What if you had a power nobody else had, and everybody wanted?

    Cherie stared at him.  What was he talking about? she thought.  "Keep secret?" she said.  "What?"

     Daniel took old-style pair of glasses from his jacket and unfolded them into a row of lenses like something from an ancient laser experiment.  He held the lenses in front of his eyes and then, without moving his feet, he turned about ninety degrees, fading away as he did so.  Then he was gone.  Vanished.

     "Daniel?" she said.  She looked around.  "Daniel!"  She shone her phone's flashlight beam around.  Where the hell had he gone?

     "DANIEL!"  Cherie stepped into the space where he'd been standing.  "What the hell are you up to?  Where are you hiding?"  She stomped on the ground.  The fading out was weird, like a cheap special effect from an old movie.  She blinked and rubbed her eyes.  It wasn't that late, she hadn't had anything to drink tonight.  Hadn't sustained any blows to the head.  Okay, it was cold, had been really cold on the bike, but wouldn't that make her more focused?

     Maybe something the FBI had done?  She looked around the trees, down into the mêlée.  Did they have some kind of vaporising beam aimed up at them?  Instinctively she crouched down.  Ridiculous.

     He'd said to stay here until he got back.  No, he'd said 'we', until 'we' get back.  How was he going to get through all those lines?

     The FBI was returning fire now.  One of their vehicles was burning, flames leaping up into the air.  The turret on another vehicle was shooting small rockets at the building.

     She crouched and flicked through the newscasts on her phone.  FBI warnings, a high overhead view showing the whole compound, a hacked FBI headcam feed from one of the agents.

     There, someone running, not in the FBI flack jacket.  Daniel?  She enlarged the feed, but the person faded out again, just as Daniel had done.

     Was that him?

     She looked back out into the compound and jumped as a bomb went off, one the FBI vehicles flipped, leaping into the air trailing smoke and flames and agents.

     How could she just wait?

    Melanie du Champs was woken by a gentle "pip" from her bedside table.  It took her a moment to fully realise what it was - years had passed since she'd set that system up - but then she grabbed her phone and saw the flashing alarm.  It pipped again.  She silenced it, then scrolled through menus to pull up the lab alarm.

     Melanie remembered laughing at Reg when he suggested putting the system into the laboratory; told him it was over the top.  "It's sensitive research," he'd told her, so she'd let him install the system and link it to her network.  She'd never expected to hear it.

     The miniscreen scrolled words - "Verified.  This is actual.  No False" - again and again.  Melanie sighed and rolled the screen out, its backlight the only light in the room.  3.32am, the phone's clock in the top right corner read.  She'd been asleep only two hours, wouldn't really be ready to be awake for another four.  She tapped Reg's lab monitor icon.

     Words flashed up, scrolling too fast to read, then the four camera views appeared, flickered a little.  Reg's app programming was a bit old-school, almost hacker, and she knew he kind of liked that.  Among the borders and icons and menus on the phone's small screen, each of the four feeds was too tiny to really make out.  She tapped one, the view over her own desk, and drew it bigger so that it filled the whole screen.

     Destruction.  Papers and books ripped from the shelves.  Drawers out of the desk.  Disks and drives gone.  Her desk computer gone.

     She jerked as the phone started ringing.  Reg.  She thumbed the answer key.

     "You're awake?" he said.

     "The alarm."  She was already out of bed, clipping the now rolled-up phone to her ear.  She turned the bedside lamp on and began getting dressed. 

     "Someone's broken into the lab," Reg said.  "I'm recording the feeds, but they were fast.  It's like they knew what they were looking for."

     "Someone from the university?  From the lab?"

     "Could be," he said.  "Do you want to get down there?"

     "I'll be there in fifteen minutes."  She was pulling her boots on over her jeans.

     "Okay.  I'll see you there."  Reg rang off.

     It was worth going there to see what kind of damage had been done, what might be missing, what the police were going to do.  Everything was backed up and encrypted anyway.  Most of her data wasn't even kept in the lab.  What she knew, what was really important, was kept in her head.  All the encryption keys, but more importantly, some of the vital theories.

     There were some things that just couldn't be written down.  Daniel had shown her that.  Not as a way of keeping things secret, but just that some things couldn't be explained.  "Why can't just anyone paint like Monet," he would ask her.  "Or direct like Hitchcock?"  He'd give that little smile and wink after class, put his fingers to his lips as if it was all a big secret.  "There are things you can teach, the technical, but others you can't.  You can't teach heart."

     "So now you're Monet," she would say, grinning.

     "Ahhh, well."

     And he'd had to admit that her invention, the opticule, had really helped.

     Melanie stood up and zipped her jacket.

     A sound from the kitchen.

     Melanie stopped.  Was it just the refrigerator shutting down?  Her imagination?

     Then again, a footfall.  Someone was in the apartment.

     Melanie gathered up her phone and stepped back into the corner of the bedroom.  "Light off," she whispered and the bedside lamp faded out.

     She strained her ears to hear, listening as hard as she could, but her home had gone silent.  She wished she'd taken Reg up on his offer to put an alarm system into the apartment too.  Philadelphia was so safe these days: it had seemed too paranoid to go beyond what the building already had in place.  Who could gain entry past double coded doors and the doorman?

     She heard a clatter.  Someone bumping her music stand over.  She tensed, imagining heavy clumsy boots crushing her cello.

     Then quiet again.

     She waited.  Nothing.  About to go look, she heard, another sound.  Someone just outside the bedroom door.

     Melanie stopped breathing and slid along and down the wall.  She slipped the phone inside her jacket to hide the screen light and thumbed the media controller.  At least she hoped it was the media controller, trusting that her thumb was familiar enough with the controls to find the right one.

     In the dull light from the house LEDs she saw the shadow of a man turn into the room, head slowly looking in.

     He moved fast then, and she realised that he had night goggles on, could see far better than she could.  She could at least see that he had a gun.  He was moving towards her.

    Sutton pulled up outside the command post, surprised to see no one around.  Just the three trailers, each hooked on the trays of new V10 pickups.  There should have been people at the gate, keeping the curious at bay.  It was a minor thing, but sometimes security fell over with minor things.

     "Seth?" he said.

     "We're moving out," Seth replied in the earpiece.

     "What's going on? Fill me in."

     One of the trucks fired up its engine and the headlights flared through the cabin of the Mercedes.

     "The second and third system stops failed," Seth said.

     "Failed?"

     "FBI geeks probably tagged them, after the first."

     Sutton restarted and turned the Mercedes, parking across the gravel strip, blocking the truck's exit.  "I thought you were better than that, Seth."

     "Me too."

     "I'll be inside in a moment," Sutton said and he opened the car door.

     "Yeah, I saw you.  We've got the word to get out of here.  It's too hot."

     "Ahh," Sutton said.  "Gotta love New Jersey in the summer."

     "Yes sir."

     "Sutton got out of the car and began walking across the field, heading for the third trailer.  He squinted a little in the glare of the headlights.

     "Sir," Seth said.  "We need to move out."

     "What's the status on Daniel Devonport?"

     "We have orders."

     "Not from the ground.  We're too close.  What's his status?"

     Seth sighed.  "Just a moment."

     Sutton reached the door to the trailer.  The first pickup had all its lights blazing now and had edged right up to the Mercedes.

     "Okay," Seth said.  "You realise this will cost me my job?"

     "No," Sutton said.  "It won't."

     The trailer door opened.  "Come on in then," Seth said in person.

     Sutton climbed into the trailer and went straight to the lead monitor, trying to get a sense of what was transpiring in the compound.  The monitor took up a three meter-wide section of the trailer's side, and pulled all the collated feeds - video, audio, data - into a long strip.  In the middle was the image of Elise and Lanie, locked in the office.  Sutton saw the feed of the battle taking place just a couple of buildings away from the mother and daughter.

     "Missiles?" he said.  "The cultists have missiles?"

     The operators glanced at Sutton.  He could tell they were agitated.  How could there be so many holes in the operation?

     "They look like SimpleSimons," Seth said.  "Very small, discrete.  Easy to move.  Very easy to use."

     One of the missiles shot from the temple and exploded against an FBI AV's tire.

     "But quite effective.  This might work to our advantage."

     The AV shuddered, the tire aflame.  It tried moving backwards, but just lurched.

     "Where is Devonport now?"

     "We got a picture of him," one of the operators said.  "But he seemed to vanish."  Probably just the poor light, or a problem with the feed.  We're trying to track him."

       Seth touched the operator's shoulder, then lifted his hand to his ear, listened for a moment and turned to Sutton.  "We really have to go, sir."

     "Mmm," Sutton kept watching the screen.

     "He's telling us to bulldoze your car."

     "He always freezes."

     "Sir?"  Seth gave him an awkward grimace.

     "Let me talk to him."

     Seth tapped his ear and the call transferred to Sutton.

     "This," Garner said in his ear, "is not going well."

    Cherie lay flat on the ground, watching the scene unfold in front of her.  It was like a battlefield, like the news feeds from the Iran front.  The armoured FBI vehicles edged slowly into the compound, facing heavy fire from the big hexagonal building which dominated the centre.  It looked like the defenders were using missiles.  As well as the upside down vehicle, one of the big six-wheeled tanks had been disabled by a couple of accurate shots, two of the wheels ablaze.  It looked sturdy enough, but clearly wasn't up to this kind of serious assault.

     Bullets sprayed up the slope ahead of her, bursting into the grass with a zing followed by a thwack.

     She glanced back at the space where Daniel had vanished.  "Wait here," he'd said.  Wait here, then faded away.  So he was coming back, and she wasn't leaving until he did.

     Anyway, she'd seen him.  She was certain.  Running through the compound.  As if he'd teleported himself.

     One of the long dormitory buildings, near where she thought she'd seen him, was burning now.  A raging blaze.  Cherie hoped there was no one inside.

     This wasn't going to play well for the FBI on the news feeds.

     She remembered meeting Daniel last year.  She would never have thought he would get embroiled in anything like this.  He'd seemed so studious, though as she reflected, she wondered about why he wasn't higher up.  He was a junior lecturer in biophysics at BTech, Manhattan.  A low-level job at a low level university.  As if he was trying to keep out of trouble.

     "Well," he'd said to her when she had mentioned it, in innocence then, 'It pays the bills, gives me time for my bike and swimming."  He'd held some pool records when he was younger, and he swam each day in the school's pool.

     "Couldn't you do more?" she'd asked.

     Daniel had smiled, then promised to show her something.  They'd taken Friday off and that weekend got onto his bike and headed out of the city, driving across the Brooklyn Bridge, then to Staten Island, New Jersey, over the Delaware Bay Bridge-Tunnel into Delaware and on south for hours.  With the sun setting, her backside numb, they had come to a UNC satellite campus near Raleigh.

     "I did my undergrad here," he told her, putting the bike up on the stand outside one of the grey stone buildings.  They walked softly through the buildings, still open in the early evening, despite the dark and the chill.  Small numbers of students filtered around them, some clutching bags, many having conversations with their computers as they walked.  Crows stalked through the grounds, and called from the trees.

     "What are we doing?" Cherie asked.

     "This way."  He led her on, passing by study halls and offices.  Most of the offices were dark, but many had people still hunched over desks reading or writing.  Daniel and Cherie crossed a walkway bridge between buildings and came to a set of laboratories, still lit and busy with people experimenting.

     "Running trials," Daniel had told her.  "That's what they're doing."

     "Trials?"

     "Endless, endless trials."  He pushed open and door, seemingly at random, and strode into the laboratory.  Four young people, barely out of high-school it seemed to Cherie, were working individually with tubes and beakers, complicated looking equipment.  They hardly glanced up when the pair walked in.  Daniel went to one side of the room and pulled two lab stools out from under a bench, indicated that Cherie should sit with him.  They sat watching for a few moments before one of the students stopped and looked over at them, then came across.

     "Can I help you?"  The young man looked tired, eyes red, face sagging.

     "Just observing," Daniel told him.

     "Oh.  Observers.  Sure, great."  The man turned and went back to his own bench.

     Cherie leaned close to Daniel.  "What are we doing?" she whispered.

     "Observing."

     "Uh-huh."  Cherie sat for minutes, trying to fathom out his intentions.  The students continued on pouring and measuring, recording and analysing.  Cherie glanced at Daniel several times, but he just kept on watching the students.

     The man who'd approached them packed up and left, with a suspicious glance their way.  Then the older woman came over.  "Observing?" she said.

     "What's your career path?" Daniel had asked.

     "Well.  Is that what you're observing?"

     "Sure."

     So Cherie had listened while the woman described her plans for the future.  Complete this research so she could give her doctoral dissertation, then go on to some post-doctoral research she was considering in Denmark, then back to the States to look for a junior lectureship, probably out west where she had family.  With Daniel's prompting she went on further, senior lectureship, tenure, possibly even professorship and head of department.  She had wrinkled her nose.  "That's twenty-five or thirty years out, though.  Have to fit in kids somewhere too."

     "Thanks," Daniel had said.  "We'll let you get back to your things."

     As he led her out of the lab, Cherie had said, 'And the point of that was?"

     "Oh, a couple more things."  They went on up through the building, looking in the lit offices.  "Junior lecturer," Daniel said at one, then 'Lecturer," continuing on at each door, naming the occupant's profession.

     Back out at the bike, she'd shaken her head and said, 'Nope, still don't get it."

     Daniel had smiled, climbed onto the Triumph, kicked it to life and pointed up at the lights in the building.  "Where would I rather be, do you think?"  He revved the engine.

     Cherie had laughed.  "Okay.  I get it."  On a level, she'd thought.

     They raced out to Cape Henlopen and found a motel.  In the morning when she woke, he wasn't in the room.  There was a note on the table and she read it, then walked out, following his footprints into the sand.  She saw him, standing high up on a tall dune, staring out to sea.  The gentle wind drove grains across her bare feet as she climbed up near him.  An old wartime lookout tower, the concrete chipped and cracked, stood tall, some pines nearby protected from the swarming dune sand by the solid bulk.  Other pines were succumbing, getting swallowed in the sand.

     "Hey," Cherie said.

     "Hey, you.  Look, dolphins."  Daniel pointed out to where heavy dark waves slammed into the beach.  Beyond the breakers a pod of dolphins played, sometimes riding the waves.  "I'd love to go in with them."

     "Look at that sea," Cherie said.  "You'd be sucked right out.  It must get deep really fast here."  On the horizon gray rainclouds grew with arching silver tips pointing to the stratosphere.  The place felt so elemental and raw, yet relaxing in a way Manhattan could never aspire to.  "So what was all that last night?  You showing me around and flirting with the pretty post-grads."

     "He wasn't that pretty."

     "Hey."  She swiped at him, but he leapt away, racing down the dune towards the ocean.

     Cherie sprinted after him, kicking up sand, watching him put on a turn of speed, then slow.  He ran parallel to the waves for a while, then sat on the sand.  The dolphins followed as easily as if they were just drifting in the current.

     Cherie caught up and sat with him, watching the sea and the thunderheads.

     "I love the quiet here," he said.  "We used to come out in the weekends.  When I could spare a weekend.  It seems aeons ago.  Before they built the bridge to New Jersey and we had to drive around the bay.  It was best in the winter, the sea would be blacker than now and the sand would be freezing.  I would rug up and walk along the beach until after dark, then have to try to find my way back almost by feel.

     "Simpler times," Cherie said, and winked at him.

     Daniel laughed.  "Sure.  Really it got a whole lot more complicated before it got simpler."

     "You still haven't really told me."

     "Told you what?"

     "The whole point of this trip.  Why you're taking second rate classes at a crummy community college, instead of HOD at MIT."

     "What makes you think MIT would have me?"

     Cherie rolled her eyes.  "Well, they wouldn't, of course."

     "Hey."  He slapped her backside.

     "But seriously."

     Daniel lay back in the sand, staring up at wheeling gulls.  "Okay.  I thought you would have got it last night."

     Cherie glanced at him.  It was as if he was testing her, measuring her against some impossible scale.  She lay back next to him and as she came down his arm stretched out behind her neck.  Cosy, she thought.  "I get it," she said.  "But I want you to say it.  Say you'd hate the hours."

     "Yeah.  If I was anywhere else it would be fifty or sixty hour weeks just dealing with email.  I want to be able to take weekends off and get away with my girlfriend."

     She smiled.  "But what about research?"

     "That's the thing.  I get time to actually do some research.  Sure it won't get published in Physics One or Harvard Physics Rev-"

     "Or Popular Mechanics."

     "Do you know how many people read Popular Mechanics?"

     "Huh?"

     "Okay.  I guess it sounds corny, or trite, but I can make more of a difference at my crummy community college."

     "An everyday difference?"

     "The kids I teach, the families of the kids I teach."

     Cherie had known it wasn't the truth, that there was much more to it, probably things he couldn't see himself.  Deep seated stuff that didn't matter in the long run, but probably a psychologist would say he was hiding from something in his past.  Not wanting to make an impression, just lying low, hiding out.

     Daniel took her hand and they walked back up into the dunes.  Hidden from the breakers within a low stand of pines, he unrolled a towel she hadn't realised he'd been carrying and they lay down together.  He touched her delicately and despite feeling a little distant she'd let him.  It was gentle, slow and a little awkward, their lovemaking, on the too small towel with sand in her hair and against her elbows and ankles.  For a moment it felt like the only place in the world, then they lay back staring into the graying sky as spots of rain began to fall.  Again he took her hand and they ran back to the beach.  The dolphins had gone.

     Cherie shook herself back to the present, looking out over the compound like something not so different from the television battlefields in the far east.  Wherever he'd gone to, she hoped he was okay, hoped he was back soon.

    Daniel rotated into the ninety, feeling the odd sucking pull on all his organs and muscles as if they were getting twisted away from him.  He breathed in the crisp air and looked around trying to get a feel for the place again.  The ninety.  It was a long time since he'd come here.  Years.

     The ninety was what they'd called it once the research with Melanie had become formalized.  With concentration and a ninety degree turn, Daniel stepped into a different place.  Like turning a corner onto a different street.

     It was daylight here, the sun up, the lay of the land similar to the cult compound, though the forest was thinner, and the ash and aspens brown and yellow at the tail end of autumn.  A chill wind blew through, rustling the leaves as he got his bearings.  The slope of the hill was a little different, but he could imagine where the compound was back at zero.  He ran down the slope.

     The ground was rough with clumps of grass, and the bottom of the low valley was covered in wildflowers, dying back now with the encroaching winter.  Deer trails created lines through the meadow grasses.

     Daniel ran on across the flatter ground, trying to visualize the layout of the compound.  It had always been hard to orientate, the initial rotation always threw his bearings out.  For all he knew his own sense of direction was magnetic and the magnetic field of the Earth analogue at ninety could be out of whack with what he was expecting.  In the limited time they'd researched rotating that had been something down the priority list.  How he got here was always the main thing they'd been trying to understand.

     Far off, at the edges of the meadow, dull shadows danced.  He'd seen them other times, the strangest things about the ninety, but always distant and hard to make out.  Not natural, like the birdlife or vegetation, but a natural part of the place.

     He slowed and stopped, lifting his hands to mime out the compound.  The main building there, the service building here.  That meant the garages were further back.  He ran another fifty yards and stopped.  Close enough.

     He pulled out his phone and concentrated again, rotating back ...

     ... into the heart of the firefight.  He was just yards from the flaming wreck of an FBI vehicle.  He sprinted away, past the service building.  He hadn't come as far in the ninety as he'd thought.

     "Elise?" he said.  "You still there?"

     "Yes.  There are people here."

     "I'll be there soon."

     Daniel could see FBI foot troops streaming into doors on the buildings.  He came around the side of a building and saw another.  A long shed with big doors at the front.  The garage.

     "Hey!" someone called behind him.

     Daniel stopped lifted his hands.

     "Turn around."

     Daniel did so, concentrating ...

     ... and came back to the ninety.  His muscles ached.  He'd never done two rotations into the ninety so quickly.  Hopefully whoever had been calling to him would just think it was a trick of the light.

     Something like a woodgrouse fluttered from the trees and flapped over the meadow, calling and diving into the grass.

     Daniel raced on, to the spot where the shed would be.  He concentrated again and turned ...

     ... felt the push of a vehicle and found himself sliding, then standing next to it.  However rotating worked, he never rotated into a physical object, it always pushed him aside.  Perhaps that was part of the aching in the muscles, the air pushing away as he turned through it.

     There, at the far end of the long garage, the helmeted troops pounding on a door.  "Elise?" Daniel whispered.

     Nothing for a moment, then the phone connected.

     "Daniel?  They're trying to get in."

     "I'll be there in a moment."

     As he began to prepare to rotate again, the troops stepped back and pulled out their weapons.  They were going to shoot the door.

     Daniel rotated ...

     ... and sprinted through the bright meadow, under the rustling trees and calling birds.  He rotated back ...

     ... beside a desk.  Elise and Lanie cowering against the wall.

     "Daniel?" Elise said.  "How?"

     "Come on."  He bent to them as gunfire erupted.

     The door splintered and they were showered with fragments.

     Daniel got them standing and held them close.  "Turn with me," he said.

     "Stop right there," a commanding voice shouted.  "You're under arrest."

     Daniel inhaled.  This was going to take everything he had.

     "Daniel?" Elise said.

     "Just turn slowly."

     Lanie was shaking as he hugged her.

     "Step away from each other."

     Daniel concentrated and twisted his body.

     "Step away."

     Elise and Lanie turned with him.

     "I said step away."  Someone grabbed Daniel's arm, but then ...

     ... they were in the meadow and Daniel stumbled.

     "Daniel," Elise said, supporting him.

     "We have to get away from here," Daniel said.

     "Where are we?" Lanie said.

     "Daniel?"

     "I'm okay."  He was gasping for breath.  How many times had he rotated?  "See up there?"  He pointed up the slope to where Cherie was waiting back at zero.  "We have to get up there.  I'm a bit wobbly, so you might have to help me."

     "Where are we?" Lanie said again.

     "I'll explain later."

     Melanie watched the intruder keeping his gun lowered.

     She had the phone in her hand.

     She could tell that he was taking his time, knew that he could see her clearly and that she could hardly see him.  He knew his advantage and he was going to make a single, clean kill-shot.

     Melanie punched the media controller.

     A wall of guitar feedback burst from the lounge stereo.  Not loud, but enough for him to turn.

     Melanie launched herself at him.

     This man is a professional, she said to herself as she moved.  He will not let himself get distracted.

     I will be lucky to live through this.

     She caught his waist and together they tumbled to the floor.  His helmet hit the doorframe and his goggles dislodged.  She leapt over and away from him, pulling open the linen cupboard door as she went.  Anything to block him.

     In the kitchen she grabbed a knife off the knife block and flung it back out towards the hallway.  She grabbed another knife, then unlocked and pushed open the kitchen door.

     Too easy, she thought.

     That's where they'd expect her to retreat.  From the balcony, down the fire escape.  Surely he hadn't come alone.  She'd be safer in the street.

     She grabbed the coffee mug tree and threw it out into the alley.  The ceramic mugs shattered, skittering off across the opposite wall.

     Turning, she fled into the living room, still clutching the knife.  In the distance she could hear sirens.

     The circuit through the living room brought her back to the front door, avoiding the hallway.

     He was standing there, already waiting.

     She swung the knife around, but he blocked easily.

     Karate, she thought.

     She followed his block and let the movement carry her weight into him and again they tumbled down.

     He twisted her back and she brought her booted foot up into his groin.  There was an audible crack, so he must have been wearing a box as part of his body armour.  She kicked again and moved back.  Turning, she raced to the front door, scooped up her keys and pushed the door open.  She raced down the stairs and through the lobby.  Where was Leroy, the doorman?

     Why didn't the intruder just shoot me? she wondered.

     The doors opened and Melanie sprinted down Eleventh, made it to the corner and looked back.  He was already out the door.  She put her earplug in and called Reg.  She kept running.  If the man had seen her turn the corner, he would be on her in moments.

     She checked the clock on her phone.  Less than two minutes had passed since she'd seen the man in her home.

     "Hello?" Reg answered in her ear.  "Who ... oh Mel. I'm almost there."

     "Reg, listen carefully.  Forget the lab.  Turn around.  I need you to pick me up."

     "But I'm-'

     "Listen.  I will pay if you get auto-ticketed.  I need you to meet me at the corner of Lexington and thirteenth."

     "I'm on the crosstown now."

     Melanie wondered if she could have got to her own car in the block's basement.  How far did all this go?   "Reg.  They came to my apartment.  Whoever it was that was in the lab came to the apartment."

     "Huh.  Did they ... are you okay?"

     "I'm fine, but I only just got out.  These guys are serious."

     "Did they get anything from your place?  Where are you?  Should I come and get you."

     Melanie got to the corner of Twelfth.  There was little traffic and she sprinted across the diagonal, chanced a look back.  There seemed to be no one following.  "Reg.  I need you to stay calm.  I already told you where to meet me."

     "Oh, yeah.  Lex and thirteen.  It'll take me ten minutes to get there."

     "If I'm not there, then I'm not far away.  But don't stop.  They might be tracing this.  Keep moving down thirteenth."

Top of Page

The Tale of the Demise of the Red Isle

by Stephen Weinstock 

            The two temple musicians sat facing each other across the wooden bars, a replica of the original bronze Instrument, and raised their mallets.  They began to swing deftly on each side, interlocking their complex rhythms at great speed, until the hollow resonators underneath the bars filled the village with a shimmering, indescribable sound.  As always, small children ran to the front of the crowd to get the closest look at the wondrous actions of the musicians, and folk came out from every corner of the village to hear the strange new music.  Everyone who listened and watched was in awe and delight, the temple musicians creating proselytes without uttering a word.  In every village, the new believers listened and celebrated deep into the night, begged them to stay longer, fondled and worshipped the dxylo-dxyla, the holy Instrument from the Red Isle. 

            Exhausted from dragging the dxylo-dxyla up and down the coast on the mainland, Zancq stayed in each village only until he saw the first replicas of the Instrument being attempted by children or adults; as soon as the imitative process began, he gathered up the Instrument and the musicians and left.  Despite the foolproof success of his first visits to the mainland, despite the smiles and squeals of delight from every man, woman, and child, when Zancq returned to court on the Red Isle, he made known that he resented his job.  Having grown up in the fortress sanctuary, where his mother Jaya was a high priestess, Zancq had envied the energy and force of those giving the commands.  Jaya, keeper of the sacred Instrument, had put her son forward in court; out of respect, Queen D’aulai had bestowed on Zancq the mission of spreading the magic of the Instrument.  From the beginning, he suspected that the Minister of Affairs, a drunken, boisterous man who barely believed in the sanctity of the dxylo-dxyla, had sent Zancq to the mainland as a cruel joke.  When Zancq now begged the Minister to replace him, the sneering courtier did not even answer.

            Zancq tried another approach: he told Queen D’aulai that the Instrument was beloved by all who heard it, and that her glory was reaching people all along the coastline.  He argued that to proliferate the Queen’s fame further inland, he needed a team of travelers.  He would oversee them from court, perhaps head a Ministry of Exportation.  But it was no use; things were getting out of control on the Red Isle.  Queen D’aulai had discovered the sacred Instrument, renamed herself after the dxylo-dxyla, and claimed the throne with the Instrument justifying her right and power.  But there were growing rumors that she had stolen it, that she had grown up in a shoreline hut, and that her court was nothing but scavenging lapdogs.

            Then two figures emerged calling themselves God-Protectors of the Instrument.  Queen D’aulai retaliated by claiming she was the direct descendant of Oumkratania, the ancient Goddess figure who had begun the rites of the Instrument.  The brother and sister God-Protectors accused Queen D’aulai of deceiving the people, and raised an army to take back the Instrument and oust the Queen.  The Queen’s Minister responded by demanding that all courtiers and soldiers defend the fortress and suppress the rebellion.  As far as Zancq’s proposal to expand his travel team was concerned, the Minister found such an undertaking inadvisable.

            Worse for Zancq, his mother Jaya was suspected of siding with the enemy.  Indeed, the priestess had looked at Zancq’s sojourn to the continent as a purer form of worship of the Instrument, and had secretly doubted the Queen’s true nature.  When Queen D’aulai declared herself the only true Goddess of the dxylo-dxyla, Jaya knew this to be severe untruth and could no longer mask her distrust.

            We need to get as far away from here as possible, Zancq told himself and his mother: return to the mainland with one of your musicians.  Civil war had broken out, staining the island truly red.  During a catastrophic battle on the inland plateau, when an earthquake created by the two enemy Gods swallowed the Queen’s troops whole, Zancq and his tiny crew quickly and quietly set sail for the shoreline.

            On this trip they traveled further up the coast until they found themselves following the trade routes that eventually led to the West country.  Jaya herself took over for the second musician, but the long days on the road wearied her.  Zancq knew that he would have to learn to play the Instrument himself.  His concern for his mother, the frustrations at performing the fast rhythms, and the knowledge that nothing he accomplished could save him at court, made his days dragging the dxylo-dxyla from village to village bleak and torturous.  He lacked the drive and energy to whip up excitement as they entered a village.  If his mother was asleep or resting away from the crowd, Zancq skipped the invocation to Oumkratania and played halfheartedly, barely keeping up with the musician.

            Nonetheless, people everywhere continued to delight in the music, the joggling rhythms, the flying mallets, and the metallic shimmer of the sound.  Zancq passed through some villages he had visited on his first trip, and observed that the locals had fashioned a bevy of imitation dxylo-dxylas, usually made of wood and not bronze, and were creating their own spirited syncopations.  The music was joyful and infectious.

            After a time, Jaya became too ill to continue the arduous travel, and wished to see her beloved homeland.  Zancq thought to himself: you’re going home to bury her.  His musician partner, fed up with Zancq’s lackluster playing, agreed to turn back.  Within weeks the trio found themselves in sight of the shores of the Red Isle. 

            From a mile away they saw ominous columns of smoke.

            They docked the boat near the Queen’s new fortress, next to where Jaya had presided in the sanctuary of the Instrument.  The shore was littered with bodies, burnt, slashed, and torn apart as if by wild beasts.  What had once been a quiet fishing community was now an open graveyard.  Zancq and the musician fashioned a makeshift stretcher out of thatch from a ruined cottage and carried Jaya toward the fortress.  Along the way they saw a pyre of animal-like figures with savage, yellow-eyes.  There were also signs of natural disasters.  A ferocious monsoon had ripped through the coast, strewing huts and other shelters everywhere.  Several fissures had gashed the countryside; thunder strikes had caused massive fires and destruction. 

            The Gods had retaliated.

            Zancq thanked the great God Ambanari, brother of Chief Goddess Sahnra, that his mother was unconscious when they arrived at her shrine, so that she would not witness her ravaged acolytes, the cracked temple pillars, and the stolen or destroyed musical instruments.  The sacred Instrument itself lay on the floor, its frame shattered, bars strewn everywhere.

            Zancq said farewell to the musician, who pleaded to go off to his home village in search of his own people.  They had laid Zancq’s mother in the berth that had housed the Instrument before its demise; the space was virtually untouched and would serve as a bed for his mother’s last comforts, as well as her final resting place. 

            Zancq stayed up the long, feverish night at his mother’s side.  In the morning, she looked up for one last time at the brilliant blue of the sky.  He felt a deep sense of gratitude to her and a debt that he could never repay.  When her spirit was released to the skies above the island, Zancq wept uncontrollably.  He covered her with holy robes and blessed her with the Goddess prayer before leaving the temple. 

            Zancq took a quicker route back to his boat, avoiding the blood-spattered shoreline by walking through the ruined fortress.  A perverse attraction caused him to pass through the Queen’s central courtyard.  As he suspected, he encountered one of the worst atrocities

-- and one of the most satisfying.  On the royal dais were the Queen, the Minister of Affairs, and several of the other highest officers of the land, spitted on skewers driven through their torsos.  A dozen half-mad citizens staggered about the platform, guarding their captives.

            At one end two larger than life bodies rotated on their spits.  Though he recognized all the other victims from his days at court, Zancq did not know this pair.

            “Halt!  Come no further unless you wish to be roasted on the fire as well,” one of the desperate guards barked at Zancq.  “Name your business.”

            “I offer no battle,” he said, “I only wish to know the names of these two,” gaining courage as he thought of his salvation, “so I may sing the praises of your great deeds.”

            The distressed guard came closer to Zancq, who inched backward.  “You have rightly chosen the greatest of our deeds,” the guard said, “for these are the divinities who dared oppose the Queen.  They are deities no longer, for the great Queen showed us by her sacrifice the key to the Gods’ vulnerability.  They could raise hurricanes and thunderclouds, but they could not escape the bite of the roasting spit.”

            “Sahnra.  Ambanari,” Zancq gasped.  He slowly backed out of the chamber: “The world must hear of the sacrifice ... the beginning of ... freedom.”  Zancq turned and ran.

            The dxylo-dxyla would never appear on the Red Isle again.  Zancq returned to the mainland with his Instrument, battered and worn from its years of travel along the coast, up through the trade routes, far into the West.  Zancq’s work was his means of survival: each village would know of his coming, and greet him and feed him and celebrate the coming of the dxylo-dxyla.  In many of the villages new to him, his work was already done; when he arrived the townspeople had already heard of the tricky rhythms of the mallets, and had begun to make music.  Talking drums, pitched turtle shells, xylophones, balafons, and war toms proliferated everywhere.

            Zancq sat one day along a riverbank, enjoying the water on his bare feet as he watched local women work their rice for that day’s dinner.  He had seen famine throughout the continent, but had never known a tribe to give up its musical instruments for the sake of a grain of rice.  He had seen further war and bloodshed, but he had never heard an army without its drums to send them into battle.  He had seen disaster and unrest and sadness, but music and rhythm had accompanied every one of these hardships.  People would never give up their pleasure or their expression or their love of the sound.  It was what helped Zancq survive; it was what helped the world survive.

            As he watched the women pound the rice in wooden mortars he laughed to himself.  You really missed out on that court position, old friend.  Stuck here peddling this old bone board to these poor natives.  What a pathetic life you’ve led.  Zancq knew he was the only one who had escaped the terrible fate of his homeland, a fate caught up in the very Instrument he still lugged around the mainland.  On the Red Isle it had become a symbol of power and greed and eventual devastation, and here, in these Godforsaken places, the Instrument, Rhythm, and Music itself was a thing of happiness and survival.  It had nothing to do with power or glory.

            The pounding of the rice mortars gradually changed to an organized sound; Zancq smiled at the familiar interlocking rhythms that emerged as the women listened closely to each other and went from unison motif to a new complex rhythm when one of them shifted their rhythm over a beat.  Zancq marveled at the sound, splashed his foot to the beat, and felt his heart swell.

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Murder

by Julian Adorney 

            John’s muscles pumped, firmly under his boss’s – the Emperor’s – control, launching him through the forest.  Branches broke under his muscled frame.  It was dark, the white moon obscured by low clouds.

            Damn, a forest this big must have cost a fortune.  Trees, like plants and wildlife, had been virtually eliminated from the nation.  Only the wealthiest inhabitants could afford them.

            He dodged past a tree that loomed out of the night and kept running towards the compound.  To a normal man the scene probably appeared black as prison, but John Murtal’s surgically enhanced eyes picked out every detail.  The metal-rail fence that bounded the compound, a half-mile before him.  The mansion fifty yards behind that, all brick and steel without windows.

            A few moments passed before he reached the fence, spearing thirty feet into the sky.  Barely too high to jump.  Probably ceranium alloy, one of the few substances he couldn’t snap as easily as a man’s backbone. 

            His arms rose, out of his control, to grasp the rails and heave himself up.  He didn’t bother to resist.  He had tried before to take back his own body from the Emperor’s command.  The results had been…painful.

            Thank God he was only controlled during the night.  He groaned internally.  He would probably kill himself if this was his life.

            His legs propelled him over the fence.  He landed in a crouch, drug-strengthened bones absorbing the impact of the fall.

            Gunfire exploded around him as automatic weapons sighted his form.  His body veered, dodging the bullets and sprinting towards the mansion.  He slid to a stop in the recessed entryway.  Bullets spattered the grass outside, but in here he was safe.

            His gaze rose to the closed double doors that barred entry into the house.  Ten feet high and probably thick.  Made of black steel, with spikes and nubs protruding from the surface.

            It was a killer’s entryway, unwelcoming and fortified.  He tried to exhale, thankful yet again that his quarry tonight – Emeritus – was just another crime-lord.  One of the bastards who sold heavy arms to terrorists, another man too dangerous to be trusted to the fallibilities of the civilian court system.

            For another night, his target wasn’t someone he loved.  Not one of his friends, not his sister or his mother or…

            It was a well-kept secret that the Emperor didn’t encourage male Enforcers to have ties.  Usually they were already lonely killers when they were hired.  The ones that weren’t were forced to cut their ties.  By choice or, more often, by murder. 

            He tried to stop and catch his breath as he recovered from the gunfire.  Even after ten years, the shock of being fired on left him weak.  But apparently rest wasn’t in the Emperor’s plan tonight.  His body lunged forward.  His hands punched through one of the doors and ripped it open.

            Bullets exploded through the doorway.  Holy shit! He leapt to the side, expecting to feel them rip open his flesh.  But they missed and smashed into the brick floor, throwing up rubble.

            His mind whirled, instinctively trying to overcome the obstacle.  He couldn’t step inside without being riddled.  Not that his thought mattered.  He stooped to grab a piece of rubble, wondering what the hell he was trying to do.  He couldn’t read the Emperor’s thoughts any more than the Emperor could read his own.

            He heaved the brick into the hallway beyond the doors.  The automatic weapons fire shifted, tracing the projectile and blasting it apart.  He darted in.

            He raced down the hallway as the gunfire refocused and tore at his heels.  His less-than-subtle approach had probably alerted Emeritus’ personal guards.  The Emperor didn’t mind killing everything in this house and neither did he, but neither of them wanted to risk John getting killed.

            The hallway was long and dimly lit, but he didn’t focus on it.  His thoughts turned inward.

            Every night, since he had signed up for this job what seemed an eternity ago, it had been like this.  A brain-implant knocked him out at twenty-one hundred hours, and the Emperor took command of his body.  The chemical cocktail in his blood transformed him.  He became stronger, faster.  Unbelievably resistant to pain.

            A pair of guards appeared in a doorway, automatic weapons spraying bullets.  His body lunged to the side as they sliced the air where he had been.  As the guards tried to track him, his legs pumped and he launched towards them.  Blood sprayed as he ripped their heads off.

            He cursed internally.  When he had been told that the job involved fighting every night, he had leapt at the chance.  But this wasn’t fighting.  The thoughts that surfaced every night ran through his head in a defeated mantra.  He wasn’t a warrior, free to react to his surroundings and use his mind and muscles to triumph on the battlefield.  He was a tool, watching as the Emperor manipulated his body.

            But the Enforcer wasn’t a job he could just quit.  It was a lifetime of servitude, whether that life ended in old age or murder by a vengeful Emperor.

            He sprinted through the doorway the soldiers had come from.  He was close now; he could see the dot representing Emeritus on the map overlaid on his vision.  It was the same technology the Emperor used to keep tabs on the Enforcers.  He bulled through a heavy door and spun left up a flight of stairs.

            He knew his lifetime probably wouldn’t continue another month.  The death-sentence hung on him like a lead cloak, draping him in its depression.  The Emperor suspected his role in saving Celine, and sabotaging the Emperor’s plans for her had consequences.

            He would do it again, though.  He could still smell her perfume, could see her lying naked in his arms.  He groaned in his mind.  Christ, even if she hated him now, he couldn’t let her die.

            Another guard appeared down the hall, holding a bulky stun-gun.  He smiled grimly and fired.  Pain exploded in John; his nerves felt like they were on fire and he tried to scream. He staggered, almost fell as blackness seeped into the corners of his eyes.

            His teeth gritted and he lunged towards the man.  He felt like he was moving through gel, but still too fast for the guard to get another shot off.  He snapped the man’s neck and kept going, splinters of pain shooting through him like leftover electric sparks.

            The pain subsided, and he pushed on.  Emeritus was close now.  He ran down another stone-walled corridor, spun right to crash through a door, and found him.

            The room was small and circular, stone-walled like a dungeon from an earlier age.  White lights shone from the ceiling, illuminating the red carpet embroidered with an eagle, the wood table against one wall.  Emeritus lay huddled on the carpet.  His neck had been slashed.

            John inspected the wound.  It didn’t look deep enough to be fatal.  But when he used his life-scanner to check the man’s vitals, they were blank.  The man was dead.

              There was a syringe next to him.  What the hell? Maybe Emeritus was an addict.  Maybe he’d been shooting up when one of his guards had decided to cut his throat.

            John didn’t have time to ponder the situation.  The transmitter in his ear, his constant connection to the Emperor, buzzed.  The Emperor’s voice cut through his thoughts.

            “Target is dead.  Go home.”  John felt his limbs move as his master forced him to obey the order.

*          *          *         

            The room in the basement was well-lit and spacious.  Warm light radiated from a chandelier and made the white walls shine.  A big oak table gleamed darkly in its position along one wall, empty save for one holo-computer floating above it and the engraved icon of the Spanish crown.  It had cost a fortune back when Spain existed; as an antique it was damn-near priceless.  A pair of manacles hung from the side wall, a failed experiment.

            John leaned forward in his chair, looking at the holo-computer, waiting.  He felt the familiar shiver of fear he did every night when he turned it on.  If the Emperor found out that he had this hooked up – that he had bribed a tech-agent to have John’s targets emailed to him two hours before he was supposed to – then he was a dead man.  But he had to know.

            Who would it be tonight? Jesus, he prayed it wasn’t someone he loved.  He didn’t want to kill someone close.  Not again.

            He ran through the list of possible targets with a worry that bordered on the fanatic.  His mother.  His best friends, Tom and Raphael.  His sister Lisse.  At least his brother was dead, killed five years past by another Enforcer.  The silver lining on the smog…

            Or maybe Celine, again.  She had escaped once with his help, maybe he would have to return to finish the job.  He slumped at the thought, groaned as his memory re-awakened old wounds.  That would be the ultimate irony.

            Of course, maybe he would get lucky tonight.  Like he had last night, with Emeritus.  He doubted it, though.  A leaden dread settled in his stomach as he waited.

            The computer whirred, scattering his thoughts.  An electro-message flashed on the screen.  He opened it.  A single name appeared.

            John Murtal.

            He stared at the bold letters, numb.  Part of him had expected it for about a month, ever since he saved Celine. It was inevitable.

            But still, to see it in black and white, now…he sagged in his chair as depression smothered him.

            An instant later he jerked to his feet.  He had known the Emperor would try to kill him.  Now he knew exactly how.  He knew what he was fighting, and Christ he could fight it!

            His mind whirled.  How much time did he have?  He glanced at the chronometer on the screen.  It was nineteen hundred hours.  Thoughts flashed through his mind, half-formed plots and questions appearing and vanishing in an instant.

            He closed his eyes, forcing himself to breath.  Dammit, he had to get control!  If he was going to survive, he needed to slow down enough to think.  He took a deep breath, let it out slowly and drew another.

            Gradually, his mind slowed and reason returned.  He couldn’t do this alone, he realized.  He needed outside help.  He walked to the wall and tapped the transmitter between two bricks.

            Raphael answered after almost thirty seconds.

            “What the hell, John?  I’m kind of in the middle of something, I’ll call you back.”

            A girl’s voice purred in the background.  “Come back to bed, Raphael.  We’re lonely.”

            “Goddamnit Raphael, I don’t care if you’re in the middle of a five-girl orgy!  This isn’t a ‘call back’ situation.”

            Raphael paused, then spoke to his companions.  “Sorry babe, John’s being an asshole.  You and Claire get dressed and I’ll call on you later.”

            A moment passed, and Raphael sighed.  “I hope you know they were gorgeous.  Both of them.  Let that sit on your conscience.  What do you need?”

            “Did you see my target for tonight?”

            Raphael groaned.  “C’mon, you know there are two people in the world who see your targets, and the one who’s not you is the Emperor.  Are you addled?”

            John shook himself.  Dumb question.  What was wrong with him right now?

            “Okay, fine.  I did, and it’s not good.”

            Raphael cursed.  “Should I be going off-planet right now?”

            “No.  It’s me.  I’m the target.  I have two hours till I have to kill myself, and I need your help to prevent that.”

            Raphael sucked in his breath.  “Tall order.  I don’t know if I can help you, definitely no promises.”  He paused.  “Didn’t you face this thing a couple weeks ago?  When Celine was the target?”

            John shook his head.  “Yeah, I managed to send her off-world, barely.  I can’t kill her if she’s a planet away.”  He felt a chill.  The memories of that night – the frantic rush to a space-port, bribing officials to leave early, fighting with reluctant pilots and city guards and Jesus the constant ticking clock – still twisted his gut.  If he had failed…

            A low whistle cut through his memory.  “Damnation John, why did you pick this job?”

            “You know that.”

            “Oh yeah, you were a patriot.  You thought you would be hunting down terrorists, killing the bastards that threatened the nation.

            “And now…?”

            He rubbed his temples.  “God above, Raphael, you really have to ask?”

            He could hear Raphael sigh.  “To think ten minutes ago I was gonna get laid…well damnit come over, I can’t let my friend die.”

*          *          *

            John’s V3 Eagle tore down the side roads a few miles from his mansion.  It was a beautiful design, he thought; even when he was trying to dodge death, he could appreciate the vehicle that had cost more than his house.  The leather seat was individually molded to fit his body.  The windows were tinted as black as the exterior.  The interface responded to his thoughts rather than his touch on the non-existent steering wheel.

            He shook his head and considered his situation.  He had expected to be one of the Emperor’s targets for about a month, ever since he had saved Celine.  He had thought the Emperor would send another Enforcer to do the job, but no…this made more sense.  There was an elegant simplicity to it: a semi-rogue thread in the Emperor’s tapestry, cutting itself off.

            He shot down the road and took his bearings.  He was about twenty minutes from Raphael’s house.  The seconds ticked loud in his ears.

            His mind spun, turning over Raphael’s last question.  When he had signed up, he thought he would love being an Enforcer.  The thrill of the hunt.  The joy of killing the bastards that preyed on society.

            He loved fighting, loved the thrill of pitting his skill and intellect against an enemy and knowing his life was forfeit if he failed.  Being paid to kill was an opportunity he couldn’t pass up.

            He turned left at an intersection and kept going.  Buildings blurred, other cars appeared and were gone in an instant as the Eagle hit 500 kilos per hour.

            But his actual job as Enforcer had turned out to be different.  Even that he could deal with, though.  His sated conscience outweighed the fact that he lost control of his body for ten hours a night.  The pay was incredible.

            It had been Celine that changed his mind.  Just thinking the name twisted his gut.  He could still see her in her white dress dancing with him, could hear her throaty whisper as she told him she loved him.

            But his job didn’t encourage lovers, and leaving every night to kill didn’t foster a relationship…

            He groaned, shying away from the memories.  His iron discipline locked them away as he forced himself to focus.  It was nineteen twenty-one.  Barely an hour and a half left.  Jesus…

            How was he going to get out alive?  He was relying on Raphael – the genius – to help him, but he needed to be thinking of methods on his own.

            The Eagle glided down a winding side-street.  Massive factories loomed on the side of the road, windows lit as they ground out industry.

            He could always assassinate the Emperor, he thought bleakly.  The nation’s capital was a fortress, but it would be worth the risk.  He threw out the idea as implausible.  Maybe in ten years he would liberate the nation; right now he had to save himself.

            He could break into the information warehouse where every Enforcer’s data was kept.  If he could delete his name, the Emperor would lose any influence over John.  He turned the idea over, then shook his head.  It would take too long.  He only had…he glanced at his watch and swore.  It was nineteen twenty-seven.

            He slid down another side road and saw Raphael’s mansion a mile away. 

            It was huge, even bigger than John’s.  Inventors were paid even better than Enforcers, particularly the geniuses.  A steel palisade encircled it, tipped with spikes that gleamed in the moonlight.  Massive trees encircled the house, but John could see it soaring above them.  Fifty feet above the ground, a palace floating in the sky.

            The main gate swung open as he approached, and John ran into the yard.  Massive trees surrounded him, thick foliage cutting off the moonlight.  Branches slapped him for the few minutes it took him to break through and reach the house.

            He charged to a post underneath the building, punched in a password on the electronic keypad.  He vanished, appeared an instant later in Raphael’s mansion.

            His host was waiting for him, resplendent in plum-colored robes. His pointed beard clashed beautifully with tanned skin and big blue eyes.

            He crossed to meet John, extending his hand.

            “John, good to see you.”  Solemn and unctuous at once.  “I’d offer you wine, but somehow I doubt you would take me up on the offer.”

            John shook his head.

            “Pity.  If you’re going to die, you might as well be drunk.  Go out in style.  A girl or two wouldn’t hurt, either.”

            John growled.  His chronometer ticked, every tick inching him closer to twenty-one hundred.

            “I don’t intend to die, Raphael.”

            Raphael shrugged.  “Life is too good to end prematurely.  If you want to live – and I would encourage it – I’ve had some thoughts on the matter.”

            Thank God.  John grinned, suddenly and irrationally happy with his old friend, and ashamed of his earlier curtness.  Raphael was a genius.

            “Damnation, that’s good news.  What exactly did – damnit, just a moment.”

            The transmitter in his ear buzzed.

            “Bad news, Enforcer.”  The Emperor’s tones were crisp and glacially cold.  “Emeritus is still alive.”

            What?  John shook his head at the words.  Somehow he had forgotten he had a job outside not killing himself.

            “Impossible.  I saw his corpse.  His heartrate was zero.”

            “Obviously not.  He survived, he duped you, and now he’s at large.”

            “His symptoms showed he was dead!”

            “Apparently symptoms lie.”

            “So when am I going to kill him?” John asked, suddenly mocking.  Reckless.  “Before or after I commit suicide?”

            “Before.  John Murtal will be your second kill of the night.”

            The words echoed, humorless.  Damn, how could the Emperor be so cold?

            “Fine.  He’ll be dead by night’s end.”

            “Obviously.  Enjoy your last hour of freedom.”  The line went dead.

            John sighed.  By the nine hells, he hated that man. He turned to Raphael.

            “So what exactly did you have in mind to help me?”

            His friend turned, beckoning him to follow.  John walked after him, down the long corridor lined with erotic paintings.  Statues of naked women stood in alcoves.  The carpet was plush and purple, and his steel boots sank in.  He cursed the slow pace and pushed past Raphael, running down the corridor.

            “Where are we going?”

            Raphael gasped as he tried to keep up.  “First left, into that room.”

            John dodged past a pink sofa and spun to his left.  Beside a naked picture of Venus, he could see a door.  Dark metal, so black it seemed to absorb the warm light of the corridor.

            “In there.”

            John pushed the door open and stepped inside.  The room within was small.  Raphael pointed to the far wall.

            “Manacles,” he said proudly.  “Hand and foot.”  They extended from the stone wall, four circles of metal connected by chains.  “Ceranium alloy, stronger than the ones I installed in your house.”  The ones that broke, let John break free and almost kill Celine.

            John inspected them.  He tugged them, squeezed them in his grip.  Ceranium allow.  That could work.

            “Problem: they’re just attached to the stone.  I’ll rip them out of the walls.”

            “They’re attached by six feet of metal!”

            “Doesn’t matter.”

            Raphael turned to him, eyes wide.  “Damnation John, how strong are you?”

            “That’s not half of it.  I’ve dodged bullets, ripped the heads off an entire platoon of guards.  Punched through stone.”

            Raphael stared.

            John shrugged.  “These won’t work.  What else’ve you got.”

            Raphael walked out of the room, sweeping John in his wake.

            “You said the Emperor takes control when you fall asleep.  Why not just stay up?”

            “If I’m awake past twenty one hundred, he knows.  An Enforcer will be sent to collect me.  Unless you want one of those infiltrating your house…”

            Raphael paled.

            “Ok, how about this?”

            He pushed away a tapestry and opened the door concealed behind it.  He fumbled inside and pulled out a massive gun.

            “Stun gun.”

            John fingered the dark metal.  His mind flashed back to the night before, to the fire that lanced through his bones and almost left him unconscious.  “Nine hells, Raphael, this thing’s big enough to stun a titan.  You make this?”

            Raphael grinned.  “Specially modified.  Only one in the galaxy.”

            John shook his head. “Problem is, I won’t be dead.  It’s a short-term solution to an eternal problem.”

            Raphael considered.  “It would buy us tonight.  We could try.”

            John nodded.  “If nothing else, stun me when I transform.  But there must be something more permanent.”

            “What was that call?  A couple minutes ago.”

            John growled.  “The Emperor.  Apparently one of my targets faked his own death.  He artificially slowed his vitals, probably used ribossin…”  He trailed off as a thought occurred.

            “Damnit, I should’ve thought of that!”

            Raphael shook his head.  “Ribossin?  Good thought, but it’s black-market, good luck finding some.  I don’t even have any.”

            He paused.  “The man you didn’t kill, on the other hand.”

            John grinned.  “Of course!  Ok, I need to find that man.  Break into his house and steal it.  For that, I need to transform…”  He took a deep breath, thinking.  Excitement surged through his system.  He could do this!  God above, he could survive!

            With an effort of will he calmed his racing thoughts.  He needed to think, not spit out half-formed plots. 

            “You go to the man’s house.  Emeritus, on the North side.  Bring the gun.  I’ll transform and break in at twenty one hundred.”  He exhaled, thinking.

            “Use the chaos of my entrance to find it.  Never mind, I know where it is.”  The image of the syringe next to Emeritus’ body flashed in his mind.  It had been mostly full, definitely full enough for one more use.  Assuming Emeritus hadn’t taken it with him when he fled.  “When I come, stun me and pump it in.”

            Raphael nodded.  He was pale.  “Christ, I’m going to have to subdue an Enforcer.”

            John laughed. It felt like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders, just the possibility that his death sentence was no longer absolute.  The entire world seemed brighter, like a black filter had just been removed.

            “Don’t sweat it.  Leave now, you’re gonna need a head start.”

            He grinned, suddenly energetic.  “Let’s spit in the Emperor’s eye.  Fake my death.”

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The Recruit

by Michael Wen

    It was after two in the afternoon and Sul was dismayed to find the food court more crowded than before.  Don’t people have jobs to go back to anymore?  To hell with these jobless losers, he thought, maybe I should just go ahead and do it now.  He placed his right hand into the pocket to fish out the disposable cell phone but changed his mind and instead made a sharp turn left toward Macy’s.

    For a city of this size the mall is huge.  The device strapped to his right shin was beginning to grate the skin, and he regretted not having walked around a bit in Malik’s apartment to make sure the strap wasn’t put on too tight.  Wafts of cinnamon assaulted his nose as he walked past a Cinnabon.  There’s an empty bench close by.  It was the exact spot where he first met Malik about two months ago.

    “Are you Suleiman Bashir?”  That was Malik’s icebreaker.  Sul didn’t say anything at first, and gave only a nod when Malik asked again.  After only a minute of extremely awkward exchanges Malik invited him to his study group.  Sul remembered saying it was nice talking to you but I’ve got to get back to work but Malik blurted out “burning charcoal doesn’t make enough carbon monoxide.”  Sul recalled blood rushing to his head when he heard this, and demanded to know what he meant, but Malik only handed him a piece of paper with a number on it, asking him to call after work.

    He met the “study group” that evening.  The meeting took place in a small one bedroom apartment next to a Laundromat. There were three others besides Malik, including a man with graying beards named Iman Hasan who said almost nothing.  Malik admitted that he was the volunteer who took Sul’s call at the Suicide Hotline, and that he learned of Sul’s plan of making carbon monoxide by burning charcoal from the online forum Sul mentioned in his call.  Since there was only one posting from this city on that week, they didn’t even need to hack into the server to get the IP address. 

    He got down to business quickly.  He knew that Sul’s mother has been laid off and his father was having trouble paying the mortgage, on top of his sister’s tuition and Sul’s student loan.  They also knew about Sul’s lackluster employment history after quitting med school last year.  He then proposed a mutually beneficial arrangement.

    It would never work.  Sul remembered saying.  Too many people in this town know I’m not remotely religious. 

    Not a problem.  Malik had said.  We have a list of web sites and online forums that you’re going to visit regularly from your home computer over the next two months.  You’ll also start corresponding with an iman in Yemen.  We don’t need to do much.  You’re already half guilty in most Americans’ eyes because of your name and ethnic heritage.

    Why don’t one of you do it?  He remembered asking.  We each have a unique set of skills that were purchased at great expense and are better used for other assignments, Malik explained. 

    My father brought us to this country to get away from the fundamentalists.  If I do this it’ll break his heart.  Malik was quick to point out that he was already planning on killing himself.  Wouldn’t that break his heart too?  This way you get to take care of your family’s problems too.

    He bought an ice cream cone and went to sit on the bench, events from the last few hours replaying in his head.  He remembered copying the letter Malik gave him to the Desktop of his home computer, and going to Malik’s apartment to get ready.  Afterward he drove to the nearest ATM to make sure there’s thirty thousand dollars deposited in the checking account he opened last week.  He remembered putting the ATM card and the passwords for all of his bank and brokerage accounts into an envelope, and mailed it to his sister.  Nothing was overlooked.

    He left the bench and began to walk back.  There were fewer people in the food court this time, and the only uniform in sight was that of an army recruiter standing in front of the arcade on the other side. A table near the center of the food court was empty.  He jumped on it, held out the cell phone, squeezed his eyes shut and shouted “Allahu Akbar” as he pressed the send button. 

    He opened his eyes and saw the four teenaged girls at the next table turn to glare at him, one of them still sucking on a straw.  The elderly couple at the next table had a puzzled look.  What did Malik say to do if the phone detonator doesn’t work?  There’s a small black knob on top of the thing.  He reached down to the bulge on his right leg, grabbed a hold through the denim, and yelled “Allahu Akbar” again as he gave it a twist. 

    The girls jumped to their feet and began to back away very slowly, like they’ve just seen a mountain lion.  The old lady began to scream and everywhere people scrambled to their feet.  He saw a mall cop walking toward him in a sluggish pace, unsure if this situation is within his pay grade.  The army recruiter didn’t move, but seemed to be shouting. 

    With great effort Sul pulled the pant leg up to uncover the bomb, located the knob visually, and twisted.  It wouldn’t budge. Maybe it turns counter-clockwise.  He reached for the knob again.  From his peripheral vision he could see the security guard scrambling away while on the right the army recruiter was dashing straight toward him.  Everything began to take on a fluorescent pallor as the shouts and screams grinds to total silence.  I hope this is what it’s like when a bomb goes off, he thought as he began to lose consciousness.

Life in a small town can get very interesting...

Soul Guide Kenshiro

by Rinas

Name’s Kenshiro. Average 11-year old kid. Born with a propensity to cause mischief. I dream of becoming a football player. Basketball player. Ok, I have many dreams right now, I’m a kid, and I’m just like every other kid my age!

Yet now I find myself staring at a reddish, chiseled creature that looked like it had too many plastic surgeries, crying like a baby.

And that’s where my story begins.

*

“PLEASEE!” cried the creature.

“W…what?” I said, shaking. “What do you want me to do?”

“I want to go back home!” It said.

“Sure, but how?”

“I DON’T KNOW! WAHHH!”

“L…look…c-calm down…stop directing your tears in my face...do you remember how you got here in the first place?”

“NO!”

“…Well, you can’t just mope around all day. Maybe if you walk around the place, you might trigger something in your memories.”

“T…that sounds…ok…” He began to calm down. “But…won’t the humans here be scared? Fearful?”

“No, no. This town’s pretty weird. They won’t be a bother to you.”

*

It’s the truth: my town really is weird. We’ve had instances of UFOs circling around the place every two weeks, water turn into juice every 1^st Sunday of each month, mimes congregate around a tree at Hairson Park, and shoes fall from the sky on a once a week basis.

So as I took the creature around the town, I was certain that the only one who cared that there was a large creation walking around the place was the one walking around with him.

*

“Look…you’ve been with me for three days,” I said, “You’re ruining my school break!”

“I KNOW!” He whined, “BUT I CAN’T REMEMBER ANYTHING!” He suddenly gasped. “No, wait, I remember something!”

“Are you sure you remember something?” I asked this question because the past few days it said the same thing, only to stand there like it saw stars then say it remembered nothing. Predictably, it did stand there like it saw stars.

“I arrived here with a letter!” It put down its bag and took out a notebook. It flipped through the pages. “Yes! Here it is! It says, ‘bring back Red Orb of Bethumet’! OH!” He looked in the bag again. “I have the red orb! Yay! OH!” I actually got excited for once: he seemed to be getting his memories back. “Uh…what am I doing here?”

“…You’re a creature trying to find a red orb…”

“Oh, right, right!” Five seconds later, “Uh…who am I?”

*

I finally figured it out. There was a reason me and the creature met a couple of days ago: it was my job: to guide lost creatures back to where they came from.

My life must have sucked so badly for this fate.

Anyways, while making sure he didn’t forget his purpose, I learned that in order for him to get back to his world, he would have to meet up with his partner. Where his partner is would be another story…

*

“You big dummy!” said a creature about my size, had wings almost as colorful as a fairy’s, and hardly looked intimidating, “I told you I would be waiting by the graveyard! Why do I have to always look for you?” He glanced at me. “So, you must be the human that watched over him. Thanks a bunch!”

“No…no problem!” I replied. Man I was so glad this was over. They would both leave my town and I would go back to my average, boring life.

“So you got the orb?”

“Yes, yes I do!” He rummaged through his bag. He kept looking. And looking. And looking. “It…it’s not here!”

“Impossible!” I said, “We just had in there! What’d you do with it?”

He stood there like a lump thinking about it.

“I…don’t remember…”

“AGAIN?” screamed his partner, “You bungling idiot!” He got up in the red creature’s face and slapped him silly. “Where’d you put it?”

“Uh…please…let’s calm down. He’s already stressed out enough. Eventually he’ll remember where it is, ok?” So we waited for the red creature to think about where he put the orb.

“I know! I put in my pocket!” I wanted to punch him, but my attempt would have been futile; my little buddy took care of that problem by punching twice for me.

“You lousy, no good, worthless dummy!” When he stopped slapping him around for a bit, the creature punched a hole in the air, creating a void.

“Well kid,” said the red creature, “I thank you for taking care of me. I had a lot of fun!” They entered the void and, as they waved goodbye, disappeared.

*

As I rested on my bed thinking about the start of school, I thought about the fun I had trying to get that creature to remember stuff. Something in my mind tells me that this is just the start of my troubles.

I’m hoping that my mind is wrong.

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The Children I knew as children

have children of their own.

the teenagers I knew as a teenager,

have teenagers of their own,

and I am thinking,

even Clint Eastwood got old bones.

The Children who wanted to be doctors,

are now practising in underpaid jobs.

The children who wanted to be rich footballers

gave up when girls came along.

The children who loved Football,

play on five a side teams,

between work and going home,

even Clint Eastwood got old bones.

The children who wanted to be famous,

got bitter when opportunity knocked,

and they left her alone,

even Clint Eastwood got old Bones.

A CITY EATEN BY PLANTS

by John Grey

Imagine the microscopic spores
of algae and moss even now
humming by your head.
It’s an adulterous world.
The scattered jungles won’t stay
in their steamy homes.

Wind currents are a willing co-respondent.
And then, air’s at cross-purposes,
a sudden stall, a parachute drop,
before you know it, sorus settles
in the soil about your feet.
Or better yet, it beds down on a statue.
Or feasts upon the stagnant waters
scattered throughout rooftops.
Or infiltrates a sidewalk’s cracks.
Inarticulate sure but it’s as patient
as we believed our arrogant sculptures to be.

And plant matter can live on glass, on plaster.
Fungi, lichen, eat the faces off the dead.
And then come the roots, barely visible,
but with a mind to grow and strengthen,
to crack the code of brick and steel
and topple buildings.

Meanwhile, moss and grass take over sidewalks,
buckle bitumen
Dandelions are ripping up railway lines
Don’t look now but
New York City is Costa Rica.
A tree no longer grows in Brooklyn.
Brooklyn is a tree.

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