Hell's Gifts - Complete Series Boxset

by Mark Russo

  “Yes. We grant permanent access to all our past students as well.”

  It looked like she wanted to add another comment, but she shut her mouth instead.

  I observed them chug all they could bring to their mouths for a moment more.

  The proxy from the research center entered the lunchroom, approached the table and whispered in my ear as planned.

  I had asked the guy to let my guests hear the word proxy while he was pretending to inform me about an issue we had.

  None of them reacted to that word any way I could detect.

  Monica watched me walk away.

  I had seen her eyes somewhere else before, or maybe it was just an impression.

  2

  Laura

  “Good morning, Laura. I received your invitation. I came here as soon as possible.” And here he was, our Pavel Vesely. He wore a suit, and his tie was so tight around his neck I could almost perceive his discomfort.

  “Yes, Pavel. Please take a seat. It will not take long.”

  He lowered his head and took place in the chair closest to me. His cheeks were freckled, and he was smiling for way longer than I ever did.

  “We have enrolled you in a particular program besides the one you share with your colleagues. Your score on our scales is quite impressive.”

  His face colored even pinker; his mouth would just not close.

  “Please do not share any of this with anyone at this stage. There will be a time for that,” I added, giving him a little more context.

  “What will this program look like? Do you have more details?”

  I opened a random 3D presentation with lots of business mumbo-jumbo. I activated the device I learned they call haptic rings. I couldn’t stop fidgeting with it. “Pavel, in today’s business world, we need professionals who can update and improve their competencies and skills. The market competition is fiercer than ever. We want our students to tackle all this with a can-do attitude and all the resilience the scenario requires.”

  His face brightened like he had just witnessed water being turned to wine. “Is there anything I can start doing? Are there dedicated interactive sessions in our folders?”

  “You’ll find lots of dedicated material: videos, interviews, interactive training sessions, self-evaluation tools—all there, waiting for you.”

  “Sure, Miss Pellier. I’ll get started immediately. Do you have an assignment for me already?” He was acting like I was the center of his world.

  “Sure. We want you to work on yourself. By the next time we meet, I want you to have devised your development plan. It’s entirely up to you which model or theory to refer to. I’ll meet you again in three days. Questions?”

  He shook his head while standing. “Any preferences about which one I should pick? I mean, which theoretical model to refer to?”

  “No. Pick one, we’ll start from there.”

  He emitted one of those mmm sounds I still had to decipher, turned his back and reached the door where he peeked from behind his shoulder at me. “When will we meet next?”

  “I want you to contact me proactively when you’re ready.” I gave him a half-smile. “You are free to go.” I continued smiling like a real person would.

  After the young human left my office, I reached for the door and locked it. It was time; I had waited too long. My eyes closed, and when I opened them again, my pet was there.

  None of us—Charles, Lee or myself—used their original appearance in Plane R, but it did. Being mostly invisible would offer my familiar protection from their eyes, from the sight of my colleagues.

  “I’d better talk to you. You never know, someone might eavesdrop on our minds,”

  it hissed.

  “I see you’re yearning for some action, aren’t you?”

  Its skin squirmed.

  “Follow him, in his every movement. There must be something we could leverage.”

  Plane K’s creature floated high in the room and took the form of gas before disappearing, even from my sight.

  “Report to me this very evening. I want to act fast.” I did not hear any answers from its side, but I knew it would not miss the appointment.

  After releasing my sentinel to surveil my biggest problem-person in EIBM, I headed out. I walked downstairs and waved at everyone I met on the way, exchanging casual small talk with some. Being a human required certain things. I bumped into Idra Shaktar, one of the other teachers, by the main door.

  Her cheeks lifted, despite that body being at least a hundred years old. “The day is beautiful outside. Have a walk in the woods.”

  “For sure, Idra. They say the air quality here is quite impressive.”

  She nodded.

  “And the food in our canteen. Well, that is just over the top.”

  Her ancient face moved up and down again.

  I was ready to catch it if it would fall.

  “That’s so true. I really enjoy our menu this week.” Then she chuckled; I didn’t know she could. “I hope you can attend the visit of some of our last year’s students. You know they are working now.”

  It might prove a tad chancy to discuss such a topic in an open corridor. “Oh, I look forward to it. I heard they are engaged in spreading our values and fulfilling our mission as a business school. Bring new talent to the world.”

  She giggled again.

  My hands readied for catching the unstable ball her body was provided with as a head.

  “Exactly, Laura. It’s our final goal to spread our knowledge with the most people possible. We really want to change the world.”

  We both laughed noisily. I guess that was what humans would call having fun.

  Someone passing us caught my attention.

  Idra said something I didn’t fully get.

  The man who had just passed wore a pitch-black jacket and an even darker tie, accentuating the pearl white of his shirt.

  The person in front of me kept saying things I would casually acknowledge, but I wasn’t listening.

  Charles appeared from inside a room and welcomed the elegant guy within an office. They shook hands briefly and disappeared from behind a heavy mahogany door.

  *****

  Later that day, I was in the school’s old library, surrounded by some of those flesh creatures. The dimness of those halogen lamps colored the walls and bookshelves around me in warmer shades of their natural hues. Despite having access to all materials and the entire knowledge base EIBM offered in my room as well, being here offered me interesting opportunities.

  Those students and researchers all stared at some invisible holographic interfaces or casually whispered to one another.

  If Laura Pellier needed to behave like them, I had to mingle with them—talk, chat and all that. No one approached me for the entire time I sat there. I eventually began eavesdropping.

  “I’m telling you, it was way bigger than that. At least twice as much.”

  “It’s not that I don’t believe you, Monica. It’s just that it’s not possible. I know what I’m saying,” Tobias whispered.

  I bet more people could hear their dialogue.

  “Okay, whatever. What did Kassalis say? The do-nothing thing. What’s that?”

  The other guy, I couldn’t recall his name, leaned into her ear. “I guess we should only have fun until we meet him next.”

  Monica raised her eyebrows, and my attention level dropped far from their interaction.

  I realized the light of my holographic old-school monitor was too intense. I stood and walked out. I would play the anthropologist another time. The corridor opened straight in front of me as I wondered what a cigarette would taste like, even if I had never seen one.

  As I imagined different scenarios for me as a human being, I spotted a female walking in the same direction as me, maybe thirty meters ahead, but I couldn’t recognize her. The slim figure was far enough ahead of me to not talk to her, and I wouldn’t force it.

  She stopped, and another girl dressed exactly like her
appeared by her side—a double, I was sure of it. Someone there could use our skills. That didn’t add up.

  I turned and marched toward my room. My shoes tightened around my feet and ankles; I would love to get them off. What had I just seen? I opened the door and entered; the lights turned on automatically. A dense fog poured from the ceiling air vent as I rushed to remove these torture devices from my feet.

  “It looks like you already have something to tell me. Go ahead.”

  It began the process to connect our minds, but I interrupted it. “No, talk to me. I don’t want the other to hear what we are saying.”

  It hissed and snorted a few times before its voice became audible. “There’s more of us here.”

  “More than you and me? I know that.”

  “No.” His ethereal head shook “More than those you already know. More than they had planned.”

  “Who are they? Other members of the Communion?”

  “They are part of a Communion, just not ours.”

  I moved closer to my familiar. “Tell me more. Who are they?”

  “Reds.”

  I hadn’t heard that name for at least a century. How did they manage to get here? “How? Who let them in this plane?” My throat was dry.

  “That’s all I have right now. I’ll give you more in a few hours. I’ll explore the rest of the building.”

  I nodded.

  He did the same before disappearing and slipping from the room from underneath the door.

  My body needed rest, but my eyes wouldn’t stay closed. I got up and wore something my neighbors wouldn’t find too weird for a night wanderer. The corridor outside my room was empty, and a light wind came from somewhere around me, blandly stroking my hair, maybe an open window.

  “Can’t sleep?” someone asked from behind me.

  “I might ask you the same question,” I retorted.

  “It’s so peaceful here. Especially at night.” He stepped toward me. I had seen his face before, but where? “Want to grab a coffee? I don’t believe what they say about it.”

  “Well, I couldn’t be more awake, I guess.” I followed him toward the canteen.

  His pajamas were navy blue; a silk belt was gently closed on his waist. While he poured coffee from that shiny robot, his hand remained perfectly still below the whistling nozzle. “Admit something, Laura. You don’t remember who I am.” A sharp grin appeared around his mouth.

  “I’m sorry to disappoint you, Brian, but I do remember. You’re the director of R and D for our labs.”

  “Well then, we may move past introductions already.” He approached the big window facing the woods. “I always found it impressive how bright it can be,” he said when I reached his side.

  “What?”

  “The moon, Laura. Don’t you like it?”

  “Oh, I do. I really do.”

  We stayed there for a few seconds without talking.

  “I grew up in Holland, you know? These mountains look incredible to me. Do you like those too?”

  “I do, even if they look familiar to me.”

  He regarded me and smiled.

  I did it too, and I meant it.

  We kept talking until the body they had given me felt too heavy to carry around, and my eyelids were closing despite me trying to keep them raised.

  3

  James

  The worm kept surfing between the rocks in front of it, and I tagged along, struggling to keep pace. I had briefly met this gigantic monster before, and it had been guiding me through the wilderness of Plane K ever since. For all the time we’ve been together, the surrounding landscape did not present any peculiar points of attention or anything I could remember; it was a lot of green rocks for as far as I could see.

  I had lost track of how much time had passed, what day it was, or which century I was living in. Frank Sneider once told me, ‘Now and then are not very different concepts, where I come from.’ Those words made more sense now.

  Finding Emma was even more important now; she could help me reach out to the stone serpent’s mind. I would have liked to ask it where the heck he was guiding me or why I never felt like sleeping after I had walked through the rift leading to this arid wasteland. Yes, I would have called such an area a desert in Plane R—the expression these monsters used to address my plane, the one with planet Earth and who knows how many others.

  Nothing moved around us; not a gust of wind was whistling nor an animal would spurt from among the rocks scattered by my stone board or my trip buddy’s subterranean activity.

  My mind was still wandering elsewhere when the creature slowed, emerging from the soil with its gigantic proportions. I left my board behind me; I could easily summon another as my energy reserve was almost full.

  That grand head stared at me, so I got closer. It turned its face left, and I looked at what he wanted to show me.

  My eyes and mouth could not spread any wider. Not a meter ahead of me, the desert we’ve been exploring far and wide abruptly ended; it just ceased to exist. I looked down from what seemed to be a craggy slope, but it wasn’t. Nothing was below it. Everything past that cliff was a black nothingness deep as a starless night sky. Plane K was floating into nothingness.

  I didn’t have time to fully understand, as my guide was already waiting for me and chirping loudly, ready to guide me to the next tourist attraction. I would have appreciated it if we had slowed a bit, but instead, we surfed again, headed who knows where.

  Speeding on the brittle Plane K soil caused me to recall my Aunt Deena. I owed her most of what I am today. She had raised me and had taken me in when I was alone. As a kid, I often had to run to catch up with her from one room to another, and she would yell my name, real loud, when I couldn’t. She would set up the tumble dryer then prepare lunch or dinner, all that while talking with someone on the phone. I had to make my bed and take out the trash. Well, I was not fast enough. The current moment made a gruff analogy of my childhood—me trying to catch up with a gigantic version of my aunt.

  My expert scout emerged with a roaring sound in a clearing where the rocks and boulders looked even greener than they had so far. Something seemed relevant about that place. Three spires of gleaming rock protruded in the center of a large clearing, accentuating against the emptiness of the desert.

  I charged two rockjets, preparing myself to fight any potential threat I still hadn’t seen.

  My new friend’s calm stance puzzled me. Those three things had to mean something.

  I approached with widened eyes as three columns of rock about five meters tall towered above me.

  My colossal fellow, from behind me, shook his head left and right while never taking its gaze off me.

  “Are you looking for something? What are we doing here?” Okay, I was talking to it, huge progress.

  It kept on jolting its front part in all directions but said nothing.

  I opted for inspecting the rock stalagmites from a closer distance. Besides gleaming and belonging in another plane of existence, nothing seemed peculiar about them.

  My friend was still at his thing.

  I grabbed a stone from the ground and hurled it against those spires. The rock hit with a muffled thud, but nothing else happened.

  The stone worm ploughed through the crisp Plane K soil and drew near me. He began observing my random activities with more attention.

  I threw another pebble at the spires.

  The beast panned from the spires to me then back to the soil.

  I did it again, for the same reaction.

  He enjoyed some parts of all that, I assumed.

  I threw yet another stone, and the three rock piles emitted a crunching sound. I released my rockjet out of raw instinct and released it in their direction. That grinding-like sound grew louder as the spires swiveled around their axes and distanced from one another.

  My exploration fellow stared at the tectonic spectacle without a hint of agitation. Dust plumed from the evolving scene as the worm remained immobile,
observing the changing landscape.

  I conjured a wall and hid behind it. When the cacophonic symphony of stone and gravel ended, I peeked from behind the wall, but a dust cloud rose so thick I couldn’t see through it. Silence invaded that clearing again, but I remained vigilant. I waited. With one eye only, I peeked again.

  The fog had disappeared, and the columns were several meters apart from one another. Still, besides me and my gigantic fellow, no one was around. Using its grasshopper-like sound again, it tried to tell me it wanted me to move do something

  With the stone wall behind me, I spotted something that had not been there before—a detail that stuck out imposingly. Amid the space between the dislocation of the three blinking pillars appeared a dark metal box. I would have thought that to be a toolkit if I was still on planet Earth. From a closer perspective, the box resembled more a toolkit like those found in videogames developed in the early 90s of the past century.

  I kneeled before it and still nothing happened.

  The stone worm—I’d call them stone worms, I decided, provided there were more—not singing its repetitive song suggested I was not in danger. Maybe.

  My left hand grabbed the cracked handle and pulled, but it wouldn’t open. I pulled with more strength, my fingers gripping tighter around that fissured piece of poor-quality rubber. Nothing. There was no way to open it or break it. A rockjet would do.

  As soon as I began reading it, my friend, the opera singer, produced his not exactly pleasurable song once more. I had to get it open, not destroy it—clear enough.

  When I started fidgeting with the box, the stone worm continued torturing my ears.

  I faced it. “What is wrong with you?” Turning my back was enough to answer that question myself.

  A door adorned with lots of doodles and symbols and a heavy stone frame had appeared in the clearing.

  “Okay, I get it. I have to open it. How did this door end up there anyway?”

  The Plane K creature fell silent.

  “Well, no more songs? That’s a pity. I had started to like them. What’s behind this?”

  It kept staring at me.