Sunspot Jungle

by Bill Campbell

  Simon rubbed his eyes. He stifled a yawn. “Aitch, at ease. The following order is irrevocable: Be yourself.”

  His gaze bore the slightest glint of fear. In commanding me to be myself, he’d willingly given up all control over me. If I wanted to crush his chest, the symbionts in my head wouldn’t stop me. Of course, saving my life didn’t exactly make me hate him. Honestly, even now, if he wanted me to kill myself, I don’t know that I wouldn’t try just to make him happy.

  “How did you bind me to you?” Ignorance, especially my own, makes me edgy. “Pheromones? PsyOps? And after all that, why free me? You’ve gone through a lot trouble for nothing.”

  “Whoa. One at a time.” Simon held his hands up as though he could hold me off. “No one bound anybody to anyone. You’re so uptight, I had no idea how you felt about me until last night, or else I would have freed you earlier.”

  “So it’s a coincidence then, that you’re a Drip?”

  “A what? Oh. Cute.” Apparently, no one had ever called Simon a Drip before. “The day we met, I was supposed to drop you off the side of the mountain, dump boulders on you, then infect you with flesh-eating bacteria while you were unconscious. Obviously, I bailed. A good climbing partner is too hard to find, and if you were going to survive anyway, you were much more likely to keep climbing with me if I didn’t try to kill you.”

  I stared at him. How did it happen that it felt paranoid to accuse a Drip of wanting to kill me?

  “So it’s your job to climb with me?”

  In retrospect, I was misinterpreting exactly like you say I do, brother. Figures. You’re never wrong about anything.

  “No. Believe it or not, I deal with you on my own personal time.” Simon crossed his arms over his chest. He drew himself to his full height, then glared down at me. “Look, if I were you, I wouldn’t get serious with anyone either. I get that, but Aitch, if you can’t stop scaring away everyone who shows the slightest interest in me, I can’t keep climbing with you.”

  For a moment, I couldn’t breathe. For the next few, I didn’t want to. Nothing any other Drip had ever done to me hurt more.

  Anyway, he must have seen it on my face. His hand landed awkwardly on my shoulder, then shot back as if I were electrified.

  “I’m sorry, Aitch.” He checked his watch. “Look, the Washington Chorus is doing the Bach St. John Passion this Saturday, and their Evangelist is out sick. They asked me to sub in. I’ll miss my flight if I don’t go soon.”

  “I don’t suppose you want me to drive you to Logan.”

  “You drive?”

  “I’m qualified to operate practically any vehicle ever designed.”

  “Yes, I know. That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

  “Simon always asks me to drop him off, then car sit while he’s out of town. Airport parking is expensive.”

  “You still want to?” He peered over the Styrofoam containers that he now braced against his chest. “I can drive myself. There’s time to drop you off before I go to Logan.”

  “It’s okay.” I started down the trail to his car. “I don’t mind driving.”

  “Excuse me? You hate driving.” Jay practically choked on his words. “And he let you?”

  “Why not? Unlike you, he can’t sense my cortisol level. Besides, I don’t crush steering wheels from the stress anymore.” Aitch took a deep breath, then forced himself to relax. “As it was, I had to wake him up when we reached Logan.”

  “You learned a valuable life lesson suitable for framing that night.”

  Aitch slouched in his seat. It groaned in protest. “I learned he doesn’t want me in his life anymore.”

  “Brother, he drove several hundred miles out of his way, saved your life, then offered to drive you home. These are not the acts of a man who doesn’t want you in his life. Love, loyalty, and obedience are all messed up in your head, so I’ll be blunt: Not everyone who has earned your trust does so to screw you over. Life is better if, when you’re literally starving to death and a friend feeds you roast chicken, you thank him.”

  Aitch sat back up. His hands let go of the seat cushions.

  “Brother, I’ve missed talking to you.”

  “Pick up the next time I call or, hell, call me for once.” Jay gave Aitch a dope slap. “Better yet, visit. I have a job waiting for me at Mass General.”

  Mom’s hospital room didn’t look a thing like what Aitch expected. A curtained bed sat in the middle. A TV craned from the ceiling as did a turret aimed at the doorway. Surely, it was supposed to have fired as he opened the door. Two large windows dominated the far wall. A pane of glass from one window rested against the other window. A rope dangled outside the window missing its pane. Crouched down, Simon dropped wrecked bits of electronics in a bag that hung off his climbing harness. In addition, he wore a tux complete with black cummerbund and bow tie. The stripe running down his pants glinted under the florescent light.

  Simon froze for a fraction of second after Aitch opened the door. He gave Aitch a low wolf whistle. “Wow. You clean up nice.”

  Jay had insisted Aitch into a suit after they’d left the archive. It fit his oddly shaped body too well for comfort. Aitch was used to clothes that cramped his shoulders and fell off his waist.

  “You, too, Simon. You do all your jobs in a tux?”

  “I had to sing the John Passion.” Simon showed Aitch his palms. “As it is, if you’d shown up any earlier, I wouldn’t have disabled the turret in time. Before you ask, the original Evangelist is fine now. Just some carefully timed vocal cord swelling.”

  “I don’t get it. Wouldn’t it have been easier to tell me not to come here?” Aitch swept the curtain aside. The bed was empty and cold. “You’ll excuse me if leave. I’ll see you—No, I guess I won’t anymore.” Aitch turned to leave. Jay would catch up at any moment. Aitch had dove out of the hatchback as it’d passed the hospital entrance, leaving Jay to go park the car. No sense in both of them walking into a death trap.

  “Aitch, you thought climbing with you was part of my job. Do you seriously think if I’d warned you, you’d have believed me?”

  Aitch stopped. Time to stop misinterpreting Simon. At first, Aitch’s words lodged in his throat. He tore them out. “Maybe if I can stop me from scaring myself away, I won’t scare anyone else away from you either.”

  The door stood mere steps away. He stared at it, too angry to turn around and face Simon.

  “Your timing stinks. Look, we can’t stay in this room. How about we talk this out when we go climbing in a few days?” The zipper on Simon’s bag screeched shut. “I’ll help you find your Mom. She’s probably in this hospital somewhere.”

  After one footfall, an ultrasonic hum pierced the room. Time dilated. The walls vibrated, blurring slightly to Aitch but probably not to Simon. Drips had apparently also weaponized the walls.

  He had time to either escape or cover Simon with his body. Aitch didn’t need to think. Rather than running out of the room, he ran towards Simon.

  Perversely, the fluorescent light overhead dimmed as the walls glowed. By the time he reached Simon, the Drip had thrown himself out the window. Maybe he should have escaped, instead.

  The ultrasonic hum rose in pitch until it past the range of even Aitch’s hearing. Light from the walls slammed into him. Everything in the room evaporated except him. His skin turned red and blistered. Fire scorched through his lungs. The remaining window blew out. Glass cascaded away with a crash. Electricity crackled from stray live wires above him.

  Without a Simon to run into, momentum pushed Aitch through the window. After that attack, he didn’t want to crash straight down. His symbionts needed time to fix him. He leapt. His body stretched out. The air whistled in his ears as he rose. A sparse field of cars rushed beneath him.

  Simon swung back towards the building on his rope. He’d grabbed it as he’d flown out the window. DRP training in action, by definition, was impressive.

  Aitch’s awe lasted for barely a second. Any Drip s
hould have let Aitch pass. Simon, instead, tried to catch Aitch. Unfortunately, his speed and hand-eye coordination were just good enough. He scuttled up the rope, and his arm wrapped around Aitch as they intersected. At least he had enough sense to let go of the rope before Aitch’s momentum could rip his arm off. No one who wanted to kill Aitch would do anything this well-meaning but stupid. They hurtled through the air past one parking lot to the next.

  Simon secured his grip around Aitch. His hands smeared blood across Aitch’s back. His face pressed up against Aitch’s.

  “You ran towards the window rather than out the door. Is that the move of a tactical genius?”

  “I wasn’t running towards the window. I was trying to cover you.”

  “Oh.” Simon’s brow furrowed. “That’s the sweetest but dumbest thing anyone has ever tried to do for me.”

  “I don’t think you get to talk, rope boy.” Aitch resisted the temptation to push Simon off his body. “Now shut up and let me figure out how I get you down alive.”

  “You mean ‘us,’ right? Because I’ve memorized your dossier, and I hate to break this to you, but you cannot fly.”

  They fell into a hospital parking lot. Aitch skipped against the blacktop, bouncing back into the air again and again. All he could do for Simon was be his shock absorber. He pushed back every time they slammed into the ground. Even though every hit tried to shake Aitch into pieces, Simon flew up and down in smooth, lazy curves.

  Eventually, they skidded between two rows of cars. If Aitch were his old self or ordinary, the skidding would have broken skin. Slick blood and shock might have eventually numbed the pain or, more likely, killed him. Instead, the parking lot kept digging into him until he finally stopped moving.

  Jay ran towards them. Aitch would have strangled the relief off his brother’s face, but that would have required moving. He felt for Simon’s pulse and found it. Aitch let go of a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. As long as he’d kept Simon alive, Jay could take care of Simon’s injuries.

  “Hm, that’s more damage you should be expected to sink and live. There’s probably a dossier I’m now supposed to update.” Simon looked at Jay, but his hand reached for Aitch’s. “Say, you wouldn’t happen to have a brother who’s a lot like you but a little more muscular, a lot more neurotic, and interested in men?”

  “You know, there are so many things I could say right now.” Jay looked down at Simon lying on top of Aitch. “However, if I said any of them, my brother would send me into orbit.”

  If there was anything worse than being trapped in a car with Jay, it was being trapped in the backseat with Simon while Jay was driving. A tall, broad-shouldered man, even a lean one, was not meant for the backseat of a hatchback. Still, Simon looked surprisingly comfortable, or maybe just resigned, imitating an origami balloon. Jay had offered him a ride home, and, to Aitch’s surprise, he accepted. Who wouldn’t forsake a flight for a seven-hour trip in a car too cramped for him? Intellectually, Aitch knew why Simon was here even if he didn’t quite understand it.

  Simon would have been more comfortable in the front passenger seat, but he had put Jay’s now half-empty roller bag there instead. Aitch had changed clothes three times in the past twenty-four hours. The T-shirt and shorts he wore now made him feel like a bag of sludge. Or maybe sheer proximity to Simon and Jay was enough to make him feel that way. Some invisible force pinned him against the window even as gravity tried to slide him into Simon.

  “Sorry about your mom.” Simon leaned forward, trying to meet Aitch’s gaze. “I had no idea.”

  The Drips had cremated Mom’s body a few days ago. Jay had thought she’d last for another few weeks, and his surprise that she hadn’t seemed genuine. He was never wrong about matters of life and death.

  “It’s okay, Simon.” Aitch stared out the window. Headlights beamed behind them. “I’ll burn a paper replica of her lab as an offering. She’ll never notice she’s dead. Maybe she’ll infect my ancestors, too.”

  When Grandfather died, Mom burned a paper airplane so that Grandfather could cross the Pacific and visit. Aitch was twelve, and that had made as little sense as everything else had in his life to date, or since.

  “Without Mom, working out how to repair the symbionts in your head will take longer, brother, but I’ll do it.” Somewhere on I-95, an orchestra followed them underscoring Jay’s words with lush strings and clarion trumpets. Or maybe Jay’s voice had that effect all by itself. “You have my word. Then we can start healing your mind.”

  “Sure, whatever.” Aitch shrugged. “Maybe now that I’m harder to kill, the Drips will lay off.”

  “Simon, your chemistry’s just gone wacky.” Concern filled Jay’s voice. “What’s worrying you?”

  Simon’s jaw went slack. Nothing could prepare anyone for prolonged exposure to Jay.

  “Welcome to my world.” Aitch patted Simon’s thigh. “Once he calibrates himself to you, he might as well be a walking polygraph.”

  “Hey, I’m way more accurate and versatile.”

  Simon sighed. He paced his words deliberately. “Your day job, freelance software development, can’t possibly hold your interest. None of us want to know what might happen if you ever get … bored.”

  “Are you still a Drip, Simon?” Aitch folded his arms across his chest.

  “Sure. Singing doesn’t pay that well, and DRP doesn’t actually mind that I’m spending time with you.”

  Aitch leveled his best glare of disapproval. “How am I supposed to trust either one of you?”

  “Brother, yes, we’ve both done suspicious things, but has either of us ever betrayed you?”

  Aitch’s memories pierced him like perfect but mismatched crystals. Each one had a beginning, middle, and end. Taken together, though, they made no sense. When he was a kid, Drips he couldn’t help but obey would order him to break his own arm, then they’d hug him as they timed how long he took to heal. When their lies had finally worn away his love, the Drips who restrained him and experimented on him also rewarded him with scallion pancakes and beef noodle soup flavored with anise.

  “The question isn’t ‘has.’” Dread grew in the pit of Aitch’s stomach. The whine of the engine and the crunch of the tires on the road didn’t reassure him one bit. “The question is ‘will.’”

  Neither of them had screwed him over yet. Trust meant giving them the chance to, then hoping they wouldn’t. What kind of idiot would do that? Life was too short.

  His gaze flicked up. If he pushed off hard enough with his legs, they’d break through the floor and puncture the gas tank or something. Maybe if, instead, he threw his weight against—

  Jay shouted “Brother,” just before Simon touched Aitch’s arm and said, “Aitch, are you okay?”

  Aitch’s hands had balled into fists again. His heart was pounding so hard that he was short of breath. Simon eased Aitch’s hands open.

  He was doing it again, he realized. Damn. Intellectually, he got that to take everything they’d done to help him as evidence of their eventual betrayal was perverse. Given that he’d almost bolted again, it was kind of amazing that they trusted him.

  Time to try something else. Aitch took a deep breath. Far from mastering his fear, he settled for recognizing that it’d never go away.

  “Brother, I don’t live too far from Mass General. You could stay with me—I mean, if you want—until, you know …”

  “That would be great.” Jay’s radiant smile bounced off the rearview into Aitch’s eyes. “Thanks.”

  Little by little, Aitch gave into gravity. He leaned into Simon as Simon leaned into him. As the sky grew dark and the car’s whine seemed to dull into a purr, Aitch let his eyes close and his head fall against Simon’s chest.

  Super Duper Fly

  Maurice Broaddus

  Topher Blanderson stared at his computer screen, knowing something wasn’t quite right but unable to put his finger on it. The account numbers scrolled past, a series of figures moving so quickly, they we
re almost hypnotic. His head ached. It hadn’t pained him this much since his accident at the ski lodge so many years before. Topher felt his mind drift, not quite going to sleep, but relaxing. Expanding. Touching something deep and otherly. Suddenly, everything seemed perfectly clear.

  Topher touched the computer screen. His fingers danced across the monitor, the data spinning past a blur of ones and zeroes, fragments of information coalescing into folders. He pressed his hand flat against the surface, the warmth sinking into him. He shut his eyes for a moment, and briefly there was darkness as …

  … his manager, Ana Pedestal, waited at a restaurant at the hotel of the conference she attended. With him. Not him. He was there, but it was in someone else’s body. The CEO. Her shoe dangled from the tip of her foot. She touched his arm … they were in his (not his) hotel room. She poured champagne into a flute, which had Gummi Bears in it. Ana threw her head back in laughter. They kissed. She … wore dark sunglasses. She was lost, a stranger walking about the corridors of the Cayman Islands National Bank, not wanting to be seen. Not wanting to be noticed. More numbers. Account names. Money transferred to … sand. So much sand at the beach with its ocean view. So blue. So blue. Cobalt blue. Cobalt Coast. Her body brown in the sun. She held her empty glass out. A young man quickly refilled it for her. She allowed her gaze to linger on him for a heartbeat longer as she … broke off her kiss with him and dismissed him from her room. A knock came a minute later. She opened it expecting the attendant, but the CEO barged through. His (not his) face a sneer of anger. Ana pulled away from him. His desperate fingers searched for any purchase. He tore the thin cloth of her sundress. He slammed his hand over her mouth. She bit into the fleshy side of his palm. He pulled away, then backhanded her. She licked the warm trickle of blood from her lip. She grabbed the phone from the nightstand and swung it in a large arc connecting with his head with a loud thunk. Her eyes bulged. Her face went pink to red as she slammed the base of the phone into his head again and again. He tried to scream …