Caligatha

by Matt Spire

  She settles in his wheelchair, shuffling over with her feet.

  “I never told you,” and he coughs a few times, sips again, “when you were a young girl, I was working the docks”–he erupts in a coughing fit–“I'm fine. A boy had fallen in, not a worker–he must have been about your age at the time, thirteen or so.” He stops, drinks. “There are so many electrical faults everywhere.”

  “He was being electrocuted?”

  “Face up, unconscious when we found him. Without thinking, I jumped in to pull him to safety. But once I was in, the entire time I thought”–he coughs and wheezes.

  “Dad, why are–”

  “Just a tingling sensation in the water. That was all. But a stray current, and that could have been it. The whole time I thought about you.”

  “You're crazy. Why are you telling me this now?”

  “You're more than a bright light, Lydia. You've been a strong woman for a long time. Even then you could have cared for yourself.”

  “Well, I've gotta haul your butt around.” She doesn't understand his point–doesn't want to hear another variation of the greatness-from-tragedy speech if that's what it is.

  “I don't need to act strong for you anymore. Let me rest,” he says, and settles back down.

  “You never did,” she says, but he's quiet. She rubs her eyes; they ache, but don't tear.

  He breathes deeply. “That's my point, darling.”

  “So I'll just keep this here for the flies,” she says, tapping his plate. “Let them have a fighting chance in autumn.” But he's already closed his eyes.

  “Lydia?” he says when she's at the door. “Leave the store alone today. Go do something for yourself.”

  She shuts the door, imagining him reaching for more pills. A warm drop falls on her hand, still gripping the doorknob.

  Downstairs, she dusts the immaculate bottles and mops, wondering what to do. She could try to sleep in, but it wouldn't be any use.

  Even down here, she can hear the restless clock, tick, tick, tick.

  ***

  After spending the day moving from room to room, pacing about on her pained foot, Lydia roots through old mementos and contemplates her decision for the night.

  She stands in front of her full-length mirror.

  Bowing her head, she places one of her mother's found belongings around her neck, a beautiful celestial sun pendant, its sleeping face behind a cabochon of honey amber. She touches the tiny baby-blue larimar stones encircling the face. Twelve, like a clock.

  She still can't shake the idea that meeting with Jericho is crazy. Neither of them know anything about each other; except, strangely enough, why they have problems sleeping at night. But he seems harmless, and it's very much in public this time. Besides, it was her idea.

  What does she know, anyway? Only hours ago, she was frustrated by her father's death-scented nostalgia, and here she is rooting through her mother's things.

  She sits on her bed and wonders if she's become too untrusting of anyone but herself. Herself at best.

  It's been a long time. She'd had a boyfriend in school for a couple years, but she was a girl then. It was all about holding hands and then kissing and then discovering what sex felt like, hiding from each other’s parents, writing silly notes. There were real feelings there, too, she'd cared a good bit, but she hadn't heard from him after he left Caligatha with all the other boys and girls her age. She doesn't remember too much heartbreak.

  Regardless of what her father says about her womanhood, Lydia could look like an adult, act like an adult, but be an adult–was she a woman yet? She knew better than to believe she'd missed that validation through men, but it seemed she'd missed the necessary context required to answer the question.

  Staring at the assortment of dresses and pants and shirts she's sprawled across her bed, she wonders if she's over-thinking things.

  I don't have to be in control of everything. The clock still ticks. The crab still crawls.

  But she wants to be pretty. Standing again, she examines her face, her body, wondering what she should show off, if anything, staring in dismay at her arms. Just a little too much muscle from those trips up and down the stairs.

  “Shut up,” she says aloud, and changes into her usual jeans and shirt. “The future of humanity doesn't depend on you.”

  She's getting carried away, pent up. It's stupid. That isn't womanhood.

  Just as she's content with her reflection, giving herself a smile, it happens again. As she stares into the glass, she can't focus, only sees the flat plane, diluting.

  Everything feels like it's sliding away, brightens. She grabs the side of the mirror. Her reflection cascades, leaves trails. Her temples pound, and the whiteness overtakes everything. She leans into her bed, clutching her face. Slow, painful throbbing.

  Then it's gone. As quickly as it came, it's gone.

  She lies on her back for a moment, listening to faint chatter outside, laughter, the tick of the clock, her calming heart.

  Half-expecting it to glow like a protective amulet, she lifts the pendant. Its serene face stares back with closed eyes. She takes it off and tosses it on the bed, it now seeming ridiculously fancy.

  This is the second weird spell since yesterday, when Reuben left for lunch and the faintness almost sent her tumbling into a rack of bottles. Then, she'd been glad no one was around to watch her near-collapse, and moved on–too much to do. But today, two days in a row, it's scary.

  She's got to get a little more rest, stop depriving herself of sleep, but now the clock chimes.

  Seven.

  8

  Remains

  Mae starts up the stairs as Eric closes the footlocker.

  “Find anything?” she asks.

  “Do you remember?”

  She doesn't respond.

  He opens the book back to where he left off.

  My understanding of Realm is quite unsophisticated, but a key aspect of its operation finds inspiration in the field of quantum physics–something to do with light particles being arranged in every possible combination until they're observed. When these particles are observed, only then do they appear to “choose” their location and activity. According to Jericho, Realm operates on similar principles. Every possibility is considered, and the most logical one is chosen when necessary. But sometimes Realm can't decide, and time distorts. Two things seem to happen simultaneously. Needless to say, this “ghosting” was very dangerous, and how Realm resolved these inconsistencies was unpredictable.

  Emma could explain the “ghosts” in less coarse terms, but I'm afraid she has already left with Jericho, and her field-notes are long destroyed.

  Anyhow, I digress. I recall that the phenomenon, by the time Leviathan took Realm global, was determined to be early interfacing issues. Nonetheless, I have always found it fascinating how the most advanced and unnatural phenomena find inspiration in the spiritual beliefs they replace. I have begun to find it disconcerting as well.

  He closes it again.

  “I can't read this shit,” he says. “Even drifters like our dead friend in the tub used to have a life worth something. I don't know what pisses me off more, reading technical bullshit or philosophizing about everything.”

  “If this place belonged to anyone associated with Jericho, it doesn't look like he did any work here,” Mae says. “It's too small.”

  “You don't want to remember either,” he says, regretting it.

  “Why would we?” Quick, the question already poised in defense. “We didn’t all start out soldiers like you.”

  “We all lost things,” he tells her, trying to empathize, but it's useless. Sofia is his guarded secret, the only human part of him left, and she's hidden away.

  “Yeah,” she mock-laughs.

  “I'm sorry. I know your husband–”

  “Was dragged out of our store? By crazed lunatics in broad daylight, tied up in a circle with the other men working? Doused in gasoline and set on fire? Is that what you
were gonna say? A pharmacist. A harmless man. And after they were satisfied with their show of power, they stole everything. While your old buddies from The Guard stood watch, waiting for their cut.”

  It wasn't the first time he'd heard this story. It was the first she told it.

  “You're right,” she continues. “Memories lead to softness, and softness to death. Nobody wants to remember.”

  He starts to tell her there's many reasons he left The Guard, but every fractal of his own story connects one massacre to another.

  “I saw something about the building in a letter,” he says, returning to the bed.

  This time, he dumps the entire contents of the footlocker onto the mattress.

  “Here. This one.”

  “What language is this?” Mae asks.

  “It's been translated into English on the back.”

  Professor Sull,

  Sorry I haven't written in so long since leaving. Between all the working, drinking, and that publicized suicide attempt, there hasn't been time for much else. Also, sorry you had to pick this up at the post office and I put a fake bookstore down as the sender. Extra precautions.

  Speaking of bookstores, I've been watching. Glad to see you found work. I guess some people still like to scribble in the margins. That's good.

  You've seen the news. The immune system has been sold. Soon, millionaires everywhere will never be healthier. And I can't sleep. Somehow, they get ahold of me. One reporter wants to know if I think I'm God, and another wants to know how many more I've secretly killed. One found me entering my apartment and asked if I thought I'd “made up” for what I did to her by trying to cure all these rich people, and I fucking I hit him in the face with my bottle of scotch. It was still in the bag so he wasn't hurt too badly but then I gave him a thousand dollars to not say anything. Don't know how I feel about that. Assaulting a reporter isn't the best publicity. I guess that will be in the news soon.

  Don't get me wrong, I prefer things how they are. It's easier. By this time next year everyone will have a daughter or nephew or grandfather still around because of me and if the press loves you, they're less like flies on shit and more like leeches on something, whatever.

  Also, that wasn't a suicide attempt, it was just an overdose. I think it Really.

  Also, I'm clean now. It's hard to look out for laser sights when you're high.

  Anyway, GenAssist thought they got a great deal on the immune system. I settled for a flat upfront fifty million. They said within fifteen years it would be affordable for the middle class, that's when sales would really take off, plus it would have to go through a lot more testing–especially considering the source. And they were setting a precedent with such an unusual deal. So it was really smart for me to take the money now. I would love to see how hard they laughed behind closed doors at my fiscal stupidity.

  Fifty million is a drop in the bucket for them. Very easy to make that go missing, compared to what they will pay their lawyers and “independent researchers” to falsify years of study.

  Now that I've leaked some tidbits to the press, I wonder how many whole buckets of cash they're paying the FDA to keep quiet. I'm enjoying their story that we're merely in “talks.”

  It's been six months, so I'm going to anonymously post blueprints online tomorrow so any five year old can cook it up. They and their millionaire friends can fuck off, and have just a merry time figuring out how to sue me when any evidence simply indicts them.

  I guess I killed disease or whatever I said.

  So now that I have fifty million dollars, I was hoping I could hire you. I need help with something. Don't write back to this address, it doesn't exist. I'll meet you on June 1 at your apartment at 2pm.

  Feel free to stroll by 422 Lucretia Avenue at your leisure. Soon you'll be spending a lot of time there. I had a new loft built where I'll be continuing my work, and, incidentally, it's in your name. I'll explain more in person, but consider it your new home.

  Please accept this letter as a testament of my sincerity and trust. The paper you hold in your hands is a consciously-designed, unnecessary vulnerability. That, and I know how you are about letters.

  Also, sorry about the Esperanto. Extra precautions.

  Jericho

  “Wait a minute,” Mae says. “Where's the chimney for the fireplace?”

  Eric looks at the floor.

  “You were standing where it should be,” she says.

  “Maybe they renovated at some point.”

  “According to the letter, the whole building is too new. That doesn't make sense. Even so, why wouldn't they seal it off?”

  9

  Aurore

  It should be two full days since Jericho has taken any morphine, but he'd found two pills in a pocket this afternoon and talked himself into easing off, downing fragments every few hours.

  His pulse and temperature rise and fall, there's occasional nausea, and he's still itchy.

  But he's staved off the worst of his withdrawals. He's standing outside Aurore, not sweating and vomiting in bed with intestines knotted into a giant leach.

  Alternating between tinges of panic and incredulity, he watches Lydia approach, wondering who she is and why they've become entangled.

  But also admiring her aesthetic beauty. Her straight dark hair, thin but shapely lips, mahogany eyes. Her movement is modest yet powerful, deliberate, radiating a hushed and sensuous frenetic power, a person within a person.

  “Bonjour,” she says, smiling coyly and looking up at the door. “So that's the name.”

  “Aurore,” he reads aloud. He itches and shifts his weight around, worried the prickling sensation makes him appear too uneasy.

  “I guess it's more than just croissants.”

  The windows are already replaced, but the outdoor seating which obscured the interior view is still gone, revealing a dining room of mirrored tables and merlot-colored walls.

  “Looks like we imagined the cafe part,” he says.

  “I guess we're destined for the bar. Shall we?”

  The dining room is filled with couples, many of them vacationers appearing to dress the best they could with what they had. The bar is mostly empty.

  They sit at the far end, and a young man promptly introduces himself as Farron and takes their order. Lydia requests a pinot meunier, Jericho asks to hold off.

  “What?” she asks.

  “I've never heard of that,” he says, wondering if he looked puzzled, or if she's asking why he didn't order.

  “Oh. It's a black wine grape. It's mostly used for champagne. But their house meunier, see”–she grabs the placard off the bar–“I'm curious...lavender, plum, white pepper.”

  “You know your stuff.”

  She raises a brow and smirks. “Oh, right. I work in a liquor store. I meant to ask for a flaming shot of vodka. Or body shot. Maybe a flaming body shot?”

  Jericho laughs. No one has made him laugh so much in a while–not Reuben, not Maggie. But it's easy for Lydia with her sardonic wit and intermittent, warm smiles.

  “Well, ya got me,” she says. “Confession: I don't really work at some seedy liquor store. I don't know why I said that.”

  “Where do you work?”

  “We just sell wine. But I'm good at it.” She waves to the bartender Farron. “Make that two?” Smiling at Jericho, she says, “See? I just sold you one.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I guess I wanted to sound...dark. Mysterious.”

  “Why would you want to do that?”

  She gives him a playfully severe look. “Probably because...I was talking to someone dark and mysterious at the time.”

  The bartender returns with an unopened bottle and displays the label to Lydia.

  “Oh, goodness. I thought we were getting glasses.”

  “The meunier is only available in bottle, madame,” he says, reaching for a wine list.

  “Well damn. And I've already sold this man on it.”

  Jericho starts to prote
st, but she interrupts. “So it is!”

  Farron forces a polite smile, placing two stemmed glasses on the table. Jericho stares at the wide bowl and flowering rim, wondering what display of poor etiquette she'll notice. Is he supposed to smell it? Swish it around? It makes him remember his uneasiness, his raised temperature. Somehow, he'd forgotten, but he itches now.

  There's a moment of silence, Lydia wanting to say something but waiting for Farron to leave.

  “Strange night, last night,” she says as Farron pours.

  “Yeah. I have a hard time sleeping sometimes.”

  She smiles. “I was talking about the crab. But sure, be all egotistical.”

  He wonders if she's serious, but only looks at her after Farron's left. She's staring intently.

  “Okay,” she says, “You can just chug this like it's mother's milk. I don't care, if you're wondering.”

  “I was wondering…if I was supposed to drink it, or–”

  “Toss it over your shoulder? Well...” She picks up her glass, looks him in the eyes. “We have a strange situation here, sir.”

  “I know.” He watches the wine wobble in her glass, then looks back at her, her eyes not having left his. “I've been trying to remember where I've seen you.”

  She shrugs with one shoulder. “I'm here now. And so are you. But it's bad luck to not toast to anything, so we have to figure something out.”

  “Bad luck? Is that what they say?”

  “Nope. They don't live to tell about it.” She sets her glass down, then after a second picks it up again. “Well, then, to–figuring out what the hell we're doing.”

  She clinks her glass against his and sips, and he resists the instinct to take a large gulp.

  “This is nice,” he says. And it is, though he has no taste for wine.

  “Sorry, I'm just doing reconnaissance.”

  “Aren't we supposed to be looking for a crash victim?” he says, wishing he had more of value to say. So devoid of conversation, his socializing is always so vapid and flimsy.