The Edger Collection

by David Beem

  “Hidden?” I say. “They thought there’d be a place to hide information in the Collective Unconscious?”

  “The breakthrough came in an unexpected way,” says Anna. “We used to use these old speak-and-spell-type things. I don’t know what they were called, but your dad liked them because they predated the internet. Anyway, one day when they were talking about hiding information in the Collective Unconscious, the thing randomly wrote a message: Welcome to Club Brain.”

  “Okay, explain that,” I say. “You mentioned that before, but that’s a place inside the Collective Unconscious. I’ve been there.”

  Her face scrunches up. “Well, technically, the Collective Unconscious isn’t a place at all, but a psychic stratum that exists in all our subconscious minds.”

  “But Bruce Lee told me I was the first person to contact the Collective Unconscious.”

  “Are you sure that’s what he told you?” she asks.

  I fold my arms and scratch my chin. “Okay. Now that you mention it, I think he said I was the first person to go consciously into the subconscious mind. The first person to see the archetypes and know them for what they are, or something like that.”

  “Anna.” Mary holds her hand over the box. “This. The serum, the rings. What’s the end game? From the sound of it, you guys had this all planned out, but now that we’re here, and the rebels have fallen, won’t Nostradamus know our plans?”

  She shakes her head. “No. He won’t know because only the animals know it.”

  “The animals,” I repeat, deadpan. “You were talking about that before.”

  “Right. We made a group of artificially intelligent animals here in our camp so they could work without Nostradamus reading their minds. They’ve been interfacing on a closed circuit with a printer in the back. Paper trail only. That’s how these files were produced. This bunker is one in a complex system designed by the animals and built by machines. Your mom led you in, but she won’t know where you went after going through the door.”

  “So neither will Nostradamus,” I say, nodding. “And that camera. That’s for our security?”

  “In case Nostradamus breaks in here or somewhere else,” says Fabio, a light blooming behind his eyes. “If our bunker is breached, we’ll know we’re out of time!”

  Anna strokes his arm. “That’s right, sweetie. Good job!”

  “So whoever made it to the finish line,” says Mary, “whoever of us made it down here, they’d have everything they needed, the serum, the rings, food, water. But none of the rebels know what’s down here?”

  “Animals knew, humans didn’t.” Anna nods. “The animals agreed to keep key secrets from their human benefactors, and we, in turn, took a leap of faith by placing our trust in them. Edger, your mom believed whoever the human survivors were, they should decide their own fates. Everyone up there is under Nostradamus’s control. She wasn’t going to put everyone down here under her control. She had faith in us.”

  “All this assumes I made it down here,” I point out. “Since you need my blood to stabilize the serum.”

  Anna shrugs. “Correct.”

  I hold out my arm and glance at the door to the lab. “Well, what’re we waiting for?”

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Shmuel raises his hand. “If I chop off your head, will light shoot out the neck hole?”

  “Why does everyone keep asking me that?” asks Nostradamus.

  “Nostredame, Nostredame…” Consuelo strokes his chin. “I don’t know, dudes. Sounds a lot like Nostradamus.”

  “Nostradamus is for mooses, Nostredame is for dames?” says Shmuel.

  “I think it’s meece,” says Consuelo. “Meeses?”

  “If there were two of you,” says Shmuel, facing Nostradamus, “would you be Nostradamooses, or Nostradameeses?”

  “I…” stammers Nostradamus. “I…”

  “Ha! Stumped him!” cries Wang. “Right out of the gate! So much for the evil overlord.”

  “I’m not evil,” replies Nostradamus. “And I’m not stumped. I just… Can you rephrase the question without the subjunctive and clarify whether we’re talking Latin or English?”

  “Buh…” say Consuelo and Shmuel simultaneously, and Ralph inches for the door.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” snaps Christine.

  Ralph points. “That’s Nostradamus! I didn’t sign up for this!”

  “Sure you did,” says Wang. “We said there’d be the final boss at the top of the tower. We further said he’d be some old geezer behind a desk.”

  “That’s not ‘some old geezer.’” Ralph points again. “That’s Nostradamus!”

  Wang flings his arms up in a show of frustration. “He was born in 1503! He is literally the oldest person on the planet!”

  “You’re only as old as you feel young,” offers Nostradamus.

  “Whatever the fuck that means,” says Wang.

  “He’s all-powerful!” cries Ralph.

  “Fair point,” says Nostradamus.

  “But his power depends on that suit of his,” says Wang. “It must be some kind of, I don’t know, alien life support system. Who the fuck cares? All we have to do is get it off and Tales from the Crypt over there will blow away like dust in the wind.”

  Consuelo clenches a fist. “Righteous!”

  “Yea-ah,” says Nostradamus. “That’s…not…really…”

  “Like the Thanos snap?” asks Shmuel.

  “Exactly, Shmuel.” Wang snaps his fingers and then points at Nostradamus. “Ralph. Get over there and get his suit off so we can Thanos-snap him. I am…inevitable.”

  Ralph’s shoulders slouch. “Fu-uck you. You’re out of your inevitable cult leader mind!”

  “As entertaining as this is,” says Nostradamus, “you should all know no one is going to be Thanos snapped. Also, there’s a more immediate flaw in your analysis of the threat I pose.”

  “Oh yeah?” asks Wang. “What’s that, Crusty?”

  “Magical beings become more powerful with time,” says Nostradamus.

  “That’s such a Boomer thing to say,” Christine replies.

  Consuelo’s eyebrows rise, and his head ticks to the side. “Meh. Emperor Palpatine?”

  Nostradamus rises from his desk, and Wang steps back. Nostradamus glances right and left. Everyone’s backs are against the wall. “See?” he says. “You know it’s true.”

  “Are you going to Force Lightning us?” asks Shmuel.

  “Why don’t you take that armor off and show us how powerful you really are?” asks Wang, swinging his nunchucks in a loop at his side as Ralph, Consuelo, and Christine inch for the door. He stops swinging. “Get back here!” They stop in their tracks.

  “I couldn’t help but notice those medallions around your necks,” replies Nostradamus, lifting a finger. “Manufactured in China, I presume, with a nifty on-off switch on the backs?”

  Wang’s medallion rises from his chest and, while not lifting off his neck, floats in front of the eyehole on his ninja mask. Medieval Future Knight wiggles his fingers and the anti-mind-control medallion revolves slowly in the air.

  “It would be a shame to lose that,” says Nostradamus.

  Shards of wood explode as the Yugo barrels through the fence, bouncing and lurching over the uneven terrain, and a group of about ten zombies dives for cover. In the distance, the large wire pen is visible like a mirage. Beyond that, the Catapults of Glory.

  “They’re still firing!” cries Danny.

  “Oh, sweet dildos of freedom,” cries Leo.

  Leo leans out the window and fires his gun. Another batch of zombies disperses. He faces Danny. “Let’s hope that pig’s got those birds sorted out.”

  “What are these words coming out of your mouth?” Danny replies.

  “It’s the End Times!” Leo fires his gun out the window again. “Anything goes!”

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Anna finishes administering the last of the booster shots made from my blood to Cal
eb, and watching everyone take their turns strapped into that chair takes me back to when Mikey’s people gave me the Zarathustra serum. Still, the resources and extra space here feel luxurious after being cramped in the bunker one room over. I hop up on one of the countertops in the lab, turn the faucet on next to me, and enjoy the sound of running water.

  A click comes from the far side of the lab as Fabio locks the bathroom door. I shut the faucet off and lift a beaker out of a tray on my other side. Anna walks past, takes the beaker from me, and puts it back. Grinning, I hop off, open her three-ring binder, and run my finger down the table of contents. Nostradamus Antiserum? I thumb forward to the page.

  “Guys, check this out,” I say, straightening. Anna leans in, and I scoot over to give her more room.

  “Antiserum,” she says. “Mufasa’s notes, I’m guessing.”

  “Mufasa.” Caleb leans in from my other side. “The lion?”

  “Mm-hmm.” Her finger marks a paragraph. “Here he says, ‘By injecting Mary’s blood into the antiserum, we’ll have the catalyst needed for cutting Nostradamus off from the Collective Unconscious forever.’” Anna removes her reading glasses and addresses Mary from across the countertop. “The antiserum causes Nostradamus’s neural network to misfire, but only in the part of the brain that regulates access to the Collective, and only when he tries to use it. In other words, we’d be giving him a kind of focalized dystonic disability.”

  “So why are you looking at me like this is a bad thing?” asks Mary.

  “Dude!” cries Fabio from behind the bathroom door. The toilet flushes, and a second later, the door opens. “Did somebody say antiserum?”

  “Wash your hands,” I say, and Fabio slinks back into the bathroom. I point at the page Anna’s on. “We know this is gonna work? And it’s not dangerous for Mary, right?”

  “It should work. Mufasa developed it with our scientist friends in Club Brain.”

  “There is a risk,” an electronic voice announces. Mary beelines for the source. “Mary Thomas must receive the Zarathustra serum for her blood to be an effective catalyst for the antiserum. But the Collective does not understand her soul’s entanglement with Edger Bonkovich. Without a better understanding of this mystery, we cannot guarantee her survival.”

  “Dude!” yells Fabio, popping out of the bathroom with his hands dripping wet. “Is that the Speak & Spell thingy?”

  Mary, now standing at the far end of the second countertop, picks up an old red-and-yellow Speak & Spell with a wire running out the back. Her head tilts, and her gaze targets Anna.

  “Everyone say hi to Mufasa,” says Anna.

  Fabio waves. “Hi, Mufasa! Can I get a roar?”

  “Roar.”

  Caleb points. “That’s the lion.”

  Anna nods. “Yes. He can talk to us in our suits too, when we’re wearing them.”

  “Nostradamus can’t intercept communications?” asks Mary, fingering the wire.

  Anna shakes her head. “He talks to us through Club Brain. The landline is for when we’re not suited up.”

  Fabio punches air. “This is awesome!”

  An alarm blares.

  Duck—my shoulders and neck tense. Mary’s gun is out; Caleb’s hunched over also. Fabio and Anna have their ears covered. It repeats, a rhythmic burst, three times, then goes silent.

  “Nostradamus has infiltrated the bunker,” says Mufasa. “He is one mile away if he uses the fastest route to this lab. It is illogical he didn’t enter through the door you five used.”

  “You said this lab is part of an underground maze?” asks Mary, holstering her gun, and Anna nods.

  “He must think we’re on the run,” says Caleb.

  “He knows Mom brought me through this access point,” I say. “Probably figures we hightailed it out of here?”

  Anna slaps a button on the wall, and the alarm shuts off. “None of the rebels know about this lab or anything in it. Our animal friends used specially designed construction equipment to build the maze. Most of us thought we were building an escape route.”

  Mary climbs into the dentist’s chair. “Either way, we’re out of time. Let’s do this. Caleb, strap me in. Anna, give me the serum.”

  “Whoa-whoa-whoa,” I say.

  “Edger, you wanted another way. Remember? Well, this is it.”

  “I wanted a way that didn’t endanger your life.”

  Anna and Fabio exchange sheepish looks. Caleb grabs Mary’s ankle straps, loops and tightens them.

  “She’s right, bro. We’re out of time. If we’re gonna get this antiserum processed, we’ve got to take the risk. Mary’s strong and brave. She’s got this.”

  Anna opens a laptop and starts tapping keys. “Caleb, get the leads out of that cabinet.”

  Caleb hurries across the lab. I step up to Mary’s side. My hands are shaking as I smooth her hair.

  Her eyes search mine. “I know how you feel.”

  “How could you possibly?”

  “Because it’s how I felt before you took the serum.”

  “But we’d only just met.”

  “Oh, Edger. I fell for you a long time ago.”

  Caleb smiles, returning with the leads. “That’s true, bro. She’s been your creepy stalker since Notre Dame.”

  “Take off your shirt,” says Anna, shoving past Caleb and me, and all the guys do an about-face. “You understand this is uncharted territory, doing this with you,” continues Anna as, behind us, fabric rustles, followed by the thrum of wheels on the floor. “I’m not a doctor. If anything happens, I—”

  “I understand,” says Mary. “You can turn around, guys.”

  Mary’s in her sports bra, tabs on her chest, wires running off to a bunch of equipment Anna’s just rolled into place. Anna’s seated in a swivel chair, her reading glasses on as she checks the laptop screen, checks the volume of blue liquid in the syringe she’s holding, then checks the screen again. She shakes her head and leans back in her chair. “We’re so far into science fiction now. Guys, I’m scared. Are we sure I should inject her with this?”

  “We need her,” says Caleb. “We need this to work.”

  All eyes turn to me, and my throat gets thick with worry. I smile and tuck a lock of her blonde hair behind her ear.

  “A leap of faith,” she whispers.

  “Come back to me,” I say. She gives me a sad half smile and squeezes my hand. I nod to Anna, and my throat knots up. Anna wheels her tray table in close on her side of Mary’s chair. I release her hand and step back, not breaking eye contact as the needle enters her arm.

  Her body seizes.

  Her back arches.

  Her lips pull back over her teeth. Her legs and arms shake, tugging violently on the straps.

  Mary!

  Edger!

  A torrent of soul-stars flood into me. But this is harsher than usual. This isn’t the Millennium Falcon going to light speed—this is a category ten hurricane.

  The room goes dark. My knees crack on the ground, my head bangs against the tray. Darkened soul-stars storm in like death, their wild light lashing two brilliant soul-stars enveloped in the cyclone.

  Billions of blacked-out lives whipping past—

  Stabbing pain lances through my chest—

  No—this is Mary’s chest. Mary’s pain.

  Mary! Mary!

  A roar swells like concrete drying over my eardrums. Can she hear me?

  Wings like knives cut at her light—

  Mary! Her soul-light flickers. I pitch my voice above the cacophony. Mary!

  Our lights separate. Shrieking black flecks streak between us, dimming her light.

  I shove into the fray. Pain scrapes across my mind. A trigger seizes in my head…

  A bicycle.

  A chalkboard.

  The ocean.

  My light flickers and thins as the darkened soul-stars scrape away at my consciousness. The lives of yesterday, today, their sharp edges cutting into mine.

  Edger! cries Dad. Go b
ack!

  Mary’s light flickers out.

  My brain seizes again.

  Sensory experiences surge forward: the stench of dead fish, rope burn, aching arms, cracked lips, and swollen feet—

  Mary’s light flickers on.

  The cyclone lifts me high above her.

  Push…push…

  Cataclysmic pain—

  Black flecks give way to a single light shining in a calm sea of nothingness. I stretch toward it, my light thinning. Our two lights touch.

  The feel of her is warm but feeble. Panic rises up from me and lashes out like lightning. One strike. Flash. Another, and another—flash, flash—her star pulsing brighter with each strike. I repeat it again and again until her pulsar is regular and strong.

  The soul-stars fix themselves into the sky far away, the black flecks around them now yielding to their normal silver light, though barely reaching the thick cold darkness enveloping Mary and me, and the endless black beyond.

  It’s peaceful now. No stress.

  “Come back.”

  Just the feeling of her… Calm, done.

  “Don’t. Don’t do this.”

  Mottling colors phase into the growing darkness. The soul-stars shrink and fade until an entire galaxy can hide behind the space of a thumb.

  The voice is speaking again. Faint. What’s it saying? It sounds afraid. Is this my voice?

  I focus on the dwindling light in the cold dark. I stare at it until only the afterimage remains, and it’s hard to know if I’m even looking in the right direction anymore.

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Wang releases a nervous laugh and smooths his medallion down. A flashing bright light hits his eye. He raises a hand, leans out of the rays, and spots the others’ medallions lifting from their chests and turning in the streaming sun.