by J. F. Halpin
Summers had thought about that and hadn’t come to any conclusions that didn’t involve cutting his head open, which was an option, but not a good one.
“About that . . . I’m open to suggestions.”
Cortez heaved a sigh.
“You’re serious about this?” she started. “Like, you’re willing to do whatever it takes?”
Summers nodded.
“Okay.” Cortez winced. “But I know you’re not gonna like my idea.”
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“All right. Let’s do this thing.”
Summers rolled his shoulders, trying to psych himself up.
After he’d gotten the system down, he’d moved on to the rest of his body.
It had worked surprisingly well. He no longer had to worry about being run out of town, at least. His face was back to its normal human, and hornless, complexion. Even his ears had returned to normal.
He’d decided not to worry about the skin around his torso and legs—for now, anyway. He had more pressing issues to contend with.
“Ready?” Cortez asked, looking more than a little bothered.
She held a small, bent piece of metal they’d fashioned from used brass.
Behind her sat Synel and Nowak. Both had come as a show of support for what he was about to attempt. After all, he was about to poke his brain. Even if he was successful, removing the hamr like this might kill him. Given what he’d been through, it might be the only thing keeping him alive.
But that was a risk he had to take.
“Just so we’re clear, I die, you don’t try to bring me back. You saw what that thing in the city did to bodies. I get up again, chances are it’s not gonna be me.”
Nowak nodded. Pat, Orvar, and the twins stood at the far end of the room with weapons in hand. If things got ugly, he was fairly sure they’d be able to take him out. Or at least fill him with enough holes the hamr wouldn’t have much of a body left to work with.
If things came to that, they’d probably wreck the boat. But they were close enough to shore that they wouldn’t be in any real danger.
“You’re sure this is the best way to do things?” Synel put a hand on his shoulder.
“It’s either this, or I let it take over my brain,” Summers responded. “So, yeah.”
Synel nodded. Asle gave him a reassuring smile before he turned back to Cortez and took one final breath.
“All right, I’m good. Do it.”
“I know this was my idea, but you come out of this with an eyepatch, don’t blame me.” Cortez moved a hand up to Summers’ head, holding it in place.
Slowly, she slipped the blunt metal tool behind his eyelid. He could feel the cool pressure slowly intensifying.
“I’m so fucking glad I can’t feel pain,” Summers muttered.
“Shut up.” Cortez cringed as she worked. “But yeah . . .”
Then Summers’ eye came loose. He reached up, cupping the now dangling eye in wet bandages with one hand.
It was an odd sensation, but not unpleasant. Something like crossing his eyes.
“Summers, you good?” Nowak looked at him, concerned.
“Yeah. Yeah.” Summers reached up toward the now vacant socket. “All right. Let’s see what happens.”
He stuck two fingers into his eye, pressing against the back of the cavity. As soon as his fingertips reached the nerve, he could feel a pulsing, bright mass nearby.
He reached for it, willing it to come closer.
Then, the world disappeared.
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Summers found himself in a void, his hand still in his head, still pulling at the mass.
A beat, and then a voice spoke out to him.
“H . . . ome.”
He didn’t understand what was talking to him. If it could even be considered talking. It was more like a concept being fed directly into his head. Summers kept pulling, refusing to let up.
The scenery flickered. He saw his mother standing in front of him. He saw his father, a field of flowers.
“Host in . . . com . . . plete.”
More faces flashed through his sight. His friends, people he barely remembered.
“A new . . . ho . . . me,” the voice repeated.
Then new faces appeared. Alien faces, some bordering on what he could still call human.
The world resolved itself. He was in a large, empty room.
A humanoid figure, a silhouette, moved slowly in front of him. He was faintly luminous, with something that looked like eyes forming and unforming as Summers’ watched.
“Is this it? The end?”
Summers startled at what sounded like his own voice speaking. No, he hadn't said anything. But still, it felt familiar, like one of his dreams.
The black form turned to him.
“No.”
The figure seemed to dissolve as he finished speaking, and a tidal wave of blackness washed over Summers, engulfing him. He was plunged into pure darkness.
Summers redoubled his effort as his consciousness began to fade.
He could feel as the force resisting him relented, releasing its grip.
Then all at once, Summers remembered pain.
It started slowly at first, blooming in his head until it became his whole world. Suddenly, he could feel the sharp sting in his eye, and something in his chest pressing against his heart. His entire body was on fire. It was almost too much; he nearly lost consciousness right there. But he pressed on, feeling something wet brush up against his thumb. As soon as it made contact, Summers pulled with all he had.
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Everything was gone.
The others looked to Summers, confusion evident on their faces. He could only stare back at them.
After a moment, he noticed the mass of black flesh in his hand. It tensed, trying to squirm free.
“Oh. Fuck!”
Summers threw the hand-sized tumor into a pot and slammed the lid down with a little more force than was necessary.
He heard the struggling within the pot, but managed to keep the top on. He was still trying to come to terms with what happened as he watched Cortez heft it over to the stove they’d prepared.
He couldn’t sense the mass inside his head anymore. But the dull ache in his body had carried over, the pain in his eye still blazing. For now, he could endure it.
It was odd. On one hand, he wasn’t sure what would happen when he removed the creature. If his memories would come back, or if they were gone forever.
He hadn’t expected them to be replaced.
Chapter 35: Visitors
Summers sat, poking at his eye. The pain had mostly faded to a dull but manageable ache. To Cortez’s credit, she’d been able to get it back in mostly without issue. Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling that it sat a little looser than it had been.
“You have someone else in your head?” Cortez watched Summers skeptically.
“It’s not someone,” Summers chided. “It’s . . . they’re memories. I don’t know if it was this thing that kept me from seeing them, but it’s like I can remember someone else’s life.”
“So, it was trying to . . . what? Turn you into itself?” Nowak asked.
“No. It’s bigger than that.” Summers rubbed at his head. After taking the hamr out, things had started to get a little clearer for him. Everything he’d lost had been replaced. They were fragments, but there were a few things that stuck out. “It’s hard to explain. I think it’s a machine, like an archive.”
“An archive of . . . what?”
“People? It breaks them down so it can build them back up. Makes you crazy, so it can spread, survive. It came here for us, our bodies.” Summers gestured to himself. “Bottom line is, I don’t think it wanted me dead. I think the attack on the city—everything it’s been doing—it was all just to get more of us.”
“Why?” Nowak watched Summers with a distinctly uncomfortable expression.
“To change others, like it did to me. I can remember when I . . . when the guy in my head died. Something killed him, killed everyone he knew. And the hamr was their way out, their ark. It was meant as a medical system — but they changed it. It must have been searching for a world like this one for a long, long time.”
The group was silent for a moment as they took that in.
Summers could remember things about the hamr that he wouldn’t have ever believed. Centuries of work, maybe. He—no, the man whose memories he now had was one of a few trying to find a way to escape. From what, Summers hadn’t a clue, only a vague feeling of dread.
“Summers, this is insane.” Cortez moved beside Orvar, near the pot. The man was holding down the lid so the thing inside didn’t escape.
“Trust me, I fucking know. And I think this thing might keep trying to change me. I’m not sure. My gut tells me this was more of a temporary fix.”
“Do you know anything about Nevada? What we’re heading into?” Nowak looked expectant.
“No, not really . . . but . . . if what I can remember is right, there’s a lot of it coming, and soon.”
“Like more of that monster in the city?”
“No. Like an entire world’s worth of them. It spent so long just . . .” Summers ran a hand through his hair. “Look, they’re not from this world. The guy it was trying to turn me into was looking for somewhere they could live. A new world. A new home.”
“Wait . . .” Cortez held up a hand. “You’re telling us we have to deal with a planet’s worth of those fucking things? We should be taking as many people as we can out of this . . . place . . .” She trailed off as her eyes landed on Asle. “Oh, fuck . . .”
“Asle . . .” Summers started. “You said the army came and got you, right?”
“They took everyone.” Asle responded.
“Guys, remember, we got here with the army,” Nowak explained. “How they managed is anyone’s guess, but if this thing’s after people like us, it might not have stopped at this world.”
Summers sat back in his chair. “Right.”
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“If these things are coming for everyone, then we need to get to Nevada,” Nowak argued. “Maybe Summers knows something that can make a difference for everyone there.”
“I’m not sure I do,” Summers responded.
Summers and the others had retreated to their cabin, mostly to think. Memory isn’t something you’re entirely aware of at all times, so trying to figure out what changed was proving a little more challenging than he’d have expected.
He was used to finding holes in his memory by now, but it was an entirely different experience to find someone else’s thoughts inside his head. From what little Summers could piece together, the man whose memories he shared was named Dyer. He was a doctor, or some kind of equivalent. There wasn’t much he could say about the man; all he found were flashes of his life. The people he knew, those he’d dealt with day to day, his lover. And odd, alien beings he could only see in brief glimpses through the other man’s eyes.
Summers felt a small amount of resentment that so much of him had been overwritten by so little. There was nothing that could give him a complete picture of anything in Dyer’s life. Even the hamr, something Dyer had dedicated years to developing, was still a mystery for the most part.
He was also now intimately familiar with a type of math that utilized time as the sixth dimension. That was both worrying and confusing, given he was fairly sure he’d forgotten how to do long division years ago.
“It’s not like we can wait out the end of the world,” Cortez mused. “I still can’t see the army’s place in all this. According to you, that black gunk came here, so how’d they manage to get to this world?”
“I’ve been thinking about that . . .” Nowak started. “Suppose someone like Summers came along, and he remembered things, things that would let him build a machine like the one we saw. What are the odds you think the army would be doing everything they could to learn what that man knew?”
“Okay, but just so we’re clear, we’re talking about the army capturing someone who’d just had their brain eaten, and then making him build them shit?” Cortez scowled. “See? This is why I stick to blowing shit up. It’s simpler.”
“There’re still a few days until we hit port.” Nowak moved to his hammock, slipping inside. “We still don’t have the full picture here, but we stand a better chance with the army at our backs.”
Cortez hesitated a moment before she nodded.
Summers had to agree. Even if he wasn’t optimistic about their odds, or that the army would be welcoming him back with open arms, it was still the best chance his friends had.
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“I am so screwed.”
Summers shifted atop a crate in the storeroom. After rumors of what Summers had done got around the ship, the sailors they were traveling with had begun avoiding the place as much as they could.
So, he sat in relative silence, trying to quietly think with a little more elbow room than usual. The problem was that thinking about his situation only seemed to make things worse. Thinking led to him combing through his memories, which prompted his realization of just how fucked they were.
Before, he’d thought the hamr some kind of magical, otherworldly being. That’s exactly what it was, but now, Summers had more insight into just how far beyond them it had to be. It was technology, at its core. The army fighting the hamr was like . . . well, it was like his friends fighting with guns against spears and swords.
He reached over to a small metal pole beside him, and then bent it. He’d torn out a lot of the hamr, but it hadn’t affected most of his “powers.” Maybe since one was skin deep, while the other was embedded deeper. He might be able to pull it out, but it didn’t seem worth the risk.
Footsteps roused Summers from his thoughts, and he found Synel in the hall, watching him.
“I don’t suppose you’d like some company.” Synel looked at him with the slightest smile.
The gesture wasn’t lost on Summers.
“Can’t hurt at this point.”
He motioned to the seat beside him.
“How are you doing?” Synel asked.
“About as well as you could expect.” Summers rubbed at his temple. “How ’bout you? You just saw me pull something out of my head.”
“I find my ability to be surprised at this point worn thin. My time with you and your friends has been possibly the strangest experience of my life.”
“To be fair, it’s been pretty weird for us, too.” Summers cracked a smile.
They sat in silence a moment before Synel glanced over to Summers’ journal.
“Asle told me she and your friends wrote passages in here.” She picked up the book, examining it. “And a little about me, too.”
“Really?”
Synel offered him the book back.
“She was worried I wouldn’t be honest. You haven’t read it?”
“I’ve been . . . distracted,” Summers admitted.
Synel considered him.
“Is it . . . still necessary?”
“Maybe. I might have to do what you saw again . . . eventually. Either way, doesn’t hurt to be prepared.”
She nodded.
“You should find the time to read it. Don’t take the people in your life for granted. I should know better than anyone, they don’t last forever, and it can be very lonely out there on your own . . .”
“Right . . .” Summers muttered. “You, uh, know where we’re heading is dangerous, don’t you?”
“I’m aware, and I assure you that I have no intention of dying young.” She sighed. It took Summers off guard for a moment; this was the most emotion he’d seen from the woman. “Whatever happens, I’ve enjoyed the change of pace, short as it’s been.”
Synel stood, moving toward Summers, and pressed her lips to his forehead.
“Truth be told, I started follo
wing you with the intention of trading with your people.” Synel put a hand on Summers’ journal for a moment before she turned, heading for the door. “But I’m not one to let my greed blind me . . . most of the time. You have no need to worry about me.”
“For what it’s worth,” Summers started, “I wouldn’t mind if we had a little more time together.”
She gave him one last smile before she left.
All Summers could do was watch her go. As he sat, he took another look at the journal before he reached down and opened it.
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“Are you still reading that?” Nowak watched as Summers turned another page in his journal.
He’d been sitting in his hammock, flipping through the pages for some time now.
”Yeah . . .” Summers thought for a moment. “Cortez, what the hell is a ‘carnal’?”
“It means ‘brother.’” Cortez rolled her eyes, but she looked a little more tense than normal.
“Oh.”
That was all Summers managed as he kept flipping through the book.
Nowak eyed the two. “What else did she write?”
“None of your damn business,” Cortez responded.
Summers ignored them both as he got to Asle’s entry. He’d seen the dream she wrote for him, but he never managed to read what she’d added about herself.
It was . . . surprisingly in depth. It talked about how they met, how he’d rescued her when they first came to this world, how they’d traveled together—as well as some other things.
“Has Asle ever saved me from a pack of wild . . . kulve?” Summers turned to the others.
“No?” Cortez answered.
“Oh, thank god.”
Summers added a note that Asle may have been exaggerating, or straight-up lying at some points during her writings.
Of course, the line “this is absolutely true, and you should not question Asle about it” had tipped him off. Still, all in all, it was kind of sweet.
Even Nowak had written something about himself, though it read more like a report. Summers had asked him to fill in some blanks as he tried to keep track of their time here. It wasn’t an easy thing to do, especially with the people they’d lost.
