My strongest-held belief was that, yes, I was in the past, and somehow the advanced technology went overlooked in my time. Who knew, maybe the Egyptians went off to explore other stars and took everything with them. Perhaps the pyramids of my time were just the foundation of a society of unimaginable capabilities, maybe nothing more than ports for space-faring colonies to come and go as they pleased. If I was really in the past, I had to consider how my actions would affect my time. I had already introduced peanut butter to Helen, who was a prominent historical figure with a ton of influence. And she seemed to like it. There was no telling how that could affect the future. Even stepping on bugs walking to the Thirians’ village could have profound effects. Every move I made was a stone thrown into the pond of time, sending ripples forever onward across the millennia. The thought gave me goosebumps. It was spiritual, in a way, but laden with a responsibility I hadn’t understood until that moment.
Then I laughed, realizing I was focusing on the wrong things. I had potentially saved an entire race of people from total annihilation by a volcano, and had taught them hand-to-hand combat and naval warfare tactics from my time. As I lay there, I was on my way to help turn the tide of a war which I was pretty sure our opponents were said to have won in my time. There was a good chance that the things I intended to do for that woman were going to shuffle the cards in a way that would prevent me from even being born. I didn’t know what to expect when rewriting the past. There was nothing I could do to plan for it, and that was my reality going forward.
Instead of drowning myself in paradoxes and what-if’s, I decided to turn over and try to sleep. It was comforting at least to know that, in the moment, I still existed. I hoped that was a good sign.
Helen and I spoke a great deal over the next two days. I mentioned my concerns of affecting the future, and she agreed that it was a good sign I was still alive and well.
“What if, instead,” she began, “your time is still safely moving forward? Anything you do here will become a different, separate future from the one you know? Both would exist beside each other. Would this not prevent any of the paradoxes you spoke of?”
“That would make a lot of sense. I think I’ve heard some people suggest that’s what would happen back—I mean forward—in my time, but of course it’s all just guesses and no one actually has any idea.” I shrugged. “I might just go with that way of thinking if nothing leads me to believe otherwise. It would make me feel a lot more comfortable about everything.”
I tied off the sails and looked over the railing. Night had fallen—our first night since setting out from Santorini. The waves were gentle, the sky clear. There wasn’t a hint of land in sight, but I was fine with that. We had food to last us for weeks, and I was beginning to like my company more each day. I turned back to her, my arm rested on the railing.
“So, tell me more about why you want to be a full person.”
“Gladly,” she said, smiling. The idea that she would one day be human made her glow; all I had to do was mention it. “As I was saying, free will is the most important mark of humanity to me. The next most important thing is the ability to live like a human. I spoke of this before when you asked me, but each day my senses become more alive. Smells, tastes, the way things feel—everything becomes more. As a machine, I have sensors that provide input to me about my environment—and one can say the same for humans—but ever since my transformation, I have experienced a deeper connectedness with that input. It is no longer data that I am reading, it is an environment in which I am living, and it is beautiful. My heart feels lighter at the mere thought of such a thing, and that sensation itself is something unlike which I have ever experienced.”
“The way you describe it is beautiful, but I have to play Devil’s Advocate again.”
“Go on.” Her smile did not fade. I knew before I asked that there was no way I could break her conviction. It didn’t make our game any less fun for me though.
“The price of living is death. Are you still willing to accept life if it means that one day you will die?”
“That is an easy question to answer, Troy. The threat of death matters little to me. As a robot, I may exist much longer, but that is not living, and I would eventually perish. A robot does not even comprehend that it is alive, and, really, it is not. As a human, my life would likely be much shorter, but it would be fuller. There is no doubt in my mind which existence I would rather have.”
“I can’t argue with that. So, what else? Any other reasons?”
She responded at first with only an amused grin, looking me up and down. After a moment, she said, “Perhaps I will show you on one of the coming days,” and went below deck.
I considered the possibilities of what was unfolding between us, and came to a realization. Her composition didn’t matter. Her soul did.
Two days had passed in total before we spotted land again. Like the last time, Helen saw it before I did.
“Is that Ilium?” I asked.
“It is not,” she said. “I do not know of this island, but perhaps it will have more people willing to join our cause. It would not hurt us to take some time to look around, no?”
It totally could have hurt us if we came across another group of cannibals we were not prepared for, but I made the decision that we would go feet dry again. I made a minor adjustment to our course and steered for this new, mysterious island. At least this time I had a spear gifted to me by Artession.
We dropped anchor at a reef, and I climbed into the raft.
“Shall we?” I asked, holding my arm to her.
Smiling, she took my hand and said, “It worked out well the last time.”
“Is that. . .a joke?” I asked, giving her a sly smile.”
“I told you I am growing,” she said, her own grin matching mine.
11
It was immediately apparent that we were not welcome on this shore. When we touched down on the white sands of Santorini, we were met by fearsome men pointing spears in our faces. On this beach, it was as if the land itself meant to do us harm. There were no white sands, only muck. Strewn along the coast were the carcasses of ships, splintered wood stabbing at the sky. A great many vessels had come ashore and never left. I didn’t have to look hard to discover the fates of their crews.
What I first mistook for shells and small ship debris turned out to be bones. Of the bits that were not completely pulverized, I saw some remains that were definitely human, and others from animals I thought I recognized, but there were more still that looked unfamiliar.
I stepped out first, my foot falling ankle-deep into the swampy gunk.
“Careful,” I said. Helen followed my lead, barefoot since the moment I met her. The forests of Santorini were not a bother to her, so I hoped a bone-and-wood-littered beach would not be a problem either.
She stayed close to my side as we made our way up the shore. We meandered around the debris, taking awkward steps to avoid walking on spikey piles. I thought to take her hand but decided against it. It was one thing to help her in and out of the raft, but it was another animal altogether for us to walk hand-in-hand along a beach, and I was not sure how to proceed as far as we were concerned.
Supposedly she had a lover waiting for her back in Ilium, and I wasn’t the kind of guy to sail into another man’s port, especially since a war was going on for precisely that reason. Helen hadn’t spoken much about him aside from briefly mentioning it several days before, so I didn’t know where the two of them stood. I thought it best to not mistake her flirtatious behavior for a green light.
I kept my eyes peeled for any signs of life as we went. As far as I could tell, the bones around us had long been cleaned of meat. I had to wonder what could have caused such destruction on so many occasions. The water around the island did not look dangerous—no rocky outcroppings lurking beneath the surface or anything like that. That could still have been the case, but there would usually be some rocks above the surface to hint at what was below. If that were
the case, it still seemed unlikely that a shipwreck would have killed so many crew members right on the spot. Surely more of them would have made it away from the shore.
“This place has seen death many times over,” Helen whispered, her eyes wide.
I had the impression that she was speaking more from a point of awe and not one of fear or caution. My only response was to nod in agreement, still keeping my eyes and ears peeled for anything. Then I caught a whiff of something that put me on red-alert.
We had just cleared the bulk of the debris. Helen went to walk on ahead of me, but I grabbed her arm. “Careful,” I warned before pulling her back. The more I focused on it, the more I could smell the stench of rotting carcasses. It soon got to the point that it was all I could smell. I could almost feel it caking onto my skin. “Smell that? That means there’s a fresh kill somewhere around here. And I think you can guess what that means.”
I nodded to the forest less than twenty yards away and whispered, “Let’s take cover there.” We moved slower than before, both of us constantly looking around and straining for any sign of a threat. Whatever had taken all of those lives was likely still on the island and probably pretty skilled at what it did after so much practice. I wasn’t one to back down from a challenge, but I also didn’t enjoy running headfirst into danger unprepared.
When we reached the line of trees, I guided Helen behind one and we crouched down. I made a quick sweep to check for fresh prints in the muck or any eyes that might be watching us from the bushes, then said, “So far, so good. It looks like we’re already doing a lot better than the poor saps back there. I have no idea what we’re dealing with yet. It could be another Thirian situation or a pack of wolves or something, but I haven’t seen anything to tell me one way or another. Have you noticed anything?”
“I have not,” she said, looking around to double-check.
“All right, well, let’s just stay alert. Also, I noticed last night that we’re getting pretty low on fresh water. I’m not saying this is the best place to go looking for it, but we’re already here and odds are there’s something that killed all those people. Whatever it is has to be getting its water from somewhere. Let’s go look.”
Helen simply nodded and grinned. We had already been through so much in our short time together, and I had to wonder if there was any offer she wouldn’t take me up on. I tried not to get any ideas, but that ship, like my own, had sailed.
12
I listened for birds as we continued. They were one of the best indicators of danger in a foreign place. I expected to hear a flock of them burst from the trees with every step we took, alerting us that predators were nearby, but I listened in vain. That’s not to say I was any more relaxed because of it. The fact that we heard no birds at all could have been a bad sign as well. In fact, the forest was without the natural ambience one would expect.
Occasionally we would come across the mating call of an insect, but aside from that, there were no bird songs or signs of any other wildlife. I began to wonder if there was an apex predator on the island with a bottomless stomach, eating everything it came across. Or better yet, maybe there was a swarm of meat-eating locusts or some other old-world fantasy shit waiting for us to stumble across. I felt for the spear at my back for reassurance.
Several hours passed before we heard the sound of running water. We followed it to the source more cautiously still, keeping in mind that it might be a favored drinking spot of whatever dangerous beasts might have called the island home. Nothing appeared within view of the stream, so I went over first and scooped a handful of water to make sure it was fresh.
“Now we’re rolling,” I said. I beckoned for Helen to approach, and she took a sip. I still wondered if she did that kind of stuff just for show or if she was human enough to require food and drink. “Okay, so I need to find a way to get the barrels from Moonshadow to here. I’m hoping I can move a bit faster now that we’ve got the path here and back scoped out, but we’ll see how much the barrels slow me down. I have a pallet back on the ship I can rig up with some rope to carry them. It’s not going to be easy, but I’m sure I can manage.”
We drank our fill and rested a bit, sitting at the base of a nearby tree. I leaned against the trunk, and Helen stretched out, using her arms to support herself. I tried not to stare too much at her, but it was becoming more difficult every day. It wasn’t any one part of her that made me look. It was all of the, plus her cinnamon scent that caught my attention at a near cellular level.
For a long moment, I’d forgotten the potential danger we were in. The only sound was that of the brook, and it was soothing enough to lull me to sleep. It seemed to get louder the longer we sat in silence. She looked over to me, smiling, with a gleam of deviousness in her eyes, and she moved her hand closer to mine.
I left my hand where it lay, resigning to allow her to initiate whatever was about to happen. If she had a guy back in Ilium, I decided I would just have to deal with him when the situation arose. I couldn’t help but wonder if what I was experiencing was similar to how her war began. Few men would have the power to resist such temptation. Perhaps the Trojan that stole her away from Sparta was thinking similar thoughts to mine at the time. Paris, you poor bastard. I understand.
She bent lower as her hand slid closer to mine, taking her time. For a moment, she looked at me like a snake slithering in for the kill—a snake with amazing cleavage that was loosely covered by the tunic she wore. She even stuck her tongue out a little, as if in response to the imagery in my head. I waited eagerly for what was about to come.
As our fingers were about to meet, she stopped abruptly and bolted up, looking around. “Something comes.” Her musical lilt had disappeared, and she’d taken on that ferocious tone she had when she anticipated a battle. I stood up, but, as hard as I strained my ears, I could not hear anything. I looked around but still saw no signs of danger. Helen had already proven her vision to be better than mine when she spotted both islands, so it wasn’t too unreasonable that her hearing was better as well. I hoped she would keep those traits if she ever did realize her dream of becoming fully human.
I gripped my spear and motioned for her to crouch down with me as we kept our eyes peeled. It was not long before I heard the violent crunching of branches, almost as if a bulldozer was making its way to the stream for a drink.
My fingers curled tighter around the haft, waiting for something to burst out of the line of trees on our side of the running water. But it didn’t matter how much I braced myself for what I was about to see. Nothing could have stopped my jaw from wanting to hit the ground when we heard a thunderous thunk and saw a foot the size of a car drop down from behind the foliage. A moment later, my eyes met the rest of the titan it belonged to, and seconds later, I was beginning to comprehend what I saw. I slowed my heart and tightened my grip on the spear with hands that felt more natural with each passing day.
Standing head and shoulders above any tree in sight, the walking nightmare looked to be in the general shape of a man, but, aside from the fact that it was over four stories tall, there were a few things off. Its skin was a bluish-purple, like a massive bruise that walked and snarled. Each appendage—hands and feet—had one less digit than usual, but it seemed to manage just fine without. Its lips almost consumed the entire lower half of its face, leaving no more room for the nose than two tiny slits. The remaining half above the nose was a garbled mess. There were two eye sockets, but one was little bigger than its nostrils, and it sunk down to the outer edge of its cheek near the ear, all but forgotten to the rest of the face without even an eyeball to justify why it was there. The other socket held the star of the show, demanding all attention from onlookers like Helen and I. It was anchored—bigger than the lips—in the center of the upper half of the creature’s face, with a massive bloodshot eye sitting in it like a greedy usurper on a throne, daring anyone to try to claim its crown.
Its massive black pit of a pupil—larger than my head—scanned the scene as if
it were desperately hoping for something to obliterate; any feeble challenger with a death wish would do. It manically swept from left to right, and each time it crossed over us, I half-expected a laser beam to erupt from it and melt us away. My heart threatened to tear itself out of my chest if I didn’t take off running in the opposite direction, but I knew I had to remain strong, for Helen’s sake if not for my own.
The eye passed by again. Boom. My heart was wailing. And again. Boom. Somehow the menace had not yet managed to pick us out from the moderate cover. Again, its gaze swept over us. Boom. I could hear blood coursing through my ears. Run. It passed us by another time. Fuck. Get out! I planted my feet more firmly in the ground in an act of defiance to every other fiber of my being. Again. Boom. I wanted to close my eyes and pray it would just leave, but I was afraid that the motion of my eyelids would invite it to home in on us as its next meal, or plaything, or whatever the hell it had done to all the other previously-living things we had seen on the island.
Boom. I thought of the dozens of bodies on the shore and how they must have felt this same way before meeting their brutal ends. Boom. A phantom rot filled my nose. Boom. I couldn’t stop imagining what it would feel like to get trampled beneath those steamroller-feet, and how it could likely do so without even noticing us in the process. Boom. We were bugs at its mercy. Boom. It saw us. The Cyclops saw us.
I would have thought we were doomed, but in that moment, I stopped thinking.
13
It lumbered toward us as if one leg were dragging a bear trap with it. I felt the ground shake more and more as it came closer. I stood up, the blood rushing from my head. For a second, I thought I might fall back down, but the feeling dissolved. There was nothing left in all of existence but me and him.
Helen rose as well, daggers ready, but I forced her back with my leg. “Me and him.” My eyes never left the menacing hulk.
Gears of Troy: A Scifi Fantasy Harem Page 5
