Atlas: A Pylonic Dawn

by J. J. Malchus

  “But you’re transforming,” Atlas says.

  “Coping. Compensating. I haven’t gone a month.”

  “What happens when you haven’t assimilated in a month?”

  Samuel’s dim eyes delve darker. “There’s a question we shouldn’t ask.”

  Atlas clenches his chair’s armrests and lets his vision blur magazines into their end table. His ears ring with an exhaustion of ten rest cycles without rest. The gloom outside lounge windows milks his energy like Sideran sun milks flue vapors, steam upthrust into stratus sky to sweep away and never return. All windpulse under his overcompensating tension slows toward coma, and something of the fidgeting animal in the seat diagonally from him plucks at what little life his muscles sustain.

  “Eden wasn’t the worst of these past couple days.” Samuel touches his lip. “But, man, does it hurt when she wears high heels. Something’s gotta be done about battlefield equality.”

  Atlas bats off eyes’ soreness, whites infested with ruby floss, and angles forward. “I wished to thank you for that—the events in the dungeons. You’ve done much for Gene and me.”

  Samuel makes a face. “Okay. You’re feminine enough as is.”

  Inhaling, Atlas sharpens his gaze. “But there is something I don’t fully understand. Explain to me why you remain here. Our agreement fell into oblivion; we endured your Eden’s torture; and Gene, the only entirely innocent, was dragged into the most violent of the ordeal you began. Enlighten me.” He lets sting his unblinking stare. “What do you want?”

  Samuel leans back and opens his mouth.

  “Material possessions? Some satisfaction Gene or I could supply—”

  “Hey, bipolar one. I thought—”

  “Truly?”

  Samuel’s eye twitches. He clenches his jaw and, sitting up straight, stuffs his candy into his pocket with a fist. “Dandy. Fine. Let’s talk business, if that’s what you’re after.”

  “I’m not traveling to Sidera, Samuel. If you wish to, proceed yourself—retrieve the coin from Eden and learn of Pylon’s key. I hardly care.”

  He scoffs. “You think I want to hop to Sidera now? Eden’s fed up. I’m not—” Samuel gestures to himself. “I’m—and, you know, you got a boo-boo back there but my twenty-seven years of living, in a few hours, fell out my bottom. So don’t whine,” his eyes narrow, “to me.”

  Atlas diverts his to the hall’s left end and watches a nurse walk down it. He looks through the wall, the rooms, and places an image of Gene’s in mind: affliction withdrawal stations, large chairs with restraints, needles.

  “Once she recovers, Eden will discover a way to open Pylon and overrun humanity with war,” Atlas says. “Whining, not apathy, may be the appropriate response and mine aligns more with the latter.”

  “You believe the witch?”

  He raises an eyebrow. “Such sounds derogatory. ‘The witch.’ As I recall, the first action you took in the dungeons—to grant me sufficient opportunity—was clinging to Eden as if you were dangling from Sidera’s fringe,” Atlas twists his tone twisting a nostril, “and she were the only grabbable shrub within fifty kilometers.”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I did.” He grins and gazes past Atlas’s shoulder into shaded distance. His face softens and fixes that way.

  “Samuel.”

  He snaps back to Atlas and lifts a finger. “You shouldn’t believe Eden. Theatrics are all she does. She couldn’t tell the full truth if she wanted to.”

  “I don’t believe a being, which is exactly how anything becomes possible. Yours was taken from you. You should understand.” Atlas’s throat constricts. “Chance scarcely matters when my home is in danger.”

  “Sidera?” Samuel asks.

  Atlas looks through the same section of wall and shakes his head.

  “At any rate, even if Pylon is opened, you don’t know the war will affect—”

  “You don’t know what they’re like.” Atlas meets Samuel’s eyes. “The Imperium. You believe the Accenda are the more savage and that proves exactly your ignorance.”

  Samuel shifts his mouth to the right. “Hear that? Yes, indeed, children: it’s the sound of Attie the Bratty calling Mr. Covey ignorant.”

  “Once they’re here, they will not stop. Siderans, Accenda—they’ll fan the flames into a firestorm. And we’ll all die.”

  “You shouldn’t care, Queen Apathy.” Samuel leans into his seat and, biting down, kicks his feet up on the seat across from him. “Your ‘home’—Earth’s gonna burn. So what?”

  His forehead crumples. “I never said Earth was my home.”

  Eyelids drooping, Samuel looks to the hall. “Ah.”

  “I’m fatigued. I would rather not communicate about—”

  “So you’re just going to take that?”

  “What?”

  “You’re going to take that?” Samuel unpockets his chocolate and shoves the rest of it into his mouth. “ ’S all gon’ burn an’ you’re not willing to fight fo’ it?”

  “There is nothing I can—”

  “Wha’ matters, Attie? How you get some’ing done or why you wanna do it? Don’t tell me you escaped Sidera because it was easy.”

  Atlas exhales at the ceiling. “When I fight, this,” he gestures to it, “occurs.”

  “People get hurt.” Samuel pockets his fists, candy wrapper crinkling an echo. “Or would you rather have stayed in your safe little constellation, working without a worry? Was Denim and her precious planet—is this freedom of yours worth the effort?”

  Atlas stares at a black spot on floor’s vinyl.

  “Because, by golly, you’re the only Sideran who can move a pinky to help.”

  He softens tone. “Where can I begin?”

  “Go to the source—don’t play games. Get to The Presage before anyone else and guard Pylon’s key.”

  Atlas groans. “Not again. I have no way to Sidera and Eden is seemingly a cycle or less from discovering where the key is.”

  “Who the key is. Who.” Samuel tilts his head. “And Eden’s a shrimp with long, Gillette-smooth legs. She didn’t get a thing out of Denim. We’ve got time.”

  “We?”

  Samuel’s jaw juts out. “What of it?”

  “It’s merely—why are you truly here?”

  Squinting through drifted fluorescence, Samuel opens his mouth and shuts it and repeats. His eyes light up. He perks and lifts a hand.

  “I have knowledge I promised in West Virginia I’d give, so might as well. Why else would I be hanging around a book of blank maps and some burnt denim in this veterinary death-prolonger?”

  Atlas presses his lips together. “This is useful knowledge?”

  Samuel’s jaw drops. “Am I a bucket of backyard gumbo to you?”

  Atlas stands.

  “No, no, no.” Samuel plants his feet and points to Atlas’s chair. “Sit. My information’s sound and could help. Maybe.”

  Atlas sits.

  “Where to start. Where to start.” Samuel breathes out. “Apples—you know what apples are?”

  “Yes.”

  “Round fruit, red, grows on trees—”

  “Yes.”

  “Apple pie. Apple fritters. Steve Jobs. Adam and Eve and Twilight. A-P-P—”

  “Absolute.”

  His brow rises. “How ’bout oranges?”

  Atlas rolls his eyes. “Yes. I know of oranges.”

  “You’re going places, Attie.” Samuel slumps and rests his head against the back of his seat. Curving his neck around it, he looks up at the closest light rectangle. “Okay. Say the earliest of the early people in your Imperium were just starting out on your island of an empire. Say they were farmers. They grew fun, fun food that made li’l Tommy happy.”

  “My forerunners,” Atlas furrows his brow, “were farmers?”

  Samuel shades his face’s vapid dejection with a hand.

  “Samuel, what are farmers?”

  His fingers curl around the bridge of his nose. He shimmies up his chair as he s
traightens posture.

  “Farmers grow food, Chuppy. And it’s a metaphor. I hate your life.” Samuel pulls an electronic rectangle from his pocket, touches its glowing screen, and then holds it up; a man in a textured hat, holding some forked instrument, stands before Atlas. “Old MacDonald. Say the Siderans in Sidera’s early days were farmers and itching to grow a fruit never before seen—a gnarly swank, juicy, delicious fruit that could satisfy their cravings. So they experimented with RNA splicing to get strong, healthy recombinant DNA molecules and genetically modify the fruits they already have.”

  Atlas says, “Farmers—”

  “Are really good at biotechnology, yes. And rocket science if they’re as sexy as Matthew McConaughey. So these farmers transformed their less awesome fruit into a more awesome, tasty bunch that boosted their egos. They made apples. Those apples made them feel powerful and they grew more and more until their trees reproduced on their own, filling massive fields. An empire of apples.

  “But, one day, the farmers got bored. Apples were last year’s iPhone: not so fancy anymore. They chased the power dragon and again set out to experiment, eventually creating another fruit. Oranges. Oranges made them happy. But the farmers knew oranges could only flourish on different soil—soil not in their shoddy, infertile empire. They planted them on richer soil, a tempting land to conquer, the only place oranges could grow . . .” Samuel lifts his hands and gives Atlas a look.

  “Matthew,” Atlas whispers, “McCon-hey?”

  Samuel glares.

  “They placed oranges on Orange-dera—orange—” Atlas raises his voice and inclines forward. “Orange Land.”

  “Earth. The farmers didn’t know, at the time, that they wouldn’t get a taste of the orange’s juicy delicacy because Earth would be a little hard to get to.”

  Atlas asks, “Why would Earth be difficult to reach?”

  Samuel holds up his hands. “I don’t know the details. Maybe your farmers strolled into a mall at closing hour and got locked in.”

  Atlas inhales—

  “Meeap. You ask—your liver gets shot. I meant, after the farmers were on Sidera, the exits got sealed for some reason.” Samuel waves him off. “Doesn’t matter. The apples are Siderans. You’re an apple. A nasty, little crabapple. Your ancestors were genetically modified humans, the less awesome fruit. Oranges are Accenda. I’m an orange that’s feeling under the weather.”

  Atlas’s eyes widen. “Imperium created the Siderans and Accenda? From,” he glimpses a brunette nurse lingering too closely behind the desk, “walkers?”

  “I don’t know if they were the Imperium then. But, sure, the same people created both of us from apes called humanity. It’s evolution, plain and simple. We were made to be more,” Samuel taps his palm; “than human and more,” he does again, “than the average. Our biggest function’s gotta be for warfare. Look at us.” He eyes Atlas’s burned hand and the cuff marks around his wrist. “You’re not the only auto-hospital. Our tumble down those hotel stairs would’ve put Denim in a coma—and I don’t know what exactly went down in the dungeons but your bruises are healing like time lapses compared to mine and movie montages compared to everyone else. Your shiny DNA at work.”

  Atlas rubs his slit arm through his sleeve and feels little. “If Siderans and Accenda are very biologically close, how are they contending now? I don’t understand.”

  “The closeness causes contention. Brothers who once played baseball together every Tuesday grow into their teenage years and would rather jam a baseball down the other’s throat. A couple thousand years intensified and things erupt. People get jealous. Disagreements arise. Physical separation arouses suspicion.” Samuel scoffs. “You can’t compare apples and oranges? Screw that. They’re both fruits but,” he lifts a finger, “one’s a pome and one’s a pesseridium. And both want the holy land. Our land.”

  Leaning on his hands, Atlas pushes his palms into his neck and elbows into his knees. His head aches.

  “See why Elisium’s a bit uptight? Siderans gave us one seed and are coming to reap the fields we grew. Eden knows it. I know it. Everyone’s been hankering for war and you’re the thing that gave them permission. You, escaped Sideran, are a symbol of war, the first shot.” Samuel angles toward Atlas’s level. “This knowledge, Attie, is useful because you’re stepping into a family brawl and you’re not ready for the blood.” His eyes glaze and mouth stills. “I wonder what ketchup tastes like on apple pie.”

  “Family is what?”

  Samuel blinks. “Speaking of which, The Presage supposedly has all of this. That sky scripture has the history of Sidera and Elisium and the truth to everybody’s intentions and who really owns what. You can’t fight anything or guard Pylon till you read it.”

  “I,” Atlas slows his words, “am a symbol of war?”

  “Yeeap.”

  “I obtain The Presage then?”

  “Yeeap.”

  “Your knowledge retention, it’s—” Atlas tilts his head scanning Samuel’s face, chin to forehead. Though he thinks of asking about the term “baseball” or “brothers,” something else spills out. “Tell me of pesseridiums.”

  “Well, pesserid—hesprid—they’re fruits like oranges.”

  Atlas stares.

  Samuel sighs. He again slips his rectangle from his pocket and taps it several times. “Uh, hesperidiums are—”

  “Your rectangle.” Atlas’s jaw drops. “Such is what supplies your knowledge. All this time—”

  “I’m gonna vomit.”

  “Absolute willing, no amount of deflection will conceal pesseridiums.”

  Samuel gags.

  “What percentage of actual knowledge comes from your mouth? Two percent?” Atlas grimaces. “ ‘Sexy’ certainly is not a real word.”

  Samuel rattles his chair as he throws himself off the back of it and sprints for the hall. He grabs his mouth. He skids around the corner and disappears.

  Atlas sits and watches the empty hall. The lights buzz. The nurses behind the counter leave it. Darkness settles.

  “Hello.”

  Atlas jolts. He turns toward the voice and sees the nurse his vision’s periphery missed. She motions to the hall.

  “Sorry,” she says. “You may see the patient now.”

  Atlas stands and follows her down the hall to a room at its end. Gasping breaths graze his neck and turn his head; Samuel, clearing his throat, shakes behind them. Atlas eyes Samuel’s glistening forehead and the nurse opens the door, swinging it shut on their way in. Atlas brings his eyes forward; they eject his expectations.

  She lies on a white bed, bars on either side, tubes up her nose, her feet elevated. Gene. Beige, woven strips swaddle the needle in her arm, wrap her hands, scoop up her neck’s curve: bandages. Gauze bulges her gown—her patterned, pastel gown peeking above pastel blankets puddled at her waist. She sinks into three pillows and, her eyes drifting from bedside’s wheeled machine of buttons and numbers and tubes to the curtain on ceiling tracks to the click of the door, spots the nurse. Then Samuel and Atlas. Her hanging eyelids roll upward until they uncover two glimmers.

  Gene smiles.

  The nurse steps between her and Atlas.

  “She’s feeling much better.” The woman ducks her head toward Gene. “Right, Genesis?”

  She nods.

  “Her name’s Denim actually,” Samuel says.

  “Dr. Tyler’s gonna keep an eye on her and see about scheduling a skin graft. If she does well with the Silvadene, we may wait. Her third-degree burns are fairly limited in area, so as it stands, her second-degree burns pose greater risk for infection. The doctor can tell you more about it in a little bit.”

  Atlas looks through the nurse. “Is she in pain?”

  “I gave her a strong dose of morphine twenty minutes ago, so she may be a little hazy but just fine. She’s mostly needing a good hydration, time to clear out her lungs, and a lot of rest.”

  Atlas doesn’t comprehend but nods. The nurse pulls on the door, looks at
the blood spots on Atlas’s clothing, at Samuel’s black eye, and does a double take. She stops.

  “I hope everything settles with that,” she bends down and whispers, “accident. Bless your souls.”

  Atlas glares.

  “No, bless your soul,” Samuel says. “We’re taking it one day at a time. We’ll get through.” He rubs his neck. “Kitty Bonbon never had a chance in the boiler explosion. But he’s in heaven now. Kitty Bonbon’s in heaven.”

  The nurse bites her cheek and exits the room. The door clicks shut. Atlas steps to Gene’s bedside and, finding her eye level, grabs the bed’s bar and kneels.

  “I—” Atlas exhales; his shoulders rise and fall. “I don’t know what to express.”

  Her bandaged fingers crawl toward the bar. The machine’s bag of liquid drips; the numbers fluctuate; her inhale rattles. Gene lifts her hand one centimeter per second and then places it on Atlas’s. She beams.

  “No ’spressing,” Gene says. “Words shmerds.”

  Atlas grimaces. “I’m sorry.”

  She presses her hand down until its bandages no longer tickle his knuckles. “You didn’t do a thing wrong. Got it?”

  His mouth opens but throat closes. He looks down and the vinyl fogs.

  “Now, I’m really pretty absolutely sure I’m really absolutely drugged,” Gene rolls her head back, “but I’m happy. Happy and safe. Don’t worry about me. Worrying’s stupid.”

  “Life will be stupid unless you do stupid things,” Atlas says.

  Gene snorts and smiles. Samuel sighs and shoves the trash bin as he leans against the wall, folding his arms.

  “Samuel,” she rolls her head toward him and squints, “you’re here.”

  Samuel gasps. “Sing hallelujah. Your vision—it’s back. You’re healed. I’ll go tell the doc.”