Crashing Tides

by Gwendolyn Marie

  He made his fingers into an imaginary pistol, and shot within the gloom to scare away the nightmares.

  On the hill in front of him, there stood a mansion. More pines surrounded the somber palace, even larger than those who stood guard on the path, serving to mark its age in their gigantic presence, and serving to be targets for his pretend bullets. Built probably around the same time as the trees were planted, the mansion stood in crippling senescence. The dark windows and haunting architecture spoke silently of the tragedy that happened behind those walls: of the insane who resided within and the torture they underwent to cure them from madness.

  He hesitated on the stone steps leading up to the mansion’s entry. Titans must be guests here, considering the doors lofty appearance, the young boy mused. He wondered if his gun would be able to take them down as well. Convincing himself that he could, he took one step and then another. The door seemed to eat his father who walked in first, Glaucus’s hand slipped from his.

  Into the mouth to see the insane. His mother. His face wrinkled at the thought, uncertain if he should free his mom from the mansion’s mouth, or if he should shoot at her as he had at the pines.

  His dad stopped to talk with a nurse about seeing his mother. Glaucus slipped away as he did, his concentration elsewhere as it always was. No one noticed the little boy, no one knew of his getaway. His only companion were snippets of their conversation coming to him as he walked the halls.

  “What are the chances Glaucus will inherit his mother’s condition?”

  The boy walked, listening only partially to the adult conversation. He was glad to get away from his father’s watchful presence, his attention being elsewhere. Now he could test his bravery in the inside of this hell hole.

  “Because it is an autosomal recessive inheritance and the father was not a carrier, he will be a carrier, but will not develop the disease,” the nurse answered. “Your wife was a rare case, having both her parents as carriers. However ...”

  Soon the boy was out of sight, but still the conversation echoed in whispers to his ears. He stood on tip-toes to look in the locked rooms that lined the halls. Men sitting in corners, looking at nothing. A woman around his mom’s age banging her head against a wall.

  “However?” his dad said, urging for the nurse to continue.

  “Well, I can’t say much due to patient privileges. Also, I’m not a doctor ...”

  The little boy stopped at one room. His fingers touched the door’s small window to stabilize his tip-toe. He peered in to see a girl near his own age, but maybe a little older than he. The room only had a few fixtures including a bed, sink and toilet, and also had a couple books scattered on the hard tile floor. One had a colorful picture of the Greek gods gracing the cover. One was a children’s book.

  “Please, this conversation is between us. I just want what is best for my son.”

  “Okay. I guess I can say that sometimes our knowledge of inheritance and onset of mental disorders is incomplete. For instance, there was a woman—completely normal. However, she became pregnant and it must have triggered something. She went insane and even had to be quarantined due to her aggression.”

  His father was silent. A pause. What sounded like a hand in a pocket, crumbling of crisp dollars being exchanged. Then the nurse began to continue. Though Glaucus’s focus remained on the girl locked behind the door, sealed away in the dismal depths of the converted mansion.

  “She died, but we managed to save the child inside her. The strange thing is her daughter is in here now. There was no one left to care for her, nor give her the care she needs. She does not have the insanity of her mother, but still, she is not quite right. All her life has been in semi-quarantine. The doctors and nurses here avoid her, almost as if superstitious. She is, whether it be genetics, our fear or the long term isolation ...”

  The caged girl had dark willful hair. Luminous eyes. She looked up from the children’s book that was sprawled in front of her and met Glaucus’s stare.

  “ ... like nothing from the ordinary.”

  Glaucus looked to the book—Where the Wild Things Are. He smiled; he read that book and always thought it to be so bizarre, so unlikely. He always preferred Madeline, even if it was a book about a girl. Raised away from a mother, like himself, and with courage.

  The tone of the nurse changed, as if trying to cover her loose lips with a shrug and change of subject. “Not to worry you, just to let you know that we never know how these things will be inherited. We never know what is out there. But I shouldn’t of said anything. Your case is not the same; you have nothing to worry about.”

  Contrived pistol ready, Glaucus brought his fingers into a gun form. He aimed at the girl behind the window pane door. Pressed his thumb down to his elongated fingers, and fired. The little girl looked back, bemused and curious of the other’s gesture.

  “Interesting. Thank you for your help.”

  Suddenly uncertain of his action to shoot, and perhaps afraid that his pretend bullet had no effect, Glaucus ran from the caged girl, down the halls, back to reality. But they did not go to see his mom yet. His father had him in tow and walked straight to the office that had the word ‘Director’ on it. His dad seemed like that calm before the storm you always hear about in movies. And so Glaucus stayed silent, not wanting to get caught in that riptide.

  “You have a young girl here without cause?” his dad said to the man who went from an angry red to a flustered pink when he must have realized who his dad spoke of.

  “Ah, you speak of Patient Zero. I am sorry but I cannot discuss ...”

  “Do you know who I am?” his dad said as he threw down some ids and clearances. The Director of the Asylum fumbled over them, and fell into his chair, defeated looking.

  “Commander Triton. Please accept my apologies. I am not responsible for this case. I inherited it. All I know is something got sweep under the rugs, some deaths of a patient, a civilian, and doctor. The patient had given birth here, but killed her husband and the doctor in a fit of rage before dying herself due to complications of child birth. The only survivor was the newborn, who we quarantined. She does not have a birth certificate or name for the head of the asylum did not want a paper trail. It is not my fault. Please, do not bring me before the Coalition.”

  “I will not. But I will take the girl and all the files you have on her and on her parents,” his dad said.

  “Fine ... fine. It is your problem now, but I warn you nothing good will come from her. She is cursed.”

  “She is a girl,” his dad replied, his tone carried such contempt towards the director’s superstition.

  Who was this girl, Glaucus wondered, silently in awe of his dad’s authority over the man. Was it the one from the cage he was watching? Are they taking her home? Perhaps she can be his new friend now, he thought happily.

  Six years previous: Through the swamps

  Triton had brought the girl from the Asylum to the Scipian all those years ago. The Scipian was the fleet under his command, and it was the only safe place he could think to bring her after running the tests on her blood and the samples taken from her parents. He had discovered both parents had a variant of CWD, chronic wasting disease, which had never been reported in humans before. The girl had a mutated form of this prion, and he did not know whether she was exposed to it in utero or somehow ‘inherited’ it from one or both of her parents.

  He needed to run more tests to learn more and perhaps help her. All he could do for her comfort was provide her with an extensive education and many books, but he had to isolate her due to the transmittable and infectious nature of the prion.

  At least he hoped that the books could bring her an assemblance of freedom, yet he knew that the characters lives were even more restricted than her own. For the characters within each book were trapped between the covers. Forced to live the one life, over and over again. But she could read many and have many lives, even if not free to live her own.

  When he had first heard of t
he girl, he had thought her situation was a fated key to unlock and reverse his wife’s collapse. But it was not. Nothing could now help his wife. But maybe he could still help the girl, to somehow isolate the prion and study it further, to see how it interacted with its host. Maybe there would be answers to neutralizing it so she could live a life outside quarantine. But this was not the only thing on his mind for he had a son that he was raising alone and he had learned the Bavarian Coalition’s true ambitions.

  Now, he and Glaucus trudged through the swamp. Glaucus swinging at each mosquito that took a bite from him, his face held a scornful teenage expression of having to be dragged along by his father.

  “Why can’t you just go to a flower shop, like a normal person?” He said, sweat dripping down his face as he waved away another blood sucker.

  “It is for your mom.”

  “Dad ... she would not even be able to tell the difference—” but Glaucus held his tongue knowing better before he finished that statement. All the memories that were of his mother were from the asylum, so Triton could not blame him for not understanding why this was important to him. Why the woman who was Triton’s wife, would always be his wife in his eyes, despite the disease that now hides much of the person he once knew.

  They walked in quiet some more, through the swamplands, searching for the last gift he would ever give his love. Before her deterioration, she had such passions. One of those passion was to photograph flowers, but in her pictures she loved to include greys and gloom as the backdrop. She had said that you could not appreciate the beauty if it was all sunshine. It was through the hardship, that true beauty was found and could be fully appreciated. And why Glaucus and Triton now trudged along in the swamps: to find true beauty amongst the gloom to give his wife.

  And to tell his son why it would be the last thing they would give her.

  “Glaucus. Your mother ... well, there is nothing we can do as you know. The doctors believe it is time to let go,” he said.

  He did not want this. He could not lose the one thing in his life that had brought him meaning. Now life seemed like a mimicry. Nothing mattered, and it felt like he was wandering aimlessly without purpose. Even though she was not entirely the same, he had her. He knew she was somewhere inside. Now though, he would have nothing left to hold on to.

  “I know Dad. I’ve seen how she is getting. It’s for the best.”

  Anger ... no it was not anger. It was sadness, was it not, Triton wondered. Sadness filled him with hearing his son’s sentiment for it was not for the best. None of this was for the best.

  “I wish you knew her like I did. I can’t tell anymore the memories of a few decades ago versus the memories of yesterday. They seem the same in my mind. Are they not the same? They are all just the past, and the time I impose on those memories is so arbitrary. She is still ...”

  What was it he was trying to say? For he knew he sounded crazy. But it was strange how reality was shaped. It was based off of memories but yet what are memories if not just random sparks from neurons. They are not real. And when he loses her, would she even be real anymore, he thought as he stopped walking. ... As he felt himself give up.

  “Hey Dad,” Glaucus said, a look of confusion crossing his face. He did not understand. He could not. But the confusion was replaced by a confident smile. Glaucus wanted to make his father happy, despite all else. “Let’s find this orchid. If it will make mom happy, it is worth these mosquito bites.”

  Two years previous: The calm before

  Word came out among the Bavarian Coalition of a possible bio-agent the Scipian was working with. Now the head of the Coalition, Grand Master Hyperion, sat before him.

  Triton clasped his hands together as he looked out from behind his desk. No pictures mounted it. Of course he had family. But Glaucus was now a young man and stationed with him aboard the Scipian’s flagship. And his wife ... He could not think about her and stay focused, for without her an emptiness had come within him.

  “I know you may harbor resentment. Your honorary removal from the Navy was unfortunate but necessary. The death of a loved one would be quite a blow to any person,” Hyperion said.

  Triton narrowed his eyes. He understood that Hyperion knew the true reasons of his removal. Not shell shock, but rather rebellion. Triton discovered the truth behind the Bavarian Coalition, to become a power headed by the elite, and fought to expose it. However, Hyperion believed that this dog was now chained. He was not though. Triton had not abandoned those ambitions and instead they had only served to grow more extreme. What Hyperion did not know was he now spoke to the originator and leader of the Uprising. Of course, if his thoughts became words, surely Hyperion would no longer be asking for his help and instead demanding his head.

  If only Hyperion knew what would come from the help he asked for.

  “All under the bridge. I was an idealist back then; I understand your decision to remove my position. I am just grateful to still be involved with the Bavarian Coalition, even to this lesser extent.”

  “As you know,” Hyperion replied, “the Uprising has been difficult for us to contain. People we can deal with. Ideas we can not. We worry that the disobedience will spread. The nonsense of no governmental involvement in the affairs of the populace goes against what we have built. To finally have the world under our lead as the New World Order and now to have that threatened by a handful of revolutionaries is unacceptable.”

  “And so you turn to me?” Triton said.

  “Yes,” Hyperion answered. It was as if his voice played the puppeteer, pulling the strings in a macabre performance. But Triton knew otherwise. “I know the Scipian is in possession of a bio-agent that could exterminate sections of the population in self-contained attacks. Thus the resources and buildings would be preserved, and the viciousness of battle would be easy to cover. We can tell the people it was a natural epidemic. No need to make martyrs of the rebels. And the ideas of self-governing freedoms will be quieted.”

  The Bavarian Coalition requested a quiet epidemic. He knew he would be forced to comply. However, he would give them something they could not keep quiet, and that would fuel the end of the one world government. It would be extreme, but sometimes radical measures are needed when faced against an otherwise unconquerable adversary. He would give them a weapon that could not be ignored and that would expose the Bavarian Coalition for what they truly were.

  “As I am sure your informants have advised you,” Triton said, “the bio-agent will be ready soon. The Drakōn mund prion is a perfect weapon.”

  He spoke of perfection. He knew perfection was something unattainable, for everything had flaws. Beauty is found through imperfections, and for those who do not understand this, satisfaction could never be attained. He learned this through his wife, and he loved her despite and because of everything she had become.

  “Tell me about what you have discovered,” Hyperion said, and Triton continued explaining the weapon that was discovered within the girl.

  “Unlike its close epidemiology to New Guinea’s Kuru and variant CJD, it does not have long incubation periods. The period between exposure and symptoms needs to be brief in order to cross the line from dangerous disease to military weaponry. It also presents something new: our enemy will never see what is coming.”

  So ironic considering who spoke, Triton mused to himself.

  “Biological warfare normally centers around viruses, bacteria, fungi and toxins, but a prion would be unexpected. The prion disease never loses toxicity and spreads like a virus. Prions are extraordinary as weapons for unlike the others, they take what humans already contain and use it against them. PrP, cellular prion proteins, exists in all of us. Once a prion disease, which is a misfolded PrP protein, is introduced into the host it will cause a cycle of the other proteins misfolding. The diseased prion basically teaches our healthy PrP proteins how to misfold. And death will come to your opposition.”

  “Good, and so the Uprising will silently fall. I will send my best to c
heck on your research in the coming months,” Hyperion said.

  All the cards came down, all the pieces he had lined up even before he realized he was playing. His goal changed from helping the girl to helping society break its chains from the totalitarian world government. He hated that innocents may die, but that was the price of freedom. The Bavarian Coalition would be exposed and the people would fight against them. The path to liberty would be revealed. Even if that path was paved by way of corpses. For you cannot have beauty without the gloom.

  One year previous: And through hell

  Water crashed against the hull of the Destroyer, though it was not the only thing that crashed against the ship. People. In droves they came, in small boats fleeing the scattered islands of Maine. They thought the islands would provide sanctuary from the outbreak. They were wrong. Now they hailed the last remnant of protection, the fleet of the Scipian, which stood in the sea as if it were an array of islands in of itself. At first, in a civilized manner they requested entry. Denied, they began to act as if they were already the Chaots, ramming the ships, clawing at them to board. The siege of the seafaring castle had begun.

  “Take us further out!” The command was hollered from the side of the Destroyer, followed by gunfire. Each shot landed in flesh, or in water. The ones that hit their targets served to pluck the humans from the ship as if they were no more than blood sucking ticks. And they would be if boarded; the fleet was at maximum capacity, six thousand people. Anymore would only serve to drain them of their resources.

  “Don’t hit the hull!” Another shout, showing more concern toward the ship itself than another human.

  Triton walked to the starboard side of the ship. He dared a look down between his gunmen. Children, the elderly, people of every race, age, and sex, all trying to climb aboard to their salvation, using ladders and throwing grappling hooks. They did not help each other. In a frenzy they used what they could to try to breech the hull, standing on whatever—and whoever—they could. He knew that what he had done, and what he was doing now by not allowing them aboard, would haunt him. But the chasm between humanity and the Chaots did not seem all that great when he looked down to see the desperation of those trying to board.