by J L Forrest
“Go look, godsdamn you!”
She leapt and knocked me onto my back. Before I could grab her wrists, she raked her fingernails across my face, gouging my cheek.
“Even death may die!” she keened. “Even death may die!”
A string of her drool puddled on my face. She babbled and tried to claw me again. Dr. Chowdhury flooded the room with gas, an anesthetic. Ms. Watson succumbed, collapsing upon me, her head against my chest.
After sucking in a breath, my vision narrowed and I too passed into unconsciousness.
The next day I checked the satellite archives.
2129.10.31.17:12. 58°12’39.3”N 134°38’18.8”W.
Most of the imagery of the Alaskan Panhandle showed me nothing but white. Infrared, ultraviolet, and radar tended towards blanks and interference. Yet one clear day in the waters west of Douglas Island and the fog-smeared city of New Juneau, something appeared in Young Bay. The AIs flagged it as a jellyfish bloom, possible but unlikely that far north, but to my eye it was clearly not a bloom.
Bigger than a blue whale, a mass surfaced for several seconds then submerged once more. Too amorphous for a whale; besides, blue whales were extinct. The phenomenon appeared in the archival data for twenty-two frames—then nothing.
Colossal. Organic.
What was it? Which corporation had engineered it?
I checked on Ms. Watson one more time. She lay on the floor of her cell, her arms bound, screaming incoherently in a language none of us recognized.
XVII. New Juneau
2131.4.12.20:33 PST
58°16’56.9”N 134°21’59.0”W
Alt 8m
Southeast Alaska (Dissolved)
New Juneau
6km to Destination
The rain drummed long into today but, by the time we walked the Thane Road to the ferry docks, the downpour had faded into mist. Now as I board the boat, the clouds fracture above the Gastineau Channel, the stars return, and the still-growing Moon frosts the sky.
The Horned Lord and I are the geriatric ferryman’s only passengers, though the small boat couldn’t carry more than a dozen anyway. Along the Gastineau, few lights cut the darkness, a handful of buildings on the mainland, but numerous docks house boats of nearly every kind, including larger ships. Lights glow from many.
Two Cyclone V-class U.S. Navy vessels, launched in the 2090s, anchor at a stout wharf. Beside them, too, float private yachts with military capabilities.
Fog clings to the mountainsides, but Mt. Roberts and Mt. Juneau glimmer, their snowy peaks reflecting the moonlight. These twin giants guard everything at their feet—the channel, the sea, the city. Most of New Juneau’s population lives on Douglas Island’s northeastern half. The island glitters with fallen constellations, the lights of three hundred thousand people, ten times the size Old Juneau before the inundations. A true city, and I’m sure there are more people living here than on what’s left of Manhattan.
Outside northern China and the foothills of the Himalayas, this makes New Juneau one of the largest gatherings of humans on Earth.
As we cross the Channel, the sloshing waters reflect the city, as if we’re entering two cities at once—a city material and a city spiritual—a surreality, a hermit queendom, home to insular folk. I don’t know how many spies have entered New Juneau before me—dozens or hundreds—but I know of only one who has ever come out again. This isn’t a place anyone enters, or departs, lightly.
In an echo of the Bonlin, bones both human and animal decorate the city’s docks. Red and blue flags flutter from the tops of carved lodgepoles.
After the Lord and I disembark, he leads me uphill along a wide, straight avenue. Dense neighborhoods flank it, houses built beside winding alleys and paths, accreted as refugees arrived from across North America. Most of the buildings are, I note, timber or lumber. Near the lower washes, houses rest on stilts, and I recognize structures reinforced with steel cable. Good in earthquakes. Lighting varies from candles and hearths to high-performance, fractional-wattage LEDs, powered by hundreds of salvaged rooftop PV panels. PV coatings or tiles cover many south-facing surfaces. The city’s technologies are a hodgepodge, probably recovered from as far south as half-drowned Seattle or as far east as burnt Edmonton.
Down here, a lot of technology has not survived into the twenty-second century.
The evening is late but not so late, and people walk the streets or sit on their porches. People of Asian descent, European descent, Native American descent, African Descent, and many twenty-first-century mixes of these. In a few appear oddities—eyes too large, noses flared in unusual ways, mouths too wide.
As the Horned Lord passes each and every person, they drop their gaze. Some kneel, calling to him, most in English but a few in French or Chinese.
“Hallowed,” they say.
“A Reckoning,” he answers.
Without fail, each man and woman watches me—curious, yes, some with eyes narrowed or widened—all with the low brow of mistrust. Several hurry indoors or down side streets.
A second Horned Lord meets my guide and they exchange a few sentences.
Of the languages still spoken by humanity, I know at least a smattering of most. Yet I do not recognize the tongue which they speak and this fact, more than walls of bone or unexplained biota, unnerves me.
“Come on,” my guide says to me, and with his new companion we continue.
Several hundred meters up, the street empties onto a hilltop where a long building occupies the center of a cobblestone square. The building’s gable reaches twelve meters above ground, its roof reminding me of an ancient wooden longship turned upside down, darkened by planks greening with moss. Truss ends project from the tops of the walls, timber carved to resemble dragons’ heads. Under the eaves, two levels of slender windows punctuate the building’s long sides. Firelight flickers from within, and aromatic smoke rises from two expansive stone chimneys. The building’s three-meter-high doors are closed, their carven surfaces depicting myriad animals in a sylvan idyll.
Inside, a man sings. In French, sounds like.
Voices drift across the square.
The two Horned Lords flank me. Several more approach, their hewing spears in hand. Crowds gather behind the Lords, hundreds shuffling up every street, craning their necks to see me.
I am fucked.
Turning to my guide I say, “I never caught your name?”
“I am the Horned Lord,” he says, the corners of his stained mouth curling.
His companion says, “And I am the Horned Lord.”
Two others take up positions behind me.
“I am the Horned Lord,” says the third.
The fourth says, “I am the Horned Lord.”
They are different men. Different heights, different colors, different bodies. The tonalities of their voices differ, too, but their inflections and accents—identical.
“I am the Horned Lord,” says a fifth. “Now kneel.”
A spear haft strikes the back of my knees and I drop. The pain rattles up my hips, into my spine. In reflex I keep my left arm around the baby.
“Crawl,” says the Horned Lord—it doesn’t matter which one.
“What?”
“Crawl.”
The slender edge of a spearpoint lies against the back of my neck, nicks my skin, lets me know how sharp it is.
My left arm remains fixed, carrying the baby’s weight, and his shrill cry reverberates. The crowd remains silent. On my knees, only my right hand keeping me stable, I shuffle forward. The Horned Lords herd me toward the building and, still crawling, I ascend its steps. The wooden doors swing outward, slabs thick as my body and reinforced in bronze.
Light spills across me, bringing with it an aroma of roasted meats and vegetables. The singing grows louder.
The building is tripartite—a central hall reaches to the gable, between double-storied volumes to either side, not arcades as in a christian church but semi-private bowers, sleeping nooks reached by ladde
rs. Long tables parallel a common space, with a slender, copper-hooded hearth at its center. At the hall’s end rises a dais with two thrones, a smaller hearth behind them.
Many dozens of people occupy the hall, some peering from the bowers, others gathered at the tables. Standing on a bench, the singer continues:
“Maintes et maintes fois, de mauvaises choses m’ont attaqué,
caché et chassé, mais je suis devenu fou,
frapper aussi fort que possible avec mon épée,
ma chair n’était pas pour le festin.”
Strange to hear Beowulf in French. But why not? The flat of the spearpoint smacks the backs of my thighs, drives me past the central hearth. When I reach the foot of the dais, I raise my head, my attention drawn to the thrones.
I humble myself before the Queens.
XVIII. Sufficiently Advanced
Recollected
2131.3.11.7:20 GMT
Alt 40.2E6m
High Earth Orbit
EIK-Cel Station
Second-to-last time I saw Mr. Avidità, before my launch into space with the baby-who-would-be-Alastar, the King and I sparred in his private dojo. We traded kicks and punches, breathless, between snippets of conversation.
“I cannot stress enough,” he said, “you have only four objectives.”
I attempted to sweep his feet, but he leapt away. He landed too hard on his heel, off balance, and I managed to graze his ribs. Springing back from a sidekick, I centered myself and reassessed my strategy.
“I was going to ask you about the objectives, Your Grace.”
“Oh?”
He flew at me, a volley of kicks, then tried to leverage me against his hip, to slam me to the mats. I rolled across his back and punched his kidney. Grunting, he spun away, clenching his teeth.
“The first is clear enough,” I said. “Deliver the baby to New Juneau.”
“As far as we can tell, young children are welcome there, all adopted. It’s about as safe a place on Earth a child could be.”
“Excepting an Avidità facility?”
He steadied his breath. “Naturally.”
Mr. Avidità lunged, jabs and uppercuts, street-fighter style. Weaving, I locked my leg behind his and slammed him to the mat. Before I could pin him, he rolled and kipped to his feet.
“I’m a fan of the fourth objective,” I said.
He laughed. “I’d appreciate it if you could pull that one off too.”
Number four required I survive, return to San Francisco, and debrief. Harques are rare amongst Avidità Corporation’s crèche products, and we represent significant investments. Our transhuman talents require no implants or digital technologies and, on occasion, this makes us excellent spies.
But we have to survive in order to report.
“Objectives two and three, though, they confuse me,” I admitted.
“Good thing we made time for this review.”
We fell into loose sparring, ritualized kickboxing—wet slaps of salty flesh, our labored breathing, the shuffle of feet.
“Secondary to installing the infant into their midst, Aur, I’d need to know what’s happening on Wrangell Island. It’s the locus of the phenomenon.”
A punch, a kick. Slower attacks.
“What about objective three?” I asked.
“I doubt you’ll get the chance.”
“If I do?”
“I leave it up to your judgment, Aur.” His jab clipped my right cheek.
Regaining my balance, I said, “I’m not sure I trust my judgment.”
Quick punches, one-two, one-two. Mr. Avidità forced me back on my heels.
“You remember the day you got Flapjacks?” he asked.
Silly question.
The bunny. The airlock.
“That day,” he said, “you showed me everything I needed to know about you. I trust you, when your time comes again, to choose right.”
I threw everything at him—kicks, punches, knees, elbows, locks, trips, throws. I landed cursory blows, drove him to the edge of the tatamis.
The mats tilted upward and smacked me in the face. Locking my shoulder, Mr. Avidità pressed my cheek into the floor.
“I trust your judgment,” he said, his breath hot against my ear, vibrating with an intimacy so common between fighting men. “You aren’t, however, the best warrior we’ve ever trained.”
“Never claimed to be, Your Grace.”
“Whether you kill Bett or Cailín, you decide. After all, I didn’t pull the trigger, not when I had a chance, not when I could’ve blown them from the water.”
“I’ve watched the holovids. I’m curious—why didn’t you?”
“Curiosity.” He let me up and we stood together, panting, catching our breath. “I’m still eighty-percent convinced,” he said, “whatever’s going on in their so-called kingdom—queendom?—is a secret project, one of our competitor’s skunkworks. If that’s the case, Aur, then the Queens need to die.”
“And if it’s not?”
“We’ll reassess. Curiosity.”
Closing out the session, we bowed, offering each other respect not as father and son, or creator and created, but as momentary equals. He clasped my shoulder.
“Remember, Aur, whatever’s going on in Alaska and the Yukon, there’s a rational, technical, scientific explanation. Cailín Byrne was a biotech executive from Dublin. Bett Ukweli was a going-nowhere, working-class woman from Winnipeg. Now they’re Queens, priestesses, practically worshipped as Goddesses—the center of a cult. Only a cult, a curtain of superstition behind smoke and mirrors. The most valuable thing you can do is find the curtain, pull it back, and show me the wizard.”
I wiped the sweat from my forehead, downed a bottle of water, and managed a laugh. “What if it’s wizards all the way down?” I asked, paraphrasing Stephen Hawking paraphrasing Bertrand Russell.
With a half shrug he said, “Any con-job sufficiently advanced—”
“I understand,” I replied. “Cults, smoke and mirrors, curtains. I’ll survive, Mr. Avidità, and I’ll come back.”
He put his arm around my shoulder and, together, we walked to the showers.
XIX. Laminate Thrones
2131.4.12.21:26 PST
58°15’52.8”N 134°28’24.3”W
Alt 630m
Southeast Alaska (Dissolved)
New Juneau
Hall of the Queens
0km to Destination
The Horned Lord who was my guide these last few days, he sets down his heavy backpack, retrieves from it my Walther pistol, and chambers a round. Foolish of me to think he hadn’t taken it from Garth. The gun’s muzzle presses to the back of my skull.
I cradle the baby and he’s screaming at the top of his tiny, powerful, endlessly expressive lungs. Wood fires crackle in the hearths, scenting the hall with cedar and pinewood. Other odors provide undertones—human musk, honeyed liquor, hemp, something else earthy and unfamiliar. The singer has paused his Beowulf and no one speaks.
I split my attention between studying the Queens and estimating my odds at rolling aside before the Lord pulls the trigger. A poor bet, but greater than zero.
From my place on the floor I’m closest to Queen Cailín. The Irishwoman’s azure dress covers her to her ankles, and she presses her bare feet against the floor. Those ankles are milky pale, her shoulders as fair but peppered in freckles. Her limbs, her toes, her fingers, her slender collarbones, their length makes me think of the fossils of an archaeopteryx or pterodactyl; her dark hair, of the earth in which those bones might lie. A scar above her clavicle tells the story of an old gunshot wound, one which could have been fatal. Her eyes, as I expected from her photographs, are absurdly blue.
An old dog lies on the floor between her and her wife.
Queen Bettina lounges sideways across her throne, her elbows propped on one of its arms, her knees draped across the other. Also barefoot, she wears deerskin leggings and a long blouse. Her hair surrounds her head in a wild, dark coro
na. In the firelight her brown eyes sparkle into a peculiar amber.
No crowns adorn the Queens’ heads.
I cannot help but note the color of their lips, their deep, strangely calming, coal-violet. The shade differs from the mouths of the Horned Lords, which is lighter, redder, angrier.
Cailín leans forward. “You’re name is Aur?”
“It is, Highness.”
Bettina’s laugh is genial, no derision, no judgment. “None of that here, Aur. No Your Majesties. No Your Highnesses.”
“How should I address you?”
“As Bettina,” says Bettina.
“As Cailín,” says Cailín.
“You’re the Queens of the Horned Lord,” I say.
“And this is the Hall of the Queens,” Bettina says, “but let’s not grovel or rest on ceremony, not now.”
A fluttering of wings and feathers passes through the hall, and the raven called Nevermore lands on the back of Bettina’s throne. He’s gigantic, flexing his wings and preening. Bettina lifts her hand, slides her fingers through the soft plumage of his ruff.
The raven caws, fiercely loud in the confines. The baby hiccoughs, blows snot, and quiets to a murmur.
The gun still presses the back of my head. Another Horned Lord brings his spearhead to my throat, its flat against my larynx. If he slits my throat, the baby will be showering in my blood.
“Where did you come from, Aur?” asks Bettina.
I tell them the story of the woman, her son, the bandits, the farm, the baby. As practiced as before, I miss no details.
“We found her farm,” says Cailín, “the turned fields, the bodies, the woman and her son right where you say you buried them.”
What they found doesn’t surprise me. I wonder who the dead woman and dead boy had been? I wonder about the four so-called bandits? Mr. Avidità would not have missed any details either, would have ensured my lies look like truths under scrutiny. What does surprise me is that the Queens could have already verified the site, could already know my story, could have sent anyone to investigate and already received word back. This land is big and few can move as speedily as I have. Vehicles could have crossed that ground no quicker, at no time have I seen planes or helicopters, and these people do not seem to employ drones.
