies together – level two assault and illegal use of a Taser, that should help boost the numbers, eh? Maybe if you’re lucky, you can even get booths side by side.”

  There was a silence then, a dark falling hole of no return, broken by the distant sound of laughter from the pub.

  “I’m sorry, Tom,” Carla said quickly. “I didn’t mean –”

  “Goodbye,” Tom said.

  “What?”

  “I’ll take my house key before you go. You won’t be needing it again.”

  “No Tom, please…” Carla trailed off. When she spoke again, her voice was cold and vicious. “You’d do anything for her, wouldn’t you? That manipulative, scheming bitch has got you in the palm of her hands –”

  “I said goodbye.” Tom’s voice was resolute.

  After Carla’s footsteps had faded into the distance, Jess tried to move. Nausea flooded through her and she groaned.

  “Jess?” She felt Tom crouch down beside her, his hands round her shoulders, supporting her as she tried to sit up. “Jesus, Jess, I’m sorry – but what the hell were you doing?”

  Jess sat up, breathed deeply a few times, then opened her eyes. Tom was in front of her, his face worried and searching.

  “Are you okay?”

  She tried to laugh it off, gagged instead, then shuddered, suddenly very cold.

  “I don’t know” she said.

  “We need to take you to a hospital.”

  “No.” Panic rolled through her, though she wasn’t sure why. “I can’t,” she said. “I mustn’t. It’s not me who needs help Tom, it’s her.”

  Tom frowned. “Carla doesn’t need your help, you can be sure of that. More like the other way round. She’s got every right to press charges, you know – and the way she’s feeling right now…”

  “Not Carla.” Jess shook her head impatiently, then regretted doing so as the world spun. “Leena. The waiver signers. They’re –” She stopped. The frown on Tom’s face was increasing, shaded with concern.

  “Leena?” he asked.

  “My dummy.” Warning feelings told Jess to stop right there. “I mean, what you said in the pub,” she continued. “It’s awful. We have to try and help them.”

  “We do.” Tom didn’t move though, didn’t stop looking at her with an expression she didn’t quite like. “It’s true a hospital will give Carla ammunition though,” he said after a moment. “If we go to Daventon Central this whole thing will come out.”

  “Agreed.” Jess nodded gingerly. “No hospital then.”

  “No public hospital,” Tom amended. He grinned. “I could take you to work though – give you a mild wipe there. If we get your currents back on an even keel you’re away – all evidence erased. You’ll be back to your normal self and Carla won’t be able to prove a thing.”

  Another blast of panic surged through Jess so powerfully it was physical and she bent over as her stomach spasmed.

  “It’ll clear the effects of the Taser too,” Tom told her. “You’ll still have the entry marks for a few days, but a wipe will get rid of the stiffness and nausea, I promise.” He glanced at his watch, then reached out to help her to her feet. “Come on. If we go now we’ll hit the graveyard shift. I’ll sign you in as a student helping sort the broken ESTs – we can pretend you got contaminated.”

  Jess accepted his hand and got up carefully. Her mind was all over the place, as though trying to go in two different directions at once: the mental equivalent of patting her head and circling her stomach at the same time. Part of her agreed whole-heartedly with the plan, was grateful for it, and was trying to remember how she’d got into this mess in the first place. But another part felt desperate, scared to the point of a cold courage that had nothing to lose, its intensity spilling over into everything else.

  “Tom?” that part said, as he helped her into the car. “You have some pretty heavy-duty dummies in the secure unit, don’t you?”

  Since Tom’s inmates weren’t legally responsible for their crimes, they couldn’t become dummies. Instead they used the high-level ones as part of their treatment, visiting them in the secure DC unit that had been purpose-built next door.

  “Certainly do.” Tom plugged his Taser in to recharge and slipped it into the cup-holder between their two seats. “Murderers, rapists, kidnappers, paedophiles – they’re all levels five and six.” He glanced at her before starting up. “But you don’t need to worry. The wipe clinic’s completely safe. Besides, we’re not doing a dummy run until 7am – you’ll be long gone by then.”

  Jess nodded then leant her head against the window as Tom began to drive through the country lanes back into town. Savouring the cold glass against her forehead, she watched the shades of darkness go by with unseeing eyes.

  Help me, Leena had said. DC a higher level.

  She turned back to Tom. “And those high-level DC dummies are moved around the country?” she asked. “So the inmates get variety? Just like us, only more gruesome?”

  “They do.” Tom glanced away from the road to look at her. “But there’s nothing to worry about, honestly. It’s just like a prison – people can get in easily enough, but it’s a completely different ballgame getting out.”

  “Right.” Half of Jess’s head began to get its bearings. “What do you know,” she asked, “about Danny Monroe?”

  “Old Danny?” Tom’s voice grew fond. “Best of a bad bunch, he is. He only ever kidnapped for money, you know – never hurt them. Once, even, when the ransom wasn’t paid, he gave the kiddie back.” He laughed. “Which was his downfall, of course. But compared to most of them, Danny’s all right.”

  “He’s there?” Jess was surprised at the excitement in her voice, the sudden surge of hope. “He’s in your unit?”

  “Oh Danny’s a regular. We all want Danny, poor bugger. His ‘as long as required’ won’t ever run out. And since Dr Parsons has more strings to pull than most in this business, our inmates get to DC him pretty often.”

  “How did he do it?” she asked. “The kidnaps?”

  “No one knows.” Tom took the turning into town, his face lit up by streetlamps as he drove through the suburbs. “Well, the police do, of course – they gave him a total EST – but they’re not telling. Apart from that, only those who DC him will ever know.”

  “But he was good? Before he was caught? At getting people out?” Jess thought about it. “I mean, he made a career out of taking children from rich, paranoid people in ultra-secure buildings.”

  Tom shrugged. “Must have been. I mean, Jesus, he got Lord Eston’s son out of the Parliament crèche, and they don’t come much more secure than that.”

  Jess nodded, her head clear now, her thoughts steady. It was all coming together.

  “Here we are.”

  The hospital was an old Victorian job, red brick and high archways looking almost elegant behind the razor wire and cement outbuildings that had been added over the years. To its right was the secure DC unit, all modern reinforced concrete and smoked glass gleaming in the security lights. Tom drew to a halt outside the gates, put in his card and keyed in the code as Jess watched. Once he’d parked up though, after turning off the engine and headlights, he sat still, saying nothing. Then he turned to look at Jess.

  “When you were unconscious,” he said, “that is, when people are unconscious, hearing is the last thing to go. And Carla said some things… That is, I wonder if you heard what Carla said – implied – about me, and…”

  He couldn’t quite look her in the eye, and with another surge of clarity the other part of Jess’s brain realised that what Carla had said was true. That Tom had always cared about her more than he’d let on, that what he was risking for her now was based on far more than his good nature. Her heart twisted as she realised what that meant and she opened her mouth to say som
ething, to acknowledge it – then the desperation kicked back in, cold and steady.

  “I didn’t hear a thing,” she said. “Apart from some buzzing.” She shrugged, the same old oblivious Jess. “I must have been well and truly out of it.”

  “Right.” Tom nodded slowly, his expression half-relieved, half-sorry, then he shook himself and reached for the door handle. “So. Ready to do this?”

  “Ready as I’ll ever be.” Jess smiled, a weird, lopsided grin, then picked up the Taser from the cup-holder and zapped him just above the heart, holding it there until Tom slumped back into his seat, unconscious. Leaning over him, Jess smoothed the beads of sweat from his forehead, looked at him for a long moment, then kissed him gently on the lips.

  “Sorry,” she said.

  She pocketed his security card and Taser, took a deep breath, and walked over to the secure unit.

  Follow this link to read the author notes

  Sleepless in R’lyeh

  Lavie Tidhar

  INT. TOM’S HOUSE – SEATTLE – DAY

  In his house in dread Seattle Tom lies dreaming. The dreaming occurs nearly every night. Tom tries booze, then pills, but nothing seems to help. The dreams come despite all his best efforts at oblivion.

  Tom was married once. His wife had blonde hair cut in a bob, and a cute nose, and a beautiful smile. Tom wishes he could say she had kept smiling but the truth is she stopped smiling around about the time she began losing her hair. It fell out in clumps and along with the hair and the smile she began to lose weight. Tom tries to remember the way her hair smelled, the shampoo she used; it had coconut oil in it, but all he can remember is the septic smell of the hospital room. He never really talks about this. He hates that it’s such a common story. That everyone has someone who dies this way, in a hospital room very much like that one – maybe even that precise one, since his wife wasn’t the first or the last person to be wheeled out of that particular room. Everyone has a fucking sob story.

  It rains in Seattle, that’s one thing he’s pretty confident about. It rains a lot and the rain is soothing at first, at night, in bed, but soon it becomes not the sound of rain but the sound of waves, lashing against a ship, the sound of the restless dark currents of the sea, and he sways on the deck, and lightning strikes, illuminating a sky as black as coffee, and something monstrous rises out of the sea, and thunder spreads out to the horizon with the sound of war.

  There had been a kid, too. Jonah. Tom never talks about Jonah.

  In his king-sized bed which feels too large, and empty, Tom lies dreaming. As the sound of the rain becomes the sound of the waves, so the call of cars becomes the call of cars outside becomes the call of something else, something primeval. Tom stands on board the ship, an old steamer that belongs in a museum. Something rises from the black waves.

  INT. THE DAILY FOG EDITORIAL OFFICE – DUSK

  MEG stands in JASON’S office. Jason is the editor of the Daily Fog. Jason is seated. He is short and bald and wears glasses. MEG is short and pretty and wears glasses. Her blonde hair is cut in a bob. MEG is pacing. JASON sits with his hands folded in his lap.

  MEG: Conceivably such beings or great powers may have survived.

  MEG waves her hands to punctuate her point. JASON looks at her placidly, and she sighs.

  MEG: The path of this story leads through the manuscripts of crazed men… it follows trails of oozing slime, the dark currents of desire, through swamps where idol-worshippers enact forbidden rituals… it is the tale of maddened professors and haunted sailors… the manuscript could change everything, it could –

  JASON: Think of the film option.

  MEG: What?

  JASON: Never mind. What do you need, Meg?

  MEG: I need more time.

  JASON sighs.

  MEG: And… I need more money.

  JASON: What is it now? Another flight to Australia? Another visit to Norway? We’re not Newsweek, Meg!

  MEG: This story is the most important story of your life.

  JASON: Of your life, Meg.

  JASON: The answer’s no, Meg.

  MEG glares at him. JASON looks back placidly.

  MEG: Then I quit.

  JASON rubs his stomach, as if it hurts. He shuts his eyes. There is the sound of a door slamming shut. When he opens his eyes again, MEG is gone.

  INT. A MONASTERY IN FRANCE – NIGHT

  The siren call rises out of the black waves. It is a keening, awful sound, crossing the darkness of night, traversing the Earth’s atmosphere, from one side of the planet to the other, vibrating like a cosmic string, speaking in a language ancient beyond sound itself.

  In France, in a monastery high above the snowline in the Alps, an ancient monk wakes up with a wordless cry. His ears are bleeding. He claws at his face, his nails are long and dirty, he claws at his face as though trying to remove the mask of its humanity to reveal something primordial and eldritch underneath. He isn’t found until Prime the next morning. Four of his fellow brothers are needed to hold him down. The afflicted brother has clawed his own eyes out. He has bitten his tongue and blood comes frothing out of his mouth. He tries to speak, though he cannot. The sounds he makes are nonsensical. Ph’nglui mglw’nafh? the brothers think uneasily. They carry the brother to the infirmary, but by Vespers he passes away.

  EXT. OUTSIDE THE DAILY FOG OFFICES – DAY

  The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.

  …and so on and so forth, Meg thinks as she storms out of the office. She knows she’s got a story. She’s been hunting it for months, following a trail of mouldy documents and old accounts: the papers of Francis Wayland Thurston of Boston; Inspector Legrasse’s Memoirs; Gustaf Johansen’s Journal; and Abdul Alhazred’s curious tale of antiquity, Al-Maghrib al Aqşá, or The Farthest West.

  There is something in the South Pacific ocean, Meg knows. It is something like New Caledonia, the island that is the only remaining tip of the sunken continent of Zealandia. But this is not Nouvelle Caledonie. No French or British colonial power has ever set foot in that place. For countless aeons it has lain below the sea.

  She is determined to find it.

  INT. TOM’S BEDROOM – NIGHT

  VOICE: Tom. Tom.

  TOM: Go away. Please, leave me be!

  VOICE: But what of your son, Tom? What of your wife?

  TOM: They are dead.

  VOICE: That is not dead which can eternal lie, Tom.

  TOM: I don’t… leave me be!

  VOICE: With strange aeons even death may die.

  TOM tosses and turns; the sheets and the bed are soaked through with his sweat. The voice continues, seductive, awful. It is coming from everywhere and nowhere.

  VOICE: The city lies below the sea, but it can rise again. Let me tell you of its beauty. Let me tell you of the corpse-city, its eldritch non-Euclidean geometry, its streets of awesome beauty and despair. Most prominent of the city’s features is the citadel, Tom, crowned by a solitary monolith. Remember the citadel, remember the monolith. You could see her again, Tom. It is in my power to give this much to you. To hold her in your arms again, to smell her hair again. Find us, Tom.

  TOM: Jonah? Jonah?

  The voice changes, become childish and sweet like poison.

  VOICE: It’s me, daddy!

  TOM: Jonah!

  TOM wakes up. His heart is beating wildly in his ribcage. His hair is plastered to his brow with sweat. He blinks into the darkness then, slowly, sinks back into bed, burying his face in a pillow. His shoulders shake, but he makes no sound as he cries.

  EXT. R’LYEH – ETERNAL NIGHT

  The city lies below the sea, but it can rise again. Let me tell you of its beauty. Let me tell you of the corpse-city of R’lyeh, its eldritch non-Euclidean geometry, its streets of awesome beauty and despair. Most prominent of the city’s f
eatures is the citadel, crowned by a solitary monolith. That old Norwegian, Johansen, is said to have seen it, but that was a long time ago, and the stars are different, now.

  EXT. PORT VILA, VANUATU – DAY

  Meg flies to Sydney. In budget class they show Dagon and Reanimator and Finding Nemo. It’s a long flight to Australia. In Sydney Airport Meg buys two donuts and a coffee from Krispy Kreme and waits for her connecting flight to Vanuatu. It is three hours from Sydney to Port Vila, and when she lands at last it is very humid and a gibbous moon shines down on the small airfield. She can smell mangrove swamps.

  In Vila she hires a boat with the last of her money. Captain Gregor, a Russian or German previously convicted of smuggling heroin to Papua New Guinea, has an old schooner that he swears will take them anywhere. She gives him the co-ordinates and he looks at her strangely. The co-ordinates are for a region within the Pacific’s Pole of Inaccessibility, the deepest and farthest point from any landmass.

  But Meg’s got American dollars, and American dollars buy anything, even loyalty.

  EXT. ISLAND OF VANUA LAVA, VANUATU – NIGHT

  The siren call rises out of the black waves. It is a keening, awful sound, crossing the darkness of night and travesrsing the Earth’s atmosphere, from one side of the planet to the other, vibrating like a cosmic string, speaking in a language ancient beyond sound itself.

  The old kleva, or majik man, sits under the banyan tree alone. He has sat up all night, drinking kava, that dank, brown liquid that makes the muscles loose and the mind sharp. He has seen much, beyond the islands to the depths of the sea, and heard the murmur of the waves and of the sea’s deep dark currents, and he is afraid.