The Pedestal

by Daniel Wimberley

  I know they’re supposed to be harmless, but still—can anyone say cree-py?

  I’m looking forward to tomorrow, when I’ll be officially released for duty again. Not that I’ve been dreaming of work; the sick bay just doesn’t inspire a lot of peace or confidence, you see. Right now, for instance, I’m lying on the very cot where Winkley died. And I was put here by the same entity that feasted on my friend’s remains—the circle of life has never seemed so perverse.

  I don’t remember falling asleep, yet I must have—because if I had been awake, I would surely have seen him. Even in the darkness, which is sparsely weakened by a constellation of subdued LED indicators, I can clearly discern a humanoid shape hovering over me like some deathly chimera. My mouth is gagged by a fist-sized wad of gauze, hands bound snugly to my cot. He’s leaning over me now, blasting me with fetid breath.

  “Evening, Wilson,” whispers the indistinct silhouette. “Thought we might have a talk.”

  “What’re you doing?” I try to demand, but the sounds that emit from my mouth are muffled and utterly unintelligible.

  “Hold your horses, now. Let’s go over the rules first, okay?” His smile is bizarrely pronounced, white teeth floating like disembodied dentures in caricature of shadow. Still, while the dim light has diffused this man’s other features, his voice betrays him. A jolt of recognition surges through my body.

  “You ready for rule number one?” Skelly wants to know. Noiselessly, he crosses the room and clicks on a small reading lamp. It provides scant illumination, but it’s enough to see that he’s holding up a finger, preparing to tick off his list. Gagged and restrained, all I can do is nod somberly.

  “Good,” he says, voice bouncing whimsically, as if praising a toddler. He returns to my bedside, kneeling into an eclipse with the lamp. “Rule number one: make any effort to scream, I squeeze the life out of you. No second warnings.” Oh my God, what is this? Oddly, Skelly plugs his extended finger into his ear and digs around for several seconds; it emerges shiny with a balm of wax. Though nauseated, I manage the decorum to bite back my disgust. I swear, though, if this crank farts right now, I’m gonna lose it.

  Skelly unfolds a second finger and brandishes it in my face. “Rule number two: don’t you dare lie to me. I’ll know, believe me—and you’ll regret it.” I wish I knew what this was about, because I’d happily give him whatever he wants. This charade—oh God, please let this be a charade—isn’t necessary. If only he’d ungag me, I’d convince him of this.

  “Pretty easy to remember, Wilson. Even for a scrap putz like you.” He digs in his ear again. Gross—somebody has an ear infection; serves him right.

  “So, you ready?”

  I nod yes, but I’m not. I’m not at all prepared for whatever this crank has in store, because—try as I might—I can’t even imagine what he’s after. Honestly, what could I possibly know that warrants this kind of extreme interrogation?

  “Good,” he says, yanking the gauze from my mouth. “Tell me about Arthur.”

  With a tongue too parched to swallow, I can only stare at him in dumbfounded silence. A moment ago, I was prepared to be the voice of reason—indeed, my survival seems wholly dependent on it. Now, though—hearing Skelly’s words—I feel hopelessly disorientated as past and present collide, scattering logic like bits of cosmic shrapnel. Despite appearances, I’m sufficiently motivated to obey his every instruction, yet the best I can muster is a whispered, “What?”

  Lodged in a lamplit eclipse, Skelly’s floating teeth disappear behind an implied frown. “Don’t make me repeat myself, Wilson. I’m not a patient guy.”

  Oh God, how I wish I could give him what he wants! The problem is, my mind is awhirl with fragmented thoughts, and I can’t seem to bring two together. He might as well have said, Tell me about shoes. I mean, honestly—where do I begin? What about Arthur?

  Skelly sighs. “Not real good with instructions, are you?” At once, calloused fingers latch around my trachea like steel cables and begin to squeeze. The discomfort is immense, indescribably terrible; it isn’t only the frightening deprivation of oxygen—which, in addition to paralyzing me with fear, adds a sharp sting to the three-day pounding in my head—but also the sickly sensation of my throat crunching against my spine. Instinctively, my body thrashes and bucks to no avail. The inhuman noises escaping me—wet, primal grunts of a dying animal—horrify me as much as my murder. My eyes ache, bulging in their sockets like champagne corks. From nowhere, brilliant, white light begins to vignette my vision, enveloping me in contradictory heat and cooling numbness. The panic is quickly subsiding, I realize, as is the pain. I’m strangely comforted, at peace. No longer afraid, I cuddle into the welcoming bosom of death to rest.

  Goodbye, Mars. Goodbye, Queen. Goodbye, bone-chilling misery.

  Dying is easy, I realize—frightening at first, to be sure—but so much easier than living.

  And then it’s all over.

  Only I’m still alive. The warm light has vanished and my body cries out in pain once again, erupting into a coughing fit. Skelly’s iron grip has released me, freeing his hands to slap my cheeks.

  “Wake up, kid,” he snaps. My eyes flutter and his ugly face blurs into view, poised mere inches above my own. Chuckling at the sight of me—gasping and coughing through a throbbing trachea—Skelly probes in his ear again: “You ready to take me seriously now?”

  Heaving with uncontrollable sobs, I’ve truly had enough—live or die, I just want this to be over. Tears crawl down my temples and into my ears like wet insects.

  I can’t explain why, but my mind chooses this moment to dredge a gem from the vault of my most precious memories. Mitzy’s porcelain face grins nervously at me, glowing gently against a neon backdrop; unaided by the recall of my implant, her features shift in and out of mental focus. She’s just confessed that her spastic dance moves have kept her single; I think this was the moment when I first had an inkling that this girl was special. Because she was a dork, just like me.

  I know I’ll never see Mitzy again, that I’m destined to die alone on this planet. But seeing her face has ignited a stubborn flame in me, and it occurs to me that I still want to live. To remember her again, perhaps; certainly because I fear that death will put even more distance between us.

  “Last chance, kid. Start talking.”

  So I do.

  Skelly watches me as I talk, his expression disclosing nothing. Lacking direction, I impart everything I can remember about my friend, from the day I first met him in the prime of my adolescence to the day he died in that pathetic hospital, alone. Skelly nods encouragement, absently plumbing his ear while I revive the details of Arthur’s missing NanoPrint and its baffling reappearance here on Mars. It finally dawns on me that this must be what he’s after, so—with gathering confidence—I tell him all about Art’s MentalNote and his files, sparing no detail.

  I’d tell Skelly so much more, if only there was more to tell—after all, every moment I’m talking is a moment I’m still alive—but I’ve said all there is to say. Well, almost. What little I’ve left unspoken is mine alone; it’s nobody else’s business that Arthur meant more to me than my own parents, that he was a greater man than any of us will ever be.

  Long after my monologue has tapered into silence, my roommate continues to appraise me, as if to grant me ample time to recant my story, or perhaps to add a guilty postscript. When I do neither, he rises from my bedside and begins to pace the room, pinky corkscrewing into the side of his head.

  “So your implant contains copies of Arthur’s files?”

  He asks this question with a dazed smile, savoring the feel of the words as if they’re a bit of sweet poetry. “Yes,” I mutter.

  “And you can read them? They aren’t encrypted?”

  I cough, my throat gritty like a gravel road. “I think they were decrypted by my NanoPrint.” Even as I divulge this small truth, I sense that my eagerness to please has only sealed my fate. As if to prove me right, Skelly produces a kn
ife from his boot and saunters back to my bedside. His black eyes are shiny and giddy, like this is the real payoff—the violence, the gore of what remains to do.

  “That’s good, Wilson; very good.” He waves his knife before me, flaunting it like a banner; steel serrations flare in the lamplight like the hypnotic taunting of a metronome. “I’m afraid this may hurt a bit, though.”

  The door latch rattles without forewarning, but it’s locked. Skelly swivels toward the sound, smile never fading. Despite my fear—or perhaps because of it—something happens as I numbly consider this crank’s ugly profile: countless threads of disconnected thought mysteriously converge.

  And I remember.

  My mind travels back through time, where he shadows me at a shopping mall, and then later, chases me across a freight dock. His hair is much shorter now—almost militarily trim—and he’s lost some weight, but there’s no doubt that it’s him. Skelly raises his hand to worry at his ear again and seems to remember at the last second that he’s holding a knife. He chuckles sheepishly. “Dang it, got a crank gnat in there, or something.”

  Funny, we don’t have bugs on Mars.

  The door latch rattles again, and this time a muffled voice whispers frantically, “It’s me—Grogan. Let me in.”

  My heart leaps in my chest. Grogan—oh, thank God! I’m not sure that Grogan can take this guy—especially considering Skelly’s armed—but I’ll take absolutely any help I can get. Even if it only buys me a few more seconds of survival. And, though it shames me to admit it, even if it costs Grogan his life.

  Skelly approaches the door without an ounce of concern, flipping and slicing his blade through the air with too-practiced ease. Something about his nonchalance seems to contradict common sense, but I can’t spare a second to work out the what or why. He unlocks the door and Grogan spills inside as if he’s been trying to shoulder his way in.

  “Watch out!” I bark. “He’s armed!” Unthinkingly, I’ve broken rule number one—no second warnings—and I know what comes next. But Skelly doesn’t rush me with his wicked blade. Rather, he rolls his eyes. Again, logic wavers.

  Grogan glances at me, then back to Skelly, who shrugs, as if to say, What can you do? Grogan sees the knife—surely he must see the knife—and isn’t alarmed. He shuts the door quietly and locks it behind him. As the lock clicks home, so do my thoughts.

  I understand now.

  To Skelly, Grogan growls, “What’re you doing?”

  Skelly shrugs. “I’m just about done here.”

  “Fine, but what’s with the knife?”

  “We need his implant,” Skelly replies, grinning mischievously.

  Grogan’s cheeks flush red. “You crank idiot! We need the implant in him; take that thing out of him and no one’ll ever be able to read those files. Their decryption could be tied to his vitals or something.”

  The larger man crosses his arms, eyes narrowing. “My thoughts exactly.”

  “Skelly, you’re not using your head, okay? Gunn wants the files—all of them—and not just to destroy them. There’s something in them that he wants, and I mean to give it to him.”

  Skelly smirks with disregard. “Believe me, he’ll be happy just to know those files’ll never see the light of day.”

  “Listen, Skelly, that’s his decision to make, not ours.”

  Skelly shakes his head—no, it’s more of a twitch—and digs in his ear again. Suddenly, he doesn’t look so good. His arms fumble behind him as if clearing a path, and then he collapses to the floor, landing solidly on his rear.

  “What’s wrong with you?” demands Grogan. “Are you drunk?”

  Skelly shakes his head emphatically—wait, nope; just more twitching. “Something’s wrong,” he murmurs. A tear streaks down one cheek and disappears into a heath of dark stubble. “It hurts.”

  “What is it?” Grogan rushes to him, grasping him by the shoulders. “Did you take something?”

  In response, Skelly slumps forward into a moaning heap. Flustered, Grogan storms to my side, jabbing an accusatory finger at my face. “What’d you do to him?”

  I’m as alarmed as he, even if I’m also equally relieved. More than anything, though, I’m angry. “You mean other than lay here tied to this scrap cot?” I seethe. “I guess you’re not only a backstabbing traitor, you’re also a stupid moron.”

  Throughout the b-hive, the corridors are still; it’s very late—or early, depending on your perspective—and with the exception of our shuffling footfalls, the silence of the dorms is broken only by the monotonous pulse of snoring. Skelly remains in the sick bay, unconscious.

  “You’re bunking in my room tonight,” Grogan whispers. “I don’t trust you to be alone.”

  “Trust me?” I scoff. “That’s a laugh.”

  Here’s the thing: Skelly is a dang scary crank—he’s a muscle-bound killer, and he works for a man who has carved out a wide niche in infamy. And given that Skelly’s stuck here on Mars with no entertainment, I don’t have any doubt that he’d dismember me just for kicks. In stark contrast, Grogan—at least, in my estimation—is nothing but a loud-mouthed, nerdy tightwad—just like yours truly—and I’m pretty sure I can take him. Actually, if I’m being completely honest, I’ve been sort of hoping to find out since the first time he belittled me in front of the others. In front of Fiona.

  The only thing holding me back now is the long arm of uncertainty. What if the other PRMC consultants are working for Gunn, too? Will they come running to Grogan’s aid? Are they, like Skelly, itching to cut the life out of me? Though my ego wants so much to provoke confrontation—to prove itself more worthy of Fiona, I suppose—I must admit that I’m not ready for the answers to these questions.

  A few feet from Grogan’s bed, I lie on the hard floor, watching tiny green diodes blink happily from the control panels across the room. Angrily, I seethe the seconds away until dawn finally begins to stir the darkness.

  If there’s any silver lining to be found on this situation, it’s that Grogan probably hasn’t slept a wink either; the comforts of mattress and pillow are poor substitutions for a clean conscience. It’s a small consolation.

  It blows my mind that this crank—a man I’ve disliked on such a trivial level—has emerged from this chapter of my life as a villain. Maybe I’m jaded—forgive me if I feel a little entitled to some cynicism—but I honestly didn’t think he had it in him. This makes twice that I’ve underestimated the nefariousness of a coworker.

  Just as the sun breaches the horizon, Grogan rolls out of bed, rudely jostling me with a bare foot—rude not necessarily for any use of excessive force, but because Grogan knows perfectly well that I’m already awake. “Get up,” he says in a hoarse bark. “We’re leaving in an hour.”

  True to his word—yeah, I know; now he bothers—fifty-five minutes later, we’re headed toward the airlock, showered and sparingly fed. The others are still asleep, which is as Grogan planned, I’m sure. All the while, a voice harps at me: Why are you going along with this? This crank has no power over you!

  I can’t really blame the unknown for ignoring that voice—not exclusively, anyway. Sure, Grogan could call for backup and I’d be swarmed with members of his sleeper cell, but what does that really matter? Dead today or tomorrow—what’s the difference? I suppose if it’s going to happen anyway, I’d rather die on Earth than here.

  On our way out, we stop by the infirmary to check on Skelly. Just to be clear: I don’t give a strand of rotting circuit scrap about his well-being. He’s a murderer, and while I doubt I could ever bring myself to kill another man, I can certainly let this one die without blemishing my conscience. Nevertheless, for reasons that are presently his and his alone, Grogan seems almost desperately concerned about him, and I suppose my morbid curiosity is sufficient to tame my indignant tongue. As it turns out, my curiosity and Grogan’s ambiguous agitation don’t come close to preparing us for what we find.

  Skelly’s lying on his side, just as we left him. Completely relaxed, hi
s body is a still life of tranquility—motionless, arms tucked snugly against the contour of his torso, legs extending the lazy, serpentine flow of his spine. From the neck up, the view sours with eye-puckering intensity. The space once occupied by Skelly’s head is now an eruption of blood-red vegetation, every blot of skin obscured by ghoulish shoots of sinister foliage. Sprouting from his ear—and undoubtedly rooted into the depths of his tiny brain—is a female BP7.

  I’ve been wrong before, but I’m betting that our debarking from Mars is now on the backburner.

  “So the buggers are completely bypassing the gametophyte phase now,” Cutterly notes with a grave frown. He’s still sweaty from an excursion outside, during which he and Rogers grudgingly buried Skelly near the mother tree. It’s the first time I’ve seen either approach the Queen since Winkley’s death. “The Queen’s acting more like bamboo than fern anymore.”

  If we were solely interested in producing the BPs en masse, this observation might actually raise our spirits. But for the moment, the name of the game is containment—and I have a hunch that we’ve already lost our grip, even if no one’s willing to admit it.

  Rogers clears his throat and says: “Spent two hours uprooting saplings yesterday from when the seedpods blew. Half a dozen sprouted on our roof—even a few on our walls. Sent out roots right into the metal.” As if on cue, the distant pop of an exploding seedpod resounds outside. He smiles nervously, larynx bobbing in his throat as he harrumphs a very Rogers harrumph. “It’s only been a few days and some were already three and four feet tall.”

  A couple of our consultants pale noticeably.

  “Those seeds aren’t supposed to be able to germinate,” I remind the group with a hint of irony. “Sounds like Fiona jumped the gun a little, doesn’t it?”

  Cutterly grunts in agreement.

  “Kind of weird,” I add. “Don’t you think? That she would invest so many years in her experiments and then fly out the coop when all that remains is a few more weeks to confirm her findings?”