A Slice of Unkindness

by D C McLaughlin

  Edgar smiled and rubbed Sprocket’s shoulders to cheer her. “Nor me!” she assured. “We’re gonna fix this. I have no idea how. But we’ll figure something out. I promise you.”

  * * *

  Their living conditions got increasingly more difficult after the first shock of their situation soaked in. Daniel followed his connections with the dekas to try to persuade someone, anyone, to allow five extra slots for passage off-world. Negotiations were not successful. Next he tried to get someone to smuggle them below decks in a ship. This too proved fruitless. The list of shady deals being hatched with human trafficking was long. And although they felt certain they would be overlooked in the increased shuffle, no one was willing to take a chance. The police force had been bolstered by officers from other worlds and the penalty for catching smugglers or the illegal passengers was death, no matter the situation. Whole drone families were being shot on sight because they had secreted themselves within the bowels of a ship leaving Castor 5.

  Society was crumbling all around them.

  As if that weren’t bad enough, the earthquakes were increasing in frequency and severity, adding to already frayed nerves. More of the poisonous fumes leaked inside and the generator to recharge the masks couldn’t keep up. Some in the basement had to go without while waiting for space with the generator. Others were starting to cough as the fumes began to affect their health.

  Daniel had managed to smuggle a small battery charger into the theatre attic when no one was looking. It couldn’t make a dent in the population in the basement. But it was adequate enough for five masks. They kept as quiet as they could to avoid detection. It didn’t take much to get people to riot. As long as no one knew they were up there, they were safe.

  Daily supplies dwindled. They tried not to think about how long they could keep this up. Daniel and Edgar foraged under the cover of darkness for food, water and batteries. Sometimes they had tea, most times they were out. Always they kept their eyes peeled for a small generator or cast-off mask with maybe a few more hours of life left in it. Such a thing was a treasure.

  The earthquakes were adding to the cracks in the structure. The five of them had moved into the prop section of the attic because it seemed the most airtight. They had swiped some of the heavy, velvet curtains from the stage and stuffed these into any crevice which could let in smog. It was a good temporary solution even if it made the room dark as a cave. They had a few electric lanterns they kept on low to save batteries. The nights were very cold but they huddled together under the stage curtains for warmth.

  Daniel and Edgar kept their ears peeled for any whispered or overheard opportunity that might help them leave the planet. Warren kept his mind wandering, eavesdropping on conversations that might lead to a situation which would prove advantageous. Warren had it worse than anyone. He had a front row seat to the despair and frustration of the whole planet. It was a struggle for him to stay positive.

  They tried to keep their conversations hopeful.

  One night, when everyone was asleep, Warren crawled out from under the velvet covers. He turned on a lantern and wrapped himself in a stage cloak to keep from shivering. White smoke issued from his mouth. Concerned, he snatched up Morris’s atmospheric gauge and scanned the white puffs of air leaving his mouth. Then he heaved a sigh of relief. It was just condensation from the cold, not smog getting in. In such a desperate situation, it was always good to make sure.

  He strode up to the tall mirror and swept the sheet off. Warren stared into its black surface and frowned.

  “What kind of mirror doesn’t reflect?” he muttered to the air before him.

  He reached out and touched the mirror’s surface with his hand. Crying out in surprise, he snatched it back. Warren looked at his hand which was completely unharmed and then at the mirror where there should have been a reflection staring back at him. Instead, there was nothing but a sleek surface that seemed to swallow all forms of light.

  Sprocket moaned in her sleep at his cry and stirred.

  Again, tentatively Warren reached out and touched the mirror’s surface, this time with his fingers.

  It did not feel like a mirror. It felt warm and soft, like skin.

  He tapped it with his fingertip. The shiny black surface rippled like water where liquid has been dripped. The ripples expanded across the surface in waves. Then the mirror’s surface began to billow steam.

  Warren jumped back in shock. “Edgar,” he cried out, loud enough to rouse the small group.

  Everyone stirred, slowly waking. Everyone except Sprocket who seemed to have instantly awoken at his cry.

  “What is it?” she moaned, sitting up and rubbing her eyes.

  “It moved!” he exclaimed.

  “What moved?” she said yawning and stretching.

  “The mirror!” Warren declared. “Wake up! It’s doing something! Something weird!”

  Edgar was the first to react. She flung back the velvet curtains and came quickly to his side.

  “What did you do?” she demanded as she watched the ripples expand and the tendrils of smoke reach out toward them. “Did you touch it?”

  “Well… yes,” he replied.

  “So don’t do that!” Edgar scolded, and grabbing him roughly by the arm, she yanked him backwards.

  “What’s the gas?” Daniel asked pointing to the fingers of smoke as they twisted and reached outward from the mirror.

  Morris stepped in front of them with the atmospheric meter.

  “Harmless,” she reassured. “Just steam.”

  “I don’t think that’s a real mirror,” Sprocket said. She grabbed a lantern and walked behind it, scrutinizing every detail with her eyes.

  “Sprocket,” Warren said warily. “You really need to come and see this.”

  She did as the boy bid and gasped.

  A shadowy outline of a person began to materialize in front of them. It wore a deeply cowled, black cloak. Within the inky depths of the cape, a masked face leered out at them. It was a black leather mask fashioned in the shape of a bird’s head. The goggles and beak of the mask were trimmed in brass which flashed in the dim light. No detail of the face could be seen. The goggle’s glass was tinted dark so that the eyes were invisible.

  The ominous figure grew in size until its shape completely filled the confines of the mirror. And then the creature simply bowed its head and stepped through and into the room with them. Two more similarly attired beings, one with a red mask of similar design, the other a white one, appeared behind the first one and these two bent their hooded heads and stepped through the mirror to take up position behind the first figure. All three were taller than the mirror itself. They towered over the five people before them.

  Edgar picked up a prop sword and Sprocket clutched a cricket bat.

  The first caped figure then gestured to each of them in turn and spoke their names.

  It lastly turned to Edgar and Sprocket and told them, “Please put down the stage toys. You have no need of weapons with us.”

  They exchanged dubious looks among themselves. Their knuckles turned white as they tightened their grip.

  “You seem to know us,” Edgar said cautiously, still gripping her sword. “But we’ve never met you. Who are you?”

  The caped person before them seemed to laugh and it replied, “Why, we are your rescuers!”

  Sprocket snorted suspiciously. “Right! Then remove your masks.”

  The cowled head shook once in denial. “We are forbidden to remove our masks. To do so would mean our dishonor.”

  Sprocket just smiled and shook her head. “Yeah, see? The weapons stay.”

  “Are ya aliens?” Morris asked.

  “Quite,” was the terse response.

  Morris shook her curls. “You’ll forgive us. But with what we’ve experienced lately from… other aliens… well, let’s just say it’s nurtured a healthy suspicion o’ others.”

  The beak flicked in her direction, then back to Edgar.

  “You a
re the aliens here,” the hood nodded. “But yes, we understand. No offense taken.”

  “We thought you wanted a way off this world,” the figure in the white mask responded.

  Again the humans exchanged suspicious looks.

  “You have a ship?” Warren asked.

  The figures seemed to shudder and vibrate. It took Edgar a moment or two to realize they were laughing.

  “How quaint and yet primitive,” the creature chortled. “We don’t use ships. We use portals.”

  Here it gestured to the mirror it had just stepped through.

  “Wait,” Warren interjected. “Just who are you and why are you willing to help us?”

  The first bird mask nodded. “Of course,” it said. “Introductions. How rude of us.”

  “We are known by many terms,” replied the white masked individual.

  “But we also recognize that you use individual names,” said the red mask. “Such an odd custom to us.”

  “You may call me One,” the black mask offered.

  “You can refer to me as Two,” said the white mask.

  “And I wouldn’t mind being called Three,” suggested the red mask.

  “We are a numeric species,” One explained. “Numbers are our religion and therefore our names.”

  “But they wanted to know what we are called as a group, sibling of mine,” spoke Two.

  “Ah yes! Quite right! Thank you, nest-mate, for clarifying this to me,” One replied.

  Two spoke. “We have been called the ‘Doctors of Fate’ by some.”

  Three spread its dark arms like wings as it spoke, “Others call us ‘Healers of the Rift’.”

  One added, “And still other people call us ‘Menders of Time.’ The last is perhaps, the most accurate.”

  There was a long moment as the strangers let them absorb this new bit of information.

  “You… fix… time?” Warren said slowly.

  “Quite,” One replied.

  “And your future has shown ya that we… our timeline…needs ta be saved?” Morris asked slowly.

  All three masked heads nodded.

  “Aren’t there severe repercussions for messing with the timeline of people, no matter how insignificant?” Daniel asked.

  Again the masked heads nodded.

  “Of course there are,” One replied. “Our world is in chaos.”

  The figures in the masks began to speak quickly now, each one taking a new sentence and rotating the conversation among themselves.

  “But we have followed your history backwards through time, several versions of it in fact, and we have discovered that it all falls apart here and now.”

  “If we allow things to progress the way they are, in two hundred years your civilization will cease to exist… along with our own.”

  “If your civilization flounders, we go extinct.”

  “And it all begins here.”

  “So you see, in saving you, we also preserve our own people.”

  “Doing you a favor is mutually beneficial to the survival of both our species.”

  They paused in their running stream of words to let the humans absorb the information.

  “So you mean to save… just us?”asked Sprocket. “Or all of the drones along with us?”

  They shook their heads in perfect unison as if dancing, and then Two replied, “All of you, of course!” The rotating stream of information among the bird masks began again.

  “We have a saying among our people that we will translate as best we can in your language,” One began.

  “A diet of thorns results in roses of society,” Two recited proudly.

  Three explained, “Which means that greatness performs best when it is nurtured on difficult times.”

  One added, “If we do not save the surviving drone human population, a promising generation will be lost.”

  “The greatest minds will cease to be created. They will never exist.”

  “And they need to exist!”

  “The impact these people will have on history is astronomical!”

  “We… you need these people to live if both our civilizations are to survive what is to come.”

  Three nodded its head, “Otherwise, we become extinct.”

  “Nothing more than a dig on a remote planet where archeologists scratch their heads and guess what things they knew or what they went through.”

  One explained further, “We cannot allow your change in history to completely redirect our timeline. Therefore the drones must be saved at all costs. Do you understand?”

  They paused again, waiting for five human brains to catch up to their way of thinking. Slowly each nodded in understanding.

  “So… how does this work? We walk through this portal and step onto a whole new world?” Sprocket asked. She stepped forward and considered the mirror with a new perspective.

  One nodded its head. “Basically, yes.”

  “We have several planets picked whose systems are friendly to human life,” Two replied.

  “And you wouldn’t be caged like here on Castor 5. You could leave anytime you liked,” Three offered.

  “Explore the known galaxy even, if you wish,” One offered.

  Sprocket smiled, picked up her backpack and cheered. “Good! Let’s go then! Who’s with me?”

  “Wait!” cautioned Edgar. “Shouldn’t we discuss this first?”

  Sprocket scoffed. “Why? We leave, we live. We stay, we die. What’s to discuss?”

  Edgar stepped in front of her with her back to the strangers and muttered under her breath so that they couldn’t hear. “The devil’s in the details! We don’t know if we can trust them yet.”

  Sprocket made a face of frustration and pushed her aside.

  “Yes, but this is how we find out. Shame on you, Edgar, for looking a gift horse in the mouth! Our situation is desperate. We can’t hold out another day. I’m going right now!”

  Without another word, she readjusted the pack on her back and stepped into the mirror.

  Edgar made a cry of warning that was cut off far too quickly.

  The bird masked creatures seemed to ruffle their robes in surprise and shock. One spoke to the other two in a language of snaps and pops. Edgar could only suppose he was ordering the others to pursue Sprocket.

  Two nodded and hurriedly stepped into the mirror, following.

  One seemed to sigh in frustration. “She wasn’t supposed to do that!” it told them. “A traveler needs a guide to direct them to the right world.”

  Edgar shook her head. “I apologize,” she told One. “Sprocket has little toleration for being backed into a corner and she’s been feeling trapped for days.”

  One nodded. “I understand,”

  “Will she be all right?” Morris asked.

  One seemed to fluff its robes a bit as it considered. “She may get a bit… lost.”

  “Two will find her,” Three reassured. “Two is good at finding travelers who get lost.”

  “She may come out the other side a bit disoriented and sick feeling without a guide,” One added. “But she will be fine.”

  Edgar sighed and put her hands on her hips in frustration. “Fine! Just fine then. I guess that settles it. Now we have to go!” She looked at her friends. “Daniel?”

  Daniel nodded silently.

  “Warren?” she asked, turning to him.

  He nodded. “I don’t see that we have any other choice, good or bad.”

  Edgar turned to her partner. “Morris?”

  Morris nodded emphatically, her red curls bouncing. “I was gonna drag ya wif me by yer hair if ya dinnae wanna go!”

  Edgar frowned. “I never said I didn’t want to leave,” she explained. “I just like to research the facts before I dive headlong into a major decision.”

  Morris shook her head. “Although I understand yer way o’ tinkin’… we dinnae ’ave ta’ sorta luxury. Time es short. An’ it’s getting shorter still as we sit here jabber-jawing aboot it! Kapiche?”

>   Edgar’s frown increased and she nodded. “All righty then,” she muttered. “Who’s gonna tell the rest of the surviving drones?”

  “I will, sweetie,” Morris assured. “They know an’ trust me. I kin make ta’ bitter pill slide doon easier.”

  Edgar nodded.

  “It’s gonna take forever to evacuate the entire planet,” said Warren. “Unless you have more of these… portals.”

  The bird masked creatures looked at each other and bobbed their heads.

  “Oh, we have more,” One guaranteed them.

  “Lots and lots more with multiple guides to go with them,” Three followed.

  “It won’t take us long to evacuate the entire planet,” One told them.

  As if in answer to their plans, there was a subterranean vibration. The room rocked and the floor rippled ominously as if they were standing on a giant snake.

  Edgar gasped in fright and saw the others brace themselves. They heard more glass shatter and dust rained down upon their heads.

  “Morris?” Edgar muttered.

  “Aye?” she replied.

  “You better work your people magic. Now!” she replied.

  Morris made no response but to smile and nod.

  * * *

  The evacuation of Castor 5 went without even a hiccup. The drone refugees happily agreed to the Mender’s offer of sanctuary. Many portals were secreted down to the planet’s surface and by the time the dekas realized something was going on, the drones were all gone.

  The Menders guided them to a remote planet called Sherwood Minor. It was completely different than Castor 5. For one thing, masks were unnecessary. Sherwood had plenty of oxygen. In many ways it was similar to the original earth. Its climate was comparable to the Pacific Northwest but without the frequent volcanic activity. Whereas Castor 5 was devoid of almost anything living, Sherwood was full of life. It was almost entirely populated by trees of every color and type. The weather ran toward damp, and there were almost daily rains so it was a paradise for plants. The trees grew quite large, in a matter of only a few years. And anything that wasn’t a tree, was green.

  Because of the rapid timber growth, Sherwood was known for lumber production. Everything that could be made out of wood on Sherwood Minor was. Even Babbage devices, and rudimentary computers had frameworks made from ornately carved wooden boxes and some ships were made from purple sap ironwood, comparable to the hardest metal humans could make, and nearly impervious to fire or cold.