The Post-Humans (Book 1): The League

by Bassett, Thurston

  The quintessential item for any farmhouse, Athan thought, remembering art history lessons from his university days.

  Dan stood with his hands on his hips in the middle of the lounge room.

  “Thirsty mate? I’ve got some cordial or tank water. Real water, not like that poison you drink in the city.” The old man made a bee-line for the kitchen.

  “A cup of coffee if you have it, Mr Carl,” Athan said rubbing his temples now that the man was out of sight. “And pain killers if you have them.”

  He cursed himself for not having brought some with him.

  Everywhere he seemed to go he’d ask for pain killers. He decided that people would think he was an addict if he didn’t start buying his own.

  There was some knocking about and running taps in the kitchen.

  “Yes, of course. I’ll chuck the kettle on.” He came back carrying an old fashioned steel kettle and sat it on the iron hob in the fireplace.

  The fire was warm and crackling, and Dan added another lump of wood to stoke it up, before setting himself down in another armchair.

  “Nice place,” Athan said, trying to initiate a conversation, and distract himself from his throbbing head.

  “Yeah,” Dan looked around, “but I miss the city. I try to talk it up and fit in, but I really miss espresso, cheap burgers and a good shirt and tie. By the way, you look a little dapper for the sticks, in a ‘just run a marathon’ kinda way.” Dan chuckled, gesturing to Athan’s creased and, now dirty, shirt and suit.

  “I don’t have a lot of choice in outfit these days.” Athan straightened the tie.

  “A work thing?” Dan enquired, tilting his head

  “Call it a lifestyle choice.” Athan finished with a smile.

  Dan nodded and was silent for a moment while he watched the flames.

  “So, why are you hunting Dan Dangerous? And how did you find him?” The old man asked.

  Dan was to the point and didn’t stuff around.

  Athan much preferred that to drawn out awkward conversation about weather or politics.

  “It has taken some time, but I have a friend who has a way with information, and I can move a little quicker than most people if I know where I’m going.” Athan watched the fire as he spoke.

  The flames were mesmerizing.

  He was reminded of someone…

  “So, what’s your name, traveller? You know mine…” Athan glanced back at the man who now sat with his elbows out and his fragile fingers clasped in his lap.

  “Athan. Athan Harper. I used to go by the alias Sleepwalker a few years ago.”

  “Yep,” Dan nodded. “The League, I believe it was called. You and a group of do-gooders tried to save the city from crime.”

  Athan visibly cringed at the mention of it.

  Tacky.

  “So you do keep up to date with what’s happening with the others? The ones like us in the big city?” Athan teased, trying to turn the focus on Dan and his exploits.

  “Well not for a long time now. I’ve been keeping a very low profile, even door to door salesmen freak me out, when they come knocking.” Dan smiled.

  Athan sat for a moment and stared at the growing flames in the fireplace between them. He could hear the water beginning to bubble away in the old steel kettle.

  “Clearly, you’re troubled, young son,” Dan said, breaking his reverie.

  Athan snapped back to reality and looked at the old man who watched him curiously.

  “I can’t read your mind boy, you gotta spill it,” Dan prompted.

  Athan took a deep breath. “We have something in common…”

  “I ain’t your Daddy I hope?” Dan laughed.

  Athan smiled briefly, but his expression was serious again when he thought about the reason for his visit. “No, we may have shared a vision. Seen something no one else can see.”

  Dan suddenly looked very serious. His bushy brows pulled together like two fuzzy caterpillars.

  “I can use people’s minds as doorways to a metaphysical place that can allow me to travel from person to person. It’s like another dimension or plane.” He looked from Dan to the flames. “When I was inside the head of a coma patient I found a doorway, a deeper doorway.”

  Dan’s gaze turned to the flickering firelight.

  “I stepped into this door and saw Hell, Dan; a world dominated by faceless beings and squirming creatures I couldn’t describe. Apparently I’m not the only person to see this place.” Athan turned to the old man, who was chewing on his lip.

  “No,” Dan said, still staring at the fire. “You are not alone. When I saw it I was hoping that it was something I’d projected or imagined. I know what they are boy. That’s the Otherworld, the Under World, a universe that exists under ours. It feeds off of us, Mr Harper.”

  “’Feeds?’” Athan asked, remembering the vacuum feeling of the door.

  “When people become filled with emotion and passion, it is this realm that finds them. When you feel drained after an emotional overload, it’s them that has drained you. Like fruit, we are. We get ripe with emotion and they can make their way in and they suck it out like a straw in a milkshake,” Dan said gravely as he turned to Athan.

  The old man’s eyes glittered in the firelight.

  “Really? Are you sure? It’s like some kind of science fiction.” Athan sat back and examined the old man’s expression.

  Dan suppressed a laugh. “Science fiction is just another term for ‘not invented yet’ or ‘hard to believe’. Don’t you think people like us are a little bit of science fiction to all the regular humans? They read stories about super heroes and mysterious villains through history. Who’s to say they weren’t the first of us? How much of them stories do you think could be written by people that didn’t understand what they saw? Shit, I’ve helped the Aussie cops catch what any normal people would call a vampire or a ghoul. There are people like us that we don’t even know about, there always has been. And I’m afraid, Mr Harper, that The Blind are real too. They feed off our emotions, they always have. They have a natural role in the universe, like us.”

  “The Blind? They looked like faceless masses, a grey army that was waiting for an order. They didn’t look like a natural part of the universe, Dan, they looked like demons in hell. And they have a name?” Athan shook his head. Dan knew so much. How much was true?

  “The Blind. That’s not just what I call them. When I did a little tour in America, I met some psychics and a couple of those Navajo shamans, and they all knew about The Blind.” He looked thoughtfully at the fire again. “They said, under the influence of the right substance, in the right dosage, you could see them. Not everyone, but some, with the right talent. But they could damage your mind if you weren’t strong.”

  “The Blind.” Athan shrugged. “I’ve been doing what I do for years, and this was the first time I’d really seen them.”

  The kettle on the hob hissed and rattled.

  “Be thankful boy. They give you nightmares.” Dan took the now boiling kettle out from the hob and left it to settle on the side while he wandered off to collect two mugs of coffee and a couple of Panadol.

  “Got no milk, son, sorry. Hope you like it black,” he said when he returned.

  He poured hot water from the kettle into the two mugs and stirred them with a little decorative teaspoon.

  He lifted a little china pot of sugar from the mantlepiece and offered it to Athan.

  “So you stepped into their world, Mr Harper?” Dan said rekindling the discussion.

  “Unfortunately,” Athan said, blowing his coffee.

  “And you lived to bring the story to me.” Dan shook is head. “That’s impressive.”

  “I didn’t think I would. It was like swimming in syrup, thick and hard to move or breathe.” Athan cringed when he thought of it.

  “Breathe?” Dan shook his head and frowned. “I don’t understand how you do what you do, climbing inside and all that. Seems a little beyond me. It must have been horribl
e for you to be inside and that close, and to see where they come from.” He sighed. “My gift, if you could call it that, allows me only to see things through a porthole, a little window, or a security camera. That was enough. I came too close.”

  “How close is ‘too close’?”

  “It stared at me, inches from my face. Blank and lifeless.” Dan finished, and begun sipping his coffee.

  “I think I saw one in the metaphysical plane too, a different place…but similar.” Athan added.

  Dan nodded, but looked a little confused.

  “At least I think it was one of them. It had a blank white face and a black shroud. It didn’t feel right; its presence was not something I had felt before.” Athan begun staring into the flames again, transfixed by the way it flashed and licked the chunks of wood.

  “But you aren’t sure?” Dan asked.

  “No.”

  “Hmm…” Dan rubbed at his beard.

  “The other thing I was going to talk to you about…” Athan begun.

  Dan’s brows rose. “Oh, yes?”

  “Was the fact that I had been waking coma patients, using their mindscapes to find clues that will help them free themselves. And the problem I have is that one of these subconscious scenarios was identical in two completely unrelated patients.”

  “Really? Can you tell me about this scenario?” Dan asked with genuine interest. Athan went on to describe the details of everything that happened with the boy and the broken guitar and the final brutal killing of the family cat.

  Dan Dangerous looked lost in thought.

  “That can’t happen, Athan. It is not a possibility,” he finally said.

  Athan sat the empty mug on the shelf beside his chair. “But it has happened, Mr Carl.”

  “It seems so perfect…like…it’s the perfect repressed memory,” Dan said as he raised his brows to the flames, as if his conversation was with the fire.

  “Perfect? How?” Athan narrowed his eyes.

  “The architecture of it is genius. It’s ideal.” Dan looked Athan in the eyes. They sparkled bright and blue. There was madness in there, or a secret.

  Dan was withholding something.

  “It’s fabricated. Is that what you’re telling me?”

  “You have suspected it for some time, Mr Harper, I can sense that much,” Dan said nodding.

  Athan stared at the floor with wide eyes. Not wanting to believe that someone could create such a thing in the mind of a human being. He wondered if a Post-human was responsible; if it was the effect of some special ability.

  “But why?”

  “Well,” Dan said rising from the armchair with a groan. “You need to find that out yourself. And you need to know why they were unconscious in the first place. And who they are.”

  Athan nodded. “Of course.”

  “If you excuse me, we have company.” Dan smiled. “Miss Stacy is on her way.”

  “You can read her from here?” Athan asked surprised.

  Dan chuckled. “Yeah, my ability is a little magnified with its lack of use. Though, I’ve never slept better!”

  He began to clear some newspaper off a chair for the girl to sit down.

  “I will use her to transport myself home, if you don’t mind.” Athan said rising and straightening his suit jacket.

  “It won’t hurt her?”

  Athan shook his head.

  Dan chuckled. “Then I’d be interested to see this extraordinary skill in practice Mr Harper! Do you need any more painkillers before you go?” Dan narrowed his eyes as he examined Athan’s. “You look a little pained still.”

  “No, it’s a short walk to where I’m going, now I know the way.” Athan nodded.

  “Remarkable.” Dan shrugged. “I hope we meet again Mr Harper.”

  “Goodbye Dan Dangerous.” Athan smiled. “Love the name by the way.”

  “Me too.” Dan grinned.

  There was a knock on the door and old Mr Carl opened it to find the twelve-year-old Stacy holding a plate of cookies. They were as big as saucers and still warm. Chocolate chip, Dan’s favourite.

  More than one mouthful, just as he preferred.

  Dan grinned as he opened the door for the girl to come in.

  “Oh afternoon my dear girl! What have you got here?”

  “Cookies!” the girl squealed.

  “My goodness! You’ll make me fat! I’ll have to work them off climbing up that blasted hill so I can have your Mum’s lasagna!” The girl giggled and grabbed a cookie for herself, not seeing or feeling the man in the suit disappear into her from behind her back.

  The old man gave a satisfied smile as he chewed on one of the warm cookies. “Well I never…” he said.

  The girl grinned while she chewed her mouthful of cookie. She was so proud that Mr Carl was surprised at how good they were.

  She had baked them herself.

  Chapter 7

  7 years ago.

  Melbourne.

  THE WOODEN PARK bench was cold under Athan’s backside, but he enjoyed the sensation.

  Since he had discovered his ability to jump from mind to mind and hide away in the communal subconscious he hadn’t taken a lot of time to sit and enjoy the beauty of the physical world.

  He had been using this new world as a place to hide from cold realities and human responsibilities. He never needed a place to sleep, he didn’t often need money so he didn’t need to work if he stayed inside his organic hideaway and he had no idea if he could have a meaningful relationship.

  What kind of a relationship could he have with a person who was just a doorway to his secret, better place? People seemed far more hollow to him now, like empty vessels that he could explore whenever he wanted.

  He didn’t have a phone.

  No home.

  No friends.

  And his family believed he was working in Europe.

  Life was an amazing and lonely adventure.

  Especially when he couldn’t tell anyone.

  An old woman approached Athan’s park bench. She looked a little out of breath from the effort of walking through the garden.

  He sniffed and shuffled over a little.

  “Sorry son, feet aren’t what they used to be,” she said politely.

  “It’s fine, take a seat.” Athan smiled nervously.

  He didn’t speak often.

  “Do you work near by? I noticed your smart suit,” she said.

  Athan recognized the way she spoke. It would have been a habit she adopted in older days, when it was acceptable to engage total strangers in conversation. People were much more guarded now, more private, except on the Internet, where total strangers could also be best friends without ever having actually spoken, and everything about a person’s life or their personallity could be seen by anyone.

  Athan wasn’t part of either world.

  “I guess I do, yes,” Athan said hesitantly.

  “Oh that would be nice to work here in the city near the park. Much nicer view than some people get. Just bricks and concrete is all they see.” She shrugged and smiled. “But you have to do what you can, don’t you? Jobs aren’t as easy to find these days. When you get one, you hold onto it, believe you me!” She waved her finger in warning.

  Athan smiled and nodded.

  “I used to deliver vegetables to restaurants right up Lygon Street, and a few fancy ones on Bourke.” She nodded proudly. “Kept me busy, and I had the respect of the businesses. My stock was always refrigerated, and nice and crisp, and I didn’t bother to deliver anything that looked a bit sad you know? Always the best veg.” She gazed off into the distance as she spoke, or watched the trees over the pond. They swayed with the breeze.

  Athan just nodded.

  “You liked your job?” he asked.

  “Oh yes. I was proud of what I did. And people counted on me. The restaurants couldn’t bring in the customers they had without my quality produce. They built little empires because of my fruit and veg. Your fancy Waldorf Salads, baked sw
eet potatoes, even some of the wonderful fresh herbs the authentic Indian places used. They were from the stock I delivered.” Her smile faded and her eyes became distant. “It was a job though. I was just another cog in the big noisy Melbourne machine, but I gave the city something. I may not be remembered and those restaurants may have changed hands or gone, but I know I contributed something good. It’s just not like that anymore. Jobs are more about staying alive and supporting your kids and hoping they can support you in the future.” She raised her warning finger again. “The rich get richer and the rest of us just wish they would replay more ‘Murder She Wrote’ for us to watch till the next pay cheque arrives.” She smiled thoughtfully and fiddled with the carry strap of her handbag.

  Her thick tortoise shell rimmed glasses and the lines of her faces gave her a kind yet sad countenance. She pined for better times or for the people she loved to be closer to her.

  “I guess I’m a little like the rest of us then, I’d like to feel like I was actually contributing something, but it is hard to find jobs that make you feel like you matter,” Athan added empathetically to cheer her up.

  “Hmmm…Yes. Yes it is. But you’re a handsome young boy, you have a spiffy suit, and I’m sure you’d work hard. You have your whole life to find a job that makes you happy.” She smiled.

  Athan turned to the pond and watched the way the breeze rippled across its surface. “I don’t know what makes me happy anymore.”

  “Rubbish, you have your whole life going for you. You probably have a thousand different chances to get out there and make a difference,” the woman said bluntly.

  Athan felt ashamed that he had complained when he had so much more time than she had.

  “Make a difference?” Athan raised his eyebrows. “That isn’t always in the job description.”

  The woman smiled and got to her feet with a groan. “No, you discover that part once you start working hard.”

  “I guess so.” Athan stood to help her get to her feet.

  She smiled and set off down the footpath toward an avenue of beech trees.

  Athan wondered how he could make a difference to anything. He could get into people’s heads, but what good could that do?