Kzine Issue 19

by Graeme Hurry et al.

  “Luba!” Terehov wanted to say many things, but he couldn’t gat any words out. He thought that at that moment in time it was important, highly important that Liubania could hear and listen to his breathing, his… But instead he physically felt how he was infecting her with his terror.

  “I fell in love with you, Sasha,” she gulped and coughed out something wet, “Not at first sight, of course, and I understand that we have a relationship with no strings attached and,” she coughed again, “and without future, and I thought I was waiting for…, you know, waiting for something bigger, but then I just realized that you are that ‘something bigger’ and I don’t want anything from you, no money, no presents, just for you to be next to me, but that would violate..,” she gasped and inhaled with a nauseating, wheezing sound; her voice was very quiet now, being overcome by a voracious, raging noise growing louder, “…the rules of, oh, mommy!… Of the g-game, there! But you have to know, you just must know… and…

  “…It doesn’t hurt at all, honey. So slowly… It seems like… it gave me some time to… well… to say goodbye. I’m up to my neck in a warm black quagmire and… I guess… no, I’m sure, my dear, it’s eating me. Some external digestion, like spiders have. I was always afraid…,” chomping sounds became louder and more aggressive, Liubania’s voice got more and more distant, unable to block the background noise, “of pain… But… there’s no pain. And no more fear, honey. It’s like I’m hiding in mommy’s arms. And I hear her heart beating,” she choked and Terehov, unable to control himself, squealed in a high-pitched voice, “Maybe, it’s anesthesia, and it only took effect now… Something gobbled up my fear…” more of that greedy squelching sound, “that’s… the end, surely, the end,” evil, triumphant chomping filled the air and through that cacophony he thought he heard her elusive whisper:

  “Mommy will hide Lubachka on her lap…”

  “Mommy…”

  The phone glutted viscously and the line went dead.

  Terehov pressed the phone to his ear, hard, to feel the pain.

  “Hello. Hello!” he kept saying, beginning at a whisper, then raising his voice to a shout. He knew there won’t be an answer, but he kept shouting anyways, trying to block out a memory of a wet chomping sound, which was working itself into Lubasha’s monologue. And… there was something else.

  Outside.

  Not being able to resist, like a deer in headlights, he slowly turned, holding the dead phone to his ear.

  Behind the glass, on the branch of the violently swaying tree, was a huge black rat, staring at him with it’s ferocious and empty red eyes. Thrashing madly in it’s teeth was a headless gutted fish.

  THE FIRST WORMHOLE

  by James Mallinson

  “Good morning, Mr. Jacobs. Let’s start from the beginning, shall we?”

  “Again? How many times have we done this? I’ve told your colleagues everything I can remember. I just want to go home. I’ve been here for what? A week?”

  “I’m sure there’s some minor detail we can get you to recollect. Tell me, what did you feel when you first saw this geological phenomenon?”

  “I… I was caught completely off-guard, okay? I must have spent the better part of the first day at camp just staring at it, wondering what the hell it actually was.”

  “How so? You were – are – a respected scientist. Your university thesis was about it. You can’t claim you were unprepared.”

  “Have you seen it yourself?”

  “Well, no. But I’ve seen it on the news-”

  “Then you can’t possibly comment. I’d studied a whole memory pod of pictures before seeing it. Watched a billion binaries worth of video clips. And don’t get me started on the number of journals I read. Heard of a guy called Romalov? No, of course you haven’t. Hardly anybody has. But I memorised his entire book on the subject. All of it—all of it!—was a waste of time.”

  “Would it be safe to say it was an obsession to you?”

  “Sure, why not? I’ve always enjoyed puzzles, and this was a puzzle. Why was it there? Where had it come from? What unexplained process had formed it?”

  “Did you have any theories at that time?”

  “Theories? Plenty. Well, wild speculation actually. The thing is, holes like that don’t just magically appear under the biggest city in the world without a precursor – an earthquake, or volcanic eruption, or… something. A few internet crazies said it was the home of an alien super-bug, and that someday soon all these little baby super-bugs would come pouring out and destroy us. They set up a website about it. But it was the senators that got me. They claimed it was a tunnel dug by the Russians or the Chinese as part of some grand plan to invade the US. Cold war paranoia alive and well! I suppose I shouldn’t laugh. Thanks to them we were able to wrangle some government funding for the expedition.”

  “Ah, the expedition. Let me ask you about that, if I may. Can you describe the camp site?”

  “Look, I’ve been through this a million times. It was just a camp site, there was nothing special about-”

  “Please, answer the question.”

  “Fine, fine. Our camp was right next to the hole, on what had once been Union Square park in the old New York city. That’s crazy when you think about it, isn’t it? A city on top of another city.”

  “Tokyo is like that now, and London. Paris hope to start work on it very soon.”

  “I’d like to see that.”

  “I’m sure you will, someday. Now lets turn to your colleagues. What did you think of Petre Moro… Moro…”

  “Morozov. Petre Morozov.”

  “Of course. He was your understudy, correct?”

  “Yeah. Funny guy. Eccentric. I’ve never claimed to be the most fashionable person around, but those old rock band shirts of his were something else. And his hair! He looked like he’d come straight out of one of those vintage music channels. You couldn’t doubt how seriously he took the work though. I wonder what he’s doing nowadays.”

  “He took a research position in South Korea.”

  “Oh? Research into what-”

  “Let’s talk about Doctor Vanessa Torres. She was the leader of the science team, was she not? She invited you to join her after reading your thesis.”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “You found her attractive, correct? You were interested in her sexually?”

  “How is that relevant?”

  “I’ll take your blushing as confirmation. Tell me a little about her.”

  “She was… very focused. A lot of other scientists thought she was a quack, because of her obsession with the hole. Maybe that’s why she worked so hard. She was desperate to prove everybody wrong. She was like me in that regard. Yeah, I was attracted to her. So what? What are you writing?”

  “Just making notes. Now, let’s discuss the day itself.”

  “You already know, damnit.”

  “Does the thought of it make you angry?”

  “No, being asked about it for the hundredth time makes me angry.”

  “This is only the eleventh time, Mr. Jacobs. Please continue.”

  “You are such a… Fine, fine, whatever. What can I tell you? I was too damned nervous to eat any breakfast. I couldn’t even clean my teeth because my hands were shaking like an alcoholic on a detox. And I had medics jabbing and poking every five minutes. I then had to put on this horrendous suit that cost an absolute fortune to produce. You’d think NASA could have spent just a little bit of that money making it comfortable, but whatever. Petre was supposed to help me get it on, but he jammed the helmet on so hard it almost ripped my ear off, so I told him to fuck off. Will that do for you?”

  “Yes, very good. You’ve never mentioned that you nearly lost your ear before.”

  “I was exaggerating.”

  “It would help both of us if you take this process seriously.”

  “Whatever.”

  “So, then what happened?”

  “Torres gave a team talk, a briefing. All
very motivational and inspiring. But before you ask, no, I don’t remember exactly what she said. She did talk a lot about all the crazy stuff going on the hole, or rather all the unexplained and unmeasured phenomena, but I don’t recall the details.”

  “Unexplained and unmeasured phenomena? Is that why you and Torres had to go down there personally?”

  “Yes, as well you know. None of our measuring equipment worked properly. We tried to measure how deep the hole actually was, but we never got the same reading twice. What was five kilometres on one altimeter was one or even ten kilometres on another. And half the drones never returned. Their sensors just couldn’t read anything down there. We shielded them from every source of interference you can imagine but it made no difference. Whatever was messing with the electronics, it was nothing we’d ever come across before. Heck, it’s not as if we wanted to go down there, but the only sure-fire way of getting any results was to see it with our own eyes.”

  “I see. And then what?”

  “Vanessa and I had to go onto this fancy platform that jutted out over the hole. Basically a really expensive diving board. I didn’t dare look down. Not once.”

  “Why?”

  “Why do you think? I was stood over a massive black hole. Jeez, man… Anyway, Vanessa counted to three and just stepped off the edge, pulling me over with her. She’d of course done several parachute jumps for charity, so was used to it, but I didn’t have a clue. It’s not as if I thought I’d fly or float or anything, but the way I plummeted down so immediately caught me completely by surprise…”

  “Go on.”

  “Even though I’d practised this several times in a wind tunnel, I suddenly forget everything I’d learned. I spun around, completely out of control, until Vanessa grabbed me and set me right. Then we just glided down together in complete darkness. Without the altitude meter on my HUD, I wouldn’t have even known I was falling. The suit was designed to completely shield us from any external stimuli you see. It was surreal.”

  “A bit like floating in space?”

  “Exactly like floating in space.”

  “According to the health metrics your suit recorded, your heartbeat spiked on five separate occasions during the descent. Care to explain that?”

  “I was falling down a hole that appeared to have no end. Plus I couldn’t see anything. So I kept freaking out, okay? Actually no, I wasn’t freaking out, I was having major panic attacks. Wouldn’t you be? Vanessa tried to calm me down, but in the end she had to pull out a flare. Told me it was to keep the darkness at bay. Embarrassing I know. Like a little boy scared of monsters.”

  “Interesting. Please carry on.”

  “You’re making notes again.”

  “Just some observations.”

  “Really? How many more observations can you possibly make?”

  “Please.”

  “Fine. We continued to fall for what felt like hours, though I had no idea how long exactly because, as we expected, the HUD readings started to become worthless. But then I saw a light.”

  “A light?”

  “A glow or reflection of some kind. Very faint. Vanessa thought it was just a speck on my visor at first, but then she saw it too. We speculated it was the Earth’s core, but then our suits went crazy. My altimeter accelerated so fast it became a blur. The thermostat told me it was blisteringly cold then a second later hot enough to melt my suit. And I began to feel… not pain exactly, but an ache, like I was being pulled, or stretched maybe. I don’t know. I wanted to go back to the surface of course, but Vanessa wasn’t done. She pulled out another flare to see what was going on around her. I’ll forever wish she hadn’t.”

  “Oh?”

  “The rock face was being… Well, it certainly weren’t crumbling or breaking, like you’d expect. It was… rippling. Tearing. Disintigrating. Whatever it was, it just looked wrong.”

  “Alien?”

  “Is that where you’re going with this?”

  “Wrong choice of word.”

  “There was no word for what I saw. It was as though my mind couldn’t compute it, you know? You ever see something so incredibly vast or beyond human scope, and you just can’t get your head around it? That’s what I felt, but times ten. It defied all logic. I expected to wake up in my bed.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “Of course I didn’t. Even Vanessa had seen enough by that point. She told me to activate my booster and go back to the surface, but it wouldn’t work. By this point my HUD was throwing up all sorts of errors and warnings. High radiation. Electromagnetic interference. Leaks in the suit. I could barely see past them, there were so many. I tried to grab the booster’s manual activation but that didn’t respond either. And then I saw… I saw…”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, yes.”

  “What did you see, Mr. Jacobs?”

  “You know what I saw.”

  “I need you to explain it to me.”

  “I saw… I saw a bubble.”

  “A bubble?”

  “That’s the best word I can think of to describe it. It was what was distorting the rock-face. It was what was pulling on me like a magnet. I can’t be sure with my suit throwing up all those error messages, but I reckon I was falling faster than it should have been possible, unless the rules of gravity had gone out of the window as well. Anyway, I lost control again. I was spinning so hard I’m surprised I never passed out. And then I fell into the bubble. It gave away under my weight. I suddenly felt frozen to my core, as if I’d just dived into ice water, even though it should have been impossible to feel anything inside the suit. There was this blinding flash and when my eyes cleared I wasn’t in the hole any more.”

  “Where were you?”

  “I…”

  “Mr. Jacobs, where were you?”

  “I… I know this sounds crazy, but… but I was at the centre of the universe. Do you believe me?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “The light that almost blinded me? It was an explosion. The explosion, like a nuclear fire. There were a billion newborn stars. Endless clouds of dust swirling like a thunderstorm. So many colours, yet so much blackness. It was… it was…”

  “Beautiful?”

  “Horrifying. The scale of it…”

  “What went through you head in that moment?”

  “I honestly can’t remember. I’ve heard people talk about how fear can paralyse you, and that’s probably what happened to me. I didn’t just freeze physically, but mentally too. I lost my mind a little. I was witnessing the birth of the universe, seeing the big bang. I just don’t know how to…”

  “Do you think what you saw was real?”

  “Of course it was real. It’s scorched in my memory! I go to sleep thinking about it. I close my eyes and I see it. But I don’t understand it. It makes no sense. It’s beyond physics as we know it. I mean, I fell through a-”

  “Wormhole?”

  “I… Yes.”

  “A wormhole at the centre of our planet?”

  “Yes! Why did you say it like that?”

  “How did you make it back, Mr. Jacobs?”

  “The boosters kicked in. Finally. I was so unprepared for the sudden change of direction that I almost snapped my neck. Going back through that bubble at such a speed made me throw up in my helmet. The shock of it, I don’t know. Jumping from one place to another like that. Then I finally blacked out.”

  “What about Vanessa?”

  “You tell me. I’ve not heard from anybody since you locked me up in here.”

  “You aren’t locked up. That implies you are in prison.”

  “I assume Vanessa’s here too then?”

  “No. Do you not remember? It was her idea that you admit yourself to this hospital. She was worried about you-”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Yes. Right now she’s touring the world talking about the… Actually, no. Sorry. I shouldn’t have told you any of this.”

  “What? Why is sh
e touring?”

  “Nothing, forget I said it. Thank you, Mr. Jacobs. You’ve been very cooperative, as ever-”

  “Answer my question!”

  “Mr. Jacobs, you need to-”

  “I was the first person to go through a wormhole. I saw the centre of the universe, goddamnit! I should be the one out there discussing my findings, not her. Why am I the one in here? You can’t do this to me!”

  “Security! Security! Sedate him again!”

  “You can’t do this, you can’t do this, you can’t…”

  THE EINHERJA

  by C.R. Hodges

  Einherja: [īn-‘her-yǝ] noun, plural einherjar. 1. a berserk warrior from Norse mythology. 2. a berserk soldier who once hooked up with a valkyrie.

  “Dr. Harold Regis is a new breed of hero, slaying cancer cells instead of dragons.” A score of cameras flashed as the President pinned the medal to my chest, his smile well-practiced, mine pasted on. His eyes darted to the teleprompter. “A hero who wields double helixes the way his forebears wielded broadswords.”

  My forebears had been sharecroppers; a pitchfork was more likely, but I had no intention of actually saying jack on national television.

  “A hero for our generation.” He shook my hand, his grip strong, another photo op. Then I was ushered out of the Rose Garden, replaced by the next medal recipient, a square-jawed gunnery sergeant with a neck the size of my waist. No broadsword either, but far easier to visualize.

  The CEO of our company threw a party in my honor at an exclusive DC nightclub. Cancer-fighting biopharmaceuticals were good for business too. When the coverage of the medal ceremony was replayed on the 100” flat screen, shouts of “Speech, speech” rang out, followed by peals of laughter. My co-workers knew me well. I hid in a corner until a spotlight caught me and a mic was thrust into my hand.