by Jared Millet
“I wish we could save more of them,” said Westrin. “Who knows how many voices the planet had? Was each river different? Were there more personalities, or were they all the same? Even the parts of the Muldon we’re leaving behind—”
“You saved what you could,” said Hector. “Find them a new home and maybe someday you’ll have an answer.”
“Here it comes,” said Mora. Before Hector could ask what she meant, the stars slipped out of existence. The Majestic had entered hyperspace ahead of the oncoming shockwave. Mora tapped a few keystrokes and nodded approval.
“The hyperlink is good. We’re still receiving from the planet. You guys want to jack in?”
“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” said Westrin.
“That’s show business,” said Hector. “The whole point is to feel someone else’s experience, and this is our chance to show people what it’s like to be an intelligent river. Besides, after our broadcast airs, your funding should go through the roof.”
Mora offered them patches for their implants and affixed one under her ear. Janos placed his on the back of his wrist, Westrin over her heart. Hector scratched the temporary implant the Grottoine medic had replaced his with, and at last connected himself.
A hundred million miles away, on the surface of Ben’s Grotto, sat a slowly rotating camera with a hyperlink broadcaster strapped to a ten-meter coral. Below, suspended under the surface of a mirror-clear lake, sat Hector’s original implant in a solution of his own flesh and blood, mixed with that of the Grotto’s microbes. On the Daystar Majestic, their kin sped away on an exodus to safety while a handful of humans listened to the final thoughts from a doomed world.
/ sing dance play new children /
/ drink light and grow strong /
/ soon we rush home and be we with other waters /
/ oh look /
/ what a bright new star /
The Dragonfly King
Mr. Albrech’s home wasn’t what Boone expected. When he learned that the family firm’s silent partner lived deep in the bayou, he’d pictured an elegant pleasure barge, not a shack on floats.
Boone idled toward it in a rented aluminum bateau and shut off the boat’s small motor. Blue and green dragonflies buzzed all around him as his craft nudged against the tires that were nailed to the houseboat’s patio. His elderly host leaned forward and grabbed the bateau’s tow line.
“Mornin’!” Albrech adjusted his fishing cap. “You must be Boone the Younger.”
“That’s me.” Boone wobbled aboard, one hand gripping a leather business folder and the other stretched out for balance. Jeans and rubber boots were his only concessions to the swamp. From the waist up he wore a pressed shirt, tie, and blazer.
“Come on in,” said Albrech. “Have some biscuits.”
Boone didn’t want to be rude but the houseboat didn’t look sanitary.
“No thanks. I’m avoiding carbs.”
“Suit yourself. At least get comfortable.”
Inside was a tiny seating area separated from an equally tiny kitchen by a bar made out of plywood. Dirty pots, empty bottles, and old newspapers were stacked on every surface. Boone squeezed into a plastic chair behind a card table. Albrech poured coffee.
“So what business did your daddy send you about?”
“Your share of our property.” Boone extracted a page from his folder. “We’d like to renew the lease. Same terms as before.”
Albrech glanced at the paper. “So you’re with the firm now?”
Boone was used to that assumption. Secretly, in addition to the lease, his folder held several flight school brochures that he’d been perusing that morning over breakfast.
“Not yet,” he said. “I’m still just an intern.”
Albrech smirked.
“Well, you know the contract, right?”
“It’s all here.”
“Ain’t.” Albrech’s smile faded. “Let me show you something. Rosette!”
At his call, a red-haired girl appeared from a back room. From outside, the houseboat hadn’t looked big enough to have another room, but Boone wasn’t an expert on swamp home architecture. Rosette was about his own age, he guessed, but the creases around her eyes made her seem older. Her faded pink dress looked like it hadn’t been washed in anything but the bayou. Albrech gestured at her with his coffee.
“Heat up some beans. Young Boone might be staying a while.”
“I’m really not.”
Rosette shot him a glance of warning, then turned her eyes down. Albrech pointed out a window.
“Know what used to be here? Boutreville. The whole town sank after Hurricane Betsy. All that time and investment gone the way of Atlantis. It used to be that good, solid earth was something you could count on, but nowadays everything sinks. If a man wants to keep from sinking himself, it’s important to have guarantees.”
“That’s why we—”
A dragonfly buzzed Boone’s face.
“Words on paper ain’t guarantees,” Albrech said. “I’m talking about fealty. Know what that means, son?”
“I’m not sure.” Boone swatted another fly away. He was starting to feel dizzy, between the old man’s rambling and the dive-bombing insects.
The houseboat rocked and grew brighter inside. In the sudden sunlight, Rosette’s dress shone a stunning pink. Though aged, Albrech appeared as vital as a man of thirty. A chill ran across Boone’s skin, his gut suddenly queasy.
“Obligation,” said Albrech. “Me to you, your family to me, as it was in the Old Country.”
“What, like the dark ages?” Boone had about had it with the old man’s pontificating. “I’m just here for a lease renewal.”
Albrech smirked.
“Not quite. Follow me.”
Boone obeyed.
As he stepped through the kitchen, the room folded outward like a piece of origami. It began in the corner of his eye, the ratty living space becoming an elegant foyer. It was wrong, it was impossible. His quickening pulse skipped a beat when a dragonfly buzzed past his nose.
His breath steadied. Everything was normal. Everything was as it should be. The voice in his head that insisted it wasn’t screamed in silence, as if trapped behind a wall of glass.
Albrech, stately and regal, led to the room beyond.
They came to a great hall in the midst of a cotillion. Light blazed from arched windows through streamers of blue and green. Gaily clad dancers flittered with courtly grace, gliding across the floor as if their feet didn’t touch.
“The Old Country,” said Albrech, “exists outside the muck you call the World, though I do require agents in the mortal realm. There are trades to be managed, changelings to be fostered, contracts to be sealed. Thus, my arrangement with your family.
“Your path is set. You will join the firm and have an illustrious career. Your wealth and prosperity are assured, and all I ask in return is the occasional duty as I will direct. Do you understand?”
Boone nodded through the spinning in his head, though he balked at hearing “Your path is set.” In one form or another, he’d heard that his whole life. It’s what was expected of him, and always had been. His family obligations had never felt more like an oncoming train. That he’d even considered doing something else with his life, such as going to flight school, had been treated as a form of heresy.
Rosette, with a look of understanding, put her hand on Boone’s arm. He turned to her and the world changed again.
He stood alone in a tiny washroom in the back of Albrech’s houseboat. To one side was a homemade still. On the other wall, above a hole where a missing toilet should have been, were shelves of old Mason jars. Inside each jar, a dragonfly fluttered against the glass.
Most of the insects were blue or green, but one was a vibrant red. It beat against its prison more desperately than the others, as if trying to get his attention. Boone picked its jar down. The creature beat against the lid. It, at least, hadn’t given up on escape. He felt for it, trappe
d in a cage with no way out. Though he was sure it would piss Albrech off to fool with his creepy collection, Boone unscrewed the cap and let the dragonfly go.
“Boone,” said Albrech. The ballroom reasserted itself. “Are you listening?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then you’re ready to seal our contract?”
Albrech held forth a chalice.
“Drink to our allegiance and the life I promised shall be yours, as it was for all your sires.”
Boone reached for the cup. His dream of flying crumbled into kindling, his father’s voice insisting that pilots were nothing more than glorified bus drivers. His father and Albrech merged into one, their legacies into one, their scorn for anything that wasn’t theirs gleaming like trophies on a wall.
Rosette glided behind Albrech. Her eyes no longer looked down, nor carried a hint of fear. Wherever her feet touched, the fine ballroom floor rotted into that of a mildewed houseboat. She winked at Boone, then stuck out her tongue at the old man’s back.
And he was an old man, dirty and stooped in a rickety shack floating in the midst of a bug-infested swamp. His chalice was a dirty jar.
Boone held a second jar, the one that he’d opened to free the captive dragonfly. The other jars still hummed with the wings of their prisoners.
“No thanks.” He set down the glass. “Dad will have to send someone more qualified to take care of this matter. After all, I’m just an intern.”
“What?”
“I’ll pass along what you said, though.” Boone scuttered back to his boat before Albrech could stop him, collecting his folder on the way.
“Look here, you.” The old man shook his fist like a caricature of himself. “Your family’s been mine for a thousand years! Ain’t no one backed out before. Ain’t no one going to now.”
“Once again, my deepest apologies.” Boone pulled the cord to start the boat’s motor. “I’ll see that my dad sends someone else to finalize the paperwork. Have a nice day, and thank you for choosing our firm.”
As he puttered away, Boone didn’t dare look back. He couldn’t hold in his smile as the old man stomped his feet behind him. Just as he angled around a bend in the bayou, he heard Albrech screech one last time.
“Rosette? Where the hell have you got to?”
Somehow, Boone knew he wouldn’t find her.
He felt as if he’d jumped off a cliff. He knew his path now, and it was one he chose himself. He would quit the firm that very day, his father’s expectations be damned. He pulled Albrech’s contract out of its folder and threw the pages into the swamp. Only the brochures for piloting lessons remained.
A bright red dragonfly landed on his hand, then flew away into the trees.
The Unwinding House
“What you need to understand is that time doesn’t work right in Camden. It hasn’t since the bomb.” Aaron clenched his hands under the table so the man from Homeland Security wouldn’t see them shake.
“That’s what this is all about, isn’t it, Dr. Trinh?” asked Special Agent Tresser. He glanced at his notes and almost smiled. “So I guess I shouldn’t ask you to start at the beginning?”
“It’s not ‘Doctor,’” said Aaron. “Not yet. I’m just Paul Danson’s research assistant. Was, I mean.” Get a grip, he told himself. Acting like a jittery wreck would only make things worse.
“That’s all right,” said Tresser. “We’ll take it slow. Let’s start with your arrival on the twenty-third.”
~
When Aaron and Dr. Danson first choppered into Camden, it was 10:45 in the morning. Aaron remembered, because he was so very tired. He hadn’t slept for thirty hours and he couldn’t keep the crust out of his eyes. His mouth was dry and there was a buzz in the back of his head that had nothing to do with helicopter blades.
“My God,” said Danson as he peered out the window. “You’ve got to see this.” Aaron wasn’t sure if it was safe to get up, but he unbuckled and looked over his professor’s shoulder.
Camden had been a quaint little hamlet in the Colorado Rockies about an hour’s drive from I-70. Now it was a crater in the valley floor. Aaron whistled.
“Base camp is at an old drive-in just outside the blast zone,” said their pilot. “We’ve got the roads blocked off ten miles in each direction to make sure that no one gets in.”
“Is there radiation?” asked Danson.
“Not that we can detect. More than that, I don’t know. You’ll have to ask the Colonel.”
Danson squirmed in his seat, evidently anxious to get to work. Aaron just wanted to know why he’d been dragged out of his apartment in the middle of the night, and also where he could get a shower and a place to lie down.
Their helicopter landed in a field of grass that had all been flattened in one direction: pointing away from the crater. Once Danson and Aaron stepped out they were met by a man and a woman, both in dusty fatigues. The man shook Danson’s hand.
“I’m Colonel Green. We spoke on the phone. How was your flight?”
“Not bad, but I’d like to view the site as soon as possible.”
“I thought you might. Corporal Brandt will be your escort while you’re here. If there’s anything you need, just let her know.”
The corporal nodded. “This way, gentlemen. If you leave your bags, we can head over.”
The wind picked up while they walked past the trailers that served as the army’s field station. The air bore the first chill of autumn, and the mountains funneled the wind until it stabbed. As they neared the end of the field, the corporal pointed to a large patch of mud that was cordoned with yellow tape.
“Keep away from any place we’ve marked off. If you feel strange anywhere else, report it immediately.”
“Strange how?” asked Aaron.
“Nausea. Vertigo. Overwhelming déjà vu. Believe me, you’ll feel sick enough once we get to the house. No need to get started early.”
“What house?” asked Danson. “The colonel didn’t mention –”
Cpl. Brandt shook her head. “You’ll have to see for yourself.”
They saw it from the edge of the crater. For a mile there was nothing but rubble, obscured by whirlwinds of dust. Camden looked less like a village than it did a landfill on the moon, yet in the center of the devastation stood a ramshackle two-story house. Brandt pulled a pair of binoculars from a pouch on her belt and passed them to Danson. He looked at the structure in silence, then handed the glasses to Aaron.
An overhang shaded the porch, where four sentries lounged on guard. The door was several feet up from the ground, hinting at a basement below. Almost all of the house’s windows were broken, and burn marks blackened the siding. Roof tiles curled on the edges and many were missing entirely, exposing the bones of the attic to the sky.
“How can it still be standing?” Aaron asked. “The house, I mean. I know the Tunguska blast left trees upright in the center, but that explosion was high in the air. If a meteor or a bomb actually hit the surface…”
“You’re right,” said Brandt. “It shouldn’t be there at all. A crater like this is more in line with the underground nuclear tests of the Fifties. Or in this case, an explosion at ground level.”
“You’ve done simulations?” asked Danson.
“No, sir. We found the bomb.”
The corporal led them down a zigzag path to the crater floor. All around were piles of brick and skeletons of twisted steel. The cordoned-off danger zones grew more common the further they went, and the drifts of ash grew deeper. Aaron hoped that none of what they were breathing was human. His jeans were already covered in soot. He tried to brush it off, but a shift in wind filled his face with grit. He sneezed and staggered off the path.
Before his next breath, all knowledge of where he was and how he’d got there slipped from his mind like a wet bar of soap. He opened his eyes, but he couldn’t see. Or rather, what he saw made no sense. Objects no longer had meaning. The ground tilted under him. If he could just go back… or sideways…
or down…
A hand will grab his wrist. He’ll stumble back to the path and someone will catch him. She’ll tell him to get to his feet. She’ll tell him to move and call him a slacker. Somehow, he won’t remember his name.
“Aaron!”
The world snapped into focus. Dr. Danson stood several paces ahead, looking more annoyed than worried. Aaron sagged into Cpl. Brandt’s arms.
“Come on, stay with me. On your feet! Do you know what your name is? Can you tell me what day it is?”
“It’s Tuesday.” His mouth was strangely numb, and for a moment he couldn’t answer her other question. The corporal looked into his eyes and he wondered if she was going to test his sobriety.
“You’ll be all right,” she said, “but don’t do that again. Now move it, slacker!”
With no more trouble, they reached the house. The soldiers on the porch stood to attention as they approached, and one of them called for “Dr. Pierce.” In response, a woman came out, steadied herself, and walked down the steps, her white coat blinding against her mocha skin.
“Welcome to the party.” She shook Danson’s hand first. “Angela Pierce. I’m the one who stole your equipment.”
“I believe ‘requisition’ was the term on the warrant,” said Danson. “I’m glad to know it’s in good hands. Haven’t I reviewed some of your papers?”
She nodded. “We can probably write a dozen on what we’ve found here, assuming the Army lets us. Come in but watch your step. The tachyon field hits as soon as you’re inside. There’s a bucket by the door if you need it.”
Aaron froze. Tachyons were the focus of his and Dr. Danson’s research, but if a tachyon field is what he’d stumbled into before, he didn’t want to repeat the experience. He glanced at Cpl. Brandt as if she could grant permission to stay behind. She only smiled and shrugged.
It wasn’t as bad as he expected. When he crossed the threshold, there was a brief sensation of the floor tilting away. Once it passed, he took in his surroundings.
