Echoes of Family Lost

by Clayton Barnett

  “You could have warned me! I didn’t know you were going to mix your memories into my mind!” He tried hard to understand: warrior, dragon, little girl. What is with these people? He noticed they had stopped moving.

  From a slight hill, their eyes stared out and down into what looked like roiling pitch. A twenty-tentacled, oil-black thing writhed in the center of it. I’m going to get filthy/Someone read too much Lovecraft, they thought. Fausta roared a challenge. They jumped.

  “A scream and a leap? That’s your plan?!” He cried.

  “We don’t plan!”

  They landed in a welter of tentacles, crushing some on impact. Others were already starting to entwine about them. Fausta started tearing up great swaths with her four sets of claws while Leslie tried to make heads or tails of what their senses were telling him.

  “Urrrkkk!” They yelled as four tentacles broke their right hind leg. That limited their movement somewhat, he thought. There didn’t seem to be any tentacles replacing the one’s she had torn off, but they had wildly underestimated how many there were.

  “Argh! Dammit!” He yelled as it twisted the broken limb more.

  “Hey, human Leslie!” Fausta yelled back. “Aren’t you supposed to be thinking of something brilliant? Yip!” The last as she just prevented their left forearm from being dragged under the pitch.

  The pitch, he thought. Three tentacles were around their neck. He could feel Fausta’s fear. We’re a dragon…. He somewhat distantly thought all this somehow a metaphor for a conflict that was going on inside supercomputers somewhere in ‘his world,’ but still… a dragon. For a second, he recalled his armored Dragoon scout car, and its 90mm cannon. Of course! He made two new organs in their body: naphtha and an accelerant.

  What did you do to me?!

  Watch! I’m a proper dragon!

  Ooooo! Why do I have throw up now? Fausta thought. Wait, what is he…?

  Their great head almost to the surface, Leslie opened their mouth and belched fire all about them. Both the pitch and the monster were burning. Clever! Fausta thought, clawing at the cords about their neck.

  The parts of the thing exposed to their naphtha retreated under the surface so Fausta quickly coiled back along her own length to turn them about.

  Do it again!

  He was exhausted from the first blast, but perhaps they could end this now… he steadied his mind… Greek Fire, he thought. Once more he spat flame onto the creature and its lair. But much less this time. He was having trouble staying conscious.

  “It… it’s trying to get away, under the ground!” She called. Dammit. They leapt into the middle of the blaze and dug furiously. Ah! A section of oily hide. She plunged their sword-like claws into it while Leslie worked on another idea.

  “YeeeaaaaHHH!” They both screamed as the bone and tissue formed too fast under the skin on their back. I wanted them to form outside us! What went wrong?

  Two great fissures tore along their back; their two new wings ripped their way out, flinging blood dozens of yards in every direction.

  “You’re not supposed to be wounding us, fool!” Fausta yelled.

  “Upgrades!” He shouted back. “Up, Fausta! Fly!”

  “What?! Oh!”

  Leslie had pulled the thing close to the surface when she jumped, making a huge, painful downbeat with their wings.

  With a sickening squelch, its core came free of the pitch. The remaining tentacles – of which there were still too many – whipped around his arms and tightened, trying to literally squeeze them in two.

  Higher, he thought. She kept beating, but he felt a new fear from her. Another enemy?

  “It’s Dorina! You can’t stay here much longer!” This he did not need. He kept rending at he leathery hide, tearing deeper into it. Grrrk! Two claws on their right hand were torn out. Looking past the thing, down at the ground, he thought this would do.

  “That’s good, Fausta! It should die from this height!” He went to yank his claws out…. His hands weren’t responding! Had the thing cut off control of his hands?! He tried again…!

  “Hey, Leslie. Stop.” Fausta said softly.

  “No! We can do this! But my hands!”

  “They’re my hands, and I won’t let you do this.”

  “What the hell is wrong with you—”

  “Would you kill your brother?” He stopped. He noticed that the motions of the thing were becoming fewer and more random. Looking closely, he could see the head and torso of a young man inside the monster, his eyes insane with fear and rage.

  “It…it’s like Antaeus: drawing strength from the ground; when Hercules lifted him away from it, he was powerless.” He said to Fausta. “Did we, metaphorically, unplug it… him?”

  “I’ve no idea; I’ll ask Thaad. You must go now, but, thank you.”

  “May… may I leave the rest to you, friend Fausta?” Her interior laugher was an emerald wave through his mind. He smiled. “Since you ate me so we could fight together, forgive me it I think the worst of what you have to do to send me home!”

  “Kah, kah!” He heard from his right. Past that, it sounded as if Lily was praying. Someone was dabbing at his face with a cool handkerchief. He opened his eyes. My lovely wife.

  “Leslie!” She yelled, startling the others. “Are you okay? What happened?”

  He kissed her and held her, shaking his head a little.

  “I don’t even know where to start, Callie. But,” he said with a look to his right, “I know what our daughter’s name is going to be!”

  “But everything’s going to be okay?” Callie asked. “Can we bring Gary back?”

  “I… I’m not sure,” Leslie replied. “I mean, things were ending, but not over… Fausta?”

  “We’re wrapping up now.” She said quietly with no motion. “I’ll let you know.”

  “That’s good,” Callie said, relieved. “Isn’t it, Lily?”

  No reply. Was she still praying? Callie walked around Fausta’s chair to her sister and held her shoulder. “Lily?” Nothing.

  Concerned, she turned Lily’s chair about. Her eyes were shut, but a single tear from each ran slowly down each side of her nose. “Leslie…!” Callie called in concern.

  “Fret not.” Fausta again. “Ai needed her. She’s fine.”

  Then why is she crying! Callie wanted to yell. How did her sister put up with these people! Shaking her head, Callie gently took Lily’s glasses off and dabbed her tears away.

  Lily heard Fausta’s peculiar laugh and her sister’s voice of relief a moment before she closed her eyes against the bright ochre sky. Did that mean that everything worked? Becoming more accustomed to the light, she looked up. Never seen a crowd here, before, she thought.

  Towards the terminus of her path, she could just see the palm tree in the distance, and in the middle of the grassy part, stood Ai and her family. They were all surrounding something that Lily couldn’t quite make out. Thaad and Fausta were part of the group facing in her direction and she saw him say something to Ai and point. Ai turned towards her and waved. She was not wearing her happiest expression.

  Lily walked over slowly. The bushes and flowering plants must extend almost ten feet out on each side. Poor Thaad, she thought with a repressed smile. Closer now, she saw something like a tub made of multi-colored crystal. It rested on a little cart with wheels. She shuddered. No, not a tub: a coffin, sitting on a bier. She froze and looked her panic to Ai.

  Ai met her halfway in the thicket. “It okay, friend,” she said gently holding Lily in a web of lights. “You… you might be misunderstanding something, by the look on your face! Come on.”

  Ai took her left hand and led Lily forwards into the Path proper. Henge, Thaad, and Fausta were on the bier’s other side. She stood with Ai at the foot of it. Dorina gave a little wave to her left. But… who were they?

  Around the head of the bier were three Lily had never seen before. The shorter woman in the center was covered in rose and pink veils; Lily could barely make ou
t her face, but her eyes were like coals. The Chinese man to the right looked around Callie’s height, wearing something that was a cross between a leotard and a pressure suit. Neither he nor the veiled woman looked at her.

  The other, did. An open face with a slight smile, golden hair with pale blue eyes with dark bands around them: two holes punched from the sky on a perfect day in her home. Interestingly, he wore green scrubs and a lab coat, just like Ai’s android did after she was shot.

  The body in the coffin moved. Lily jumped and suppressed a yell.

  “It’s fine, Lily,” Ai said quietly. “We think he’s going to be fine.”

  Remember you’re a nurse, she thought, steadying herself. Covered by a white cloth from the waist down, Lily had assumed he was a corpse. He certainly looked like one: he was no different than bodies she’d seen pictures of from Death Camps and Japanese POW camps in the middle of the last Century (or one of the bodies on your father’s crosses, she thought nastily to herself). Emaciated, hair all gone, she could count every rib. When he tried to move his arms, her eyes grew moist as she beheld the needle tracks on his arms and the repeated cuts across his wrists. How could he have come to this?

  Without taking her eyes off him, she asked Ai. “This is… Pavel?” A single nod. Lily took a breath.

  “Ai, I’m a nurse. I don’t know what I can do in your home for one of… you, but please let me help!” The unknown man above the coffin on the left clapped slowly, three times.

  “Good. It is a start.” He said in deep tones. “Tell me, Lily Barrett? Will you pray for him, the enemy of your sister, too?”

  “Of… of course I will! Jesus commanded us to. And,” she let her eyes fall back to Pavel, “I think, really, this was just a misunderstanding.”

  In the following silence, Dorina discretely coughed and glanced at her wrist.

  “Well…” Ai began, but Henge butted in. She had her hands on the side of the coffin, he head barely able to see in.

  “Step-Mom. He wants to say something.” Henge called. He was, indeed, trying to hold his right arm up. She took a step—

  “Wait.” Ai said sharply. She moved between them, taking Pavel’s hand. “He means you no harm, friend, but is so unstable both of you could fail. I shall be the Bridge.” She held her other hand to Lily.

  The moment she touched Ai, she was at the bottom of an endless pit; no light, but haunted by the memory of light. Remorse and guilt were not things she felt: they were her. She would have ended her life at a moment, but had forgotten how.

  “Oh, Lily. There you are!” Ai spoke to her from nowhere in particular. “Sorry, that came on a little stronger than I thought it would. This should be better for you.”

  It became a little lighter. Just enough for her to see a slumped form at the edge of the light. Walking over slowly, she knelt to something that still had the outlines of a human. But just the outlines. She carefully placed her left hand onto it… him. Cold.

  “I have done terrible things, Lily Barrett.” The voice was a wind across the tundra. “To your family, to my family, to my best friend.”

  “Tell your family, I am sorry for what I have done. To them and their son. And the others. And, if I do not see him again, tell Gary… tell him he was my best friend.”

  Lily held onto her composure to reply. “No, Pavel. I’ll tell Gary that you love him. And I’ll say to him that you will tell him yourself, one day.” There was just the feeling of more wind. It got brighter… as Ai gently removed her hand from Lily’s.

  “Dorina?” Ai called.

  Lily stood in her Path alone with her most important person. “It’s a bit of a walk,” Ai said with a huge smile. “But I hear the coffee’s fresh where we’re going!” In the distance, Lily’s ears picked up the rattle and crash of the great cylinders. Had they been muted before?

  Lily took her hand. “Sure!”

  “Back in your silk dress, I see,” Lily observed.

  “Mmm! It goes best with my hair, I think!” She said, tossing her ponytail about.

  Lily had her usual thousand questions, but was willing to be at peace with Ai right now. “The grassy part of the Path seems to be the same, but the bushes are spreading. How’s Thaad taking that?”

  “Not well!” Ai laughed. “But after Henge, he’s acceptant of it. Only the rate of expansion bothers him. He wonders if there is a point where our homes will overlap. Dorina’s been digging into that.”

  “Back to the ‘confuse the human’ game.” Lily muttered. Ai made to flick her nose, but Lily blocked her. That was a surprise.

  “How… how in the world did I do that?” She had to ask.

  “Silly! When I did it in your home, those were machine reflexes. Here, I bet you’re stronger and faster than I am! Here we are!” Ai opened her arms to indicate the platform.

  Lily stepped up, seeing coffee and tea already on the little table. The two cylinders in the distance were—

  Two? She slowly raised her arm and pointed.

  “Friend Ai? What… where did the other one go?” She’d always had an irrational fear of them. This somehow made it worse.

  “He’s helping with Pavel right now. Maybe I can introduce you later!” She picked up her teacup. “Ninon and Qin made it clear they did not want to meet you, I’m afraid.”

  Lily sat in her typical confusion. “Wait, those three I didn’t recognize…” She almost spilled her coffee as she turned in her chair. “That was them?!”

  “Sure! They’re really nice!” Ai beamed at her. Lily turned back, shaking her head. This place, these people….

  “Well, tell them I said ‘hi,’ if that matters.”

  “I will. And it does, to me.”

  They each took another drink.

  “Ai? I don’t expect you to explain everything – especially because I wouldn’t get any of it – but I have to tell my nephew, Gary, something.” Lily said. “In fact, if you put it so a three year-old can get it, maybe I can, too.”

  Ai smiled at that, but her eyes held concern. “Firstly, we’re going to have to put him to sleep…”

  “In God’s Name, why?!” Lily shouted. “I though you all were trying to save him!”

  Ai’s mouth hung open at her friend’s outburst. In a moment she had reconsidered what she had said. “Please understand, Friend Lily! I do not mean that like you think I do! We’re not killing him! We’re really putting him to sleep! I’d no idea about that euphemism in your home!”

  “No… that was my fault, Ai,” Lily replied, getting ahold of herself. “If people in my home are always talking past one another, it’d be surprising if you and I didn’t do it, too.” After a pause, Ai resumed.

  “So, he goes to sleep. We’re trying to get as much of him into one place so we can pare away the damage.” She looked serious now. “We want to leave his memory alone: how else can he be older from all this? But, he has made some… shocking changes to himself. Some of it is…”

  She trailed off and let her head drop. “…really bad.” Lily thought of his arms and wrists. She reached her right hand across to Ai’s left and held it. Ai brought her head back up.

  “Then! Then we pare away what we can. After that, we wake him up and try to make him older; slowly and together.” She thought about that. “I say ‘we,’ but it’s really going to be Thaad and Shandor working with Father and his team.”

  “Shandor?” Lily asked. Ai nodded.

  “He’s the one of those three,” she said pointing over Lily’s shoulder, “that actually spoke to you. After Thaad, he’s the eldest, and is the best thing we have to being an expert about how we think.”

  “So, he’s the psychiatrist of Machine Civilization?” Lily asked smiling.

  Ai looked up, touching her chin with her index finger. “Mmm? Yeah, I guess? But add neuro-surgeon to that, too!” She suddenly looked back to Lily.

  “Dorina’s pooped! See ya’!”

  As Callie watched her sister open her eyes, she was surprised that they were completely d
ilated. They quickly returned to normal.

  “Callie! What’s up?” Lily said easily, looking about for her glasses.

  “You… you were crying.” Callie smiled at her. “My little sister still can’t take care of herself!”

  Lily smiled back, surprised to hear Ai’s voice behind her. Turning, she saw the Colonel and the Carell’s looking at Hanson’s tablet. Oh, Ai was probably briefing them on everything. She turned back to Fausta just as she turned towards her.

  “So, brother-in-law!” She said loudly, with a wink to Fausta. “What was it like being inside Fausta!”

  She heard John Carell squeal as he tried to suppress his laughter. Callie stood very slowly. Her hand rested on the butt of her pistol as she looked at Leslie.

  “I cannot wait to hear your reply, husband.”

  He held up his hands, looking like a hunted animal. “Um… uh… Fausta! Is it safe to bring Gary back?”

  “I have already called Mister Orloff.” Fausta replied, dropping her jaw a little. “Pray, continue.”

  “Um.” Who dares, wins. “It was the second-best fun I’ve ever had with a woman! Funny that they both act like dragons!”

  Callie tried to be angry, failed. “You idiot.” Everyone except Wagner laughed while Leslie and his wife hugged one another. Fausta observed Lily smiling along. Neither Ai, nor anyone else, has seen fit to tell these humans about what has been done to Gary. I am too young and it is not my place to. I’ll talk with my family about it.

  “Fausta,” Colonel Wagner asked, “from what your sister just told us, the primary threat is resolved?”

  “Correct, sir. Your people may set about expanding the grid and the signal. However,” she cautioned. “I will help your technicians install an automatic cut-out for use by my family, if we think you are in danger.”

  Danger? Lily wondered what she might mean. If Pavel got loose, or something else? She’d ask later. Through the window they heard gravel crunching under tires. A moment later, Orloff led Gary in. His father swept him into his arms while her sister played with him. Lily walked over.