Nighthawks at the Mission: Move Off-World. Make A Killing.

by Forbes West

  Hamilton pushes her off again through telekinesis; she falls again with a hard crack. As she starts to get up again, Hamilton gives her a sharp mental push. She flies backwards as if yanked by an invisible bungee cord. She then tumbles across the width of the highway into the dust of the road’s shoulder, flipping end over end.

  “Enough! Do not attempt to climb this fence again or I will gun you down!” Hamilton ratchets the machine gun for effect.

  Limping back across the highway, the other you again puts her hands onto the chain link fence, slowly gripping it with one hand, her face a mask of defiance against Hamilton’s threat. Hidden in her other hand, she snaps an ori-baton that telescopes out and points the baton’s end at Maxie; its peg legs stop the incessant stomping. Its distorted and ruined headlight-like eyes light up in little flashes, never staying fully on. A synthesizer squeal comes out, and the machine creature charges towards Hamilton.

  In a second it rears up and thumps Hamilton down to the asphalt, knocking the machine gun out of his hands. The machine creature starts to pound into Hamilton’s chest and face, meanwhile breaking the submachine gun in half. You can hear him groan, and there is the sick crack of a bone snapping.

  You run back towards the door when the thing leaps off Hamilton and slams itself full force against the door, cracking it and popping off a hinge. You fall backwards and scramble up quickly, but you have left the ori-baton on the ground.

  It turns with a sort of coughing snarl as you rear back and shoot the .38 twice. One of the shots knocks out one of its headlights in a crash of glass. The other shot shatters into the door frame behind Maxie, leaving a clean burnt hole in the middle of it.

  The first shot must’ve connected because the thing stops and rears up. A thin line of black and awful-smelling oil leaks from its side, and it sways back and forth for a moment, in a daze. Then it freezes completely; the one good headlight eye dies, and you think that might be it, but it comes alive again. The headlight eye flashes, and Maxie begins moving in jittery, awkward steps.

  The other you has climbed the fence and is almost at the top. Hamilton is still lying on the ground, and his submachine gun is broken. He grabs the other you with his ori-baton, holding her in mid-air away from the fence, and puts out one liver-spotted hand that is flexing like a claw. “Shoot!” he cries, his voice blurred with pain. “Shoot!”

  Still directing Maxie, the other you makes a pulling back motion. Maxie charges at you again and leaps, but you manage to dive out of the way, scraping your knee badly on the pavement, ripping a nice stretch of skin off and leaving a trail of blood. From the ground, you look through the fence line at the other you, who is floating in mid-air. The other you is an expressionless statue, no wires to be seen holding her up.

  Without thinking, you aim the gun at her. Her figure directly lined up in your sights, you fire three times. You hit the other you in the leg first, then in the arm, and then in the chest. Hamilton drops her, and she flops onto the ground. Blood flows out in a little growing pool around the body, inching out and under the chain link fence.

  The other you groans. One arm is caught under her body. She tries to get up twice. On the third attempt, the other you falls backwards, her head slamming into the yellow X highway with a hard crack.

  You are breathing heavily and put the gun down onto the pavement. The smoking .38 rests in front of you, still hot. That fourth of July firework smell from the cordite makes you feel sick.

  Dizzy, you dry heave a couple of times, then wipe your mouth with the back of your hand. Hamilton lies still on the ground. Maxie, still leaking a little of the black oil, walks around him, its body language conveying a sense of concern like a dog circling its wounded master. For a moment the boxy thing looks over at you and then makes a warbling siren sound.

  “I’m okay, Maxie.” Hamilton groans. “Sarah?” he says, looking up at the stars.

  You kneel by his side. The old man’s face is deeply bruised and purple. Maxie managed to smash in one of his front teeth.

  “There’s another ori-baton inside. It has an orange band. It’s a healer one.” He frowns. “I think…I think I could die out here.” You stand up quickly, focusing on the shattered corridor door. When you try to open it, the door falls out of its brass hinges and clangs onto the ground. You step over it and run back to Hamilton’s apartment.

  On the glass cabinet you find the ori-baton and run back out as fast as you can on your hurt leg and step over the remains of the door to the outside.

  Pushing Maxie to the side, you kneel down next to Hamilton, who is breathing heavily.

  “You know how to use ori?” he asks, his voice weak and barely audible over the cold wind that is now blowing.

  “Barely.”

  “Oh, Christ,” he says, his breathing labored.

  “Wel-l what the…” you say, near tears.

  “Use it the same way you ever have used it before. Focus and concentrate, but think of, shit, think of positive things. Sounds stupid.” Hamilton coughs in pain. “Put your hand on my chest...I’m nearly dead. You probably don’t have a happy thought in you,” he says with a grim smirk.

  You grab the baton firmly, then gently put your hand over his chest. There is a sensation of warmth and connection that is as unreal and as fresh as it felt all those years ago with your sister, trying an ori-baton out before your mother ran out and…That is all the happy thought you need. Being with your family on your birthday.

  There is a flash of green and a stream of greenish-white flecks come from the ori-baton and passes through Hamilton’s chest. His bruises lighten. The smashed tooth returns to normal. There is such a loud sigh coming from him that you are afraid that somehow you’ve screwed this up, done too much of whatever it is, and killed him. But Hamilton sits straight up, holding his side.

  “This was a bad night.” You nod and laugh and cry a little, and then turn the baton to yourself, trying to heal your own leg. It doesn’t work. There is a loud popping sound, and a tiny spiral of black smoke comes from the baton. That sense of connection is immediately lost.

  “You can’t do it on yourself. It makes a loop and burns out the ori, and then the baton is dead,” Hamilton says, rubbing his face. “I’ll help you in a second. And when something’s dead, it’s dead, hmmm?”

  * * *

  Hamilton and you sit up all night, exhausted but unable to sleep because of the attack. You both are jittery, anxious, on guard, so you sit on the back of the white pickup truck’s bed and watch the stars, feeling the breeze blow in. Hamilton brings refreshments, and you pop a Solomon’s cola, still cold and wet from being at the bottom of a cooler, pour the fizzing contents into a half-full glass of Jack Daniels, and mix the contents slowly by sticking your index finger into the drink.

  “That’s your third, Miss. You should pace yourself, hmmm?”

  You keep drinking anyway. Hamilton coughs into his hand.

  “I thinks you-I’ll be o-okaay,” you say, slurring your words all so slightly. You look up to the stars again as it nears dawn. The orange sodium lights out on the highway click off. Every now and again you sneak a peek at the corpse that is still lying there.

  “We b-b-better bury i-it,” you blurt out.

  Hamilton rubs his face and then blows out his whiskey-tinged breath. He looks much older than when the evening started. “Yeah.”

  He snaps out his ori-baton and heads for the gate. You get off the back of the truck and follow him. Taking out a key from his dirty, torn, and bloodstained bathrobe, he opens the gate. You take out the .38 again and check the cylinder before snapping it back into place to make sure you loaded it correctly.

  You can’t stop shaking. Your heart is racing; you feel as if you are going to throw up.

  Looking both ways down the yellow X highway that lights up once you step onto it, you and Hamilton tiptoe over to the body.

  The first rays of dawn creep over the Sargasso Breaks. Far down the road you see black silhouettes moving across the grass, j
ust like those black shadows you saw at the beach. A moment later they fade away. You don’t bother to tell Hamilton, who is focused elsewhere. You aren’t even sure if they were real anyway, or just your imagination.

  You look at the corpse. It is you, an exact version of you. There is a bullet hole in the chest and one in the leg. Blood is in your mouth and your eyes are open. You look closely and see that your pupils are dilated wide, strangely so. A bullet has nicked the ori-baton, you guess, as the hilt is smashed. A lone sneaker has fallen off.

  It does not look like you are sleeping. You notice that during the fight one sneaker fell off, your sneaker fell off...

  “I…I don’t know what this is,” you say quietly, almost to yourself. Hamilton has the good form to keep quiet.

  You shudder. Hamilton starts to speak but you put up a hand; you check the back pocket of the flight suit. When you feel it there, you start hyperventilating, scared. What if you see…

  There is a California Driver’s License there, and you hand it over to Hamilton. “Please check who this...” You can’t finish the sentence.

  Hamilton takes the license in one hand, not releasing his grip on the ori-baton. His old, rheumy eyes scan the horizon, still waiting for the next wave of attack.

  You are still kneeling next to the body. “Who was it?” you say, voice flat, emotionless.

  “Miss Orange, we don’t know who this is. This is the Sargasso Breaks, it’s very different out here. The sort of place that’s not the sort of place you might expect to conform with the laws of reality as we know it. That’s why this research station was built, that’s why the Solomon’s House people come every winter to study.”

  You swallow. “Who was it?” Your voice sounds strangled. Hamilton says nothing, but flips the license over. He shows you who it was. Sarah Orange. The same picture you know you had taken at the Long Beach DMV. Sarah Orange. And now Sarah Orange is dead, and you are to bury her.

  You sit back onto the yellow X highway, not saying a word. Hamilton speaks up quickly.

  “No. We don’t…we don’t know what this means exactly, hmmm? This is a strange, horrifying thing but there have been stranger and more horrifying things that have happened ever since they opened the place. We settlers all know that...”

  You get up and walk away, shoulders slumped.

  Hamilton is quiet now, and with the exception of the chain slowly banging against the gated fence, making a metallic pinging sound, there is no sound for a long time. Maxie walks around the fence line, curious. Those metal peg legs thump the asphalt and scrape against it as he moves slowly, watching you two.

  You bite down on your fist and scream, a loud, piercing scream. You can see yourself doing this, almost in a detached way. You feel so not alive and so not a part of reality that you are amazed at the strength of your own scream. Hamilton pays no attention.

  Instead, he uses the ori-baton to make a series of clawing motions in the direction of the Sargasso grass and dirt on the other side of the highway. Hundreds of pounds of dirt are scraped away, as if by the hand of some angel, creating a cloud of thick, brown dust. The dirt is shifted, making a deep hole. Clumps of grass blow in the wind. A mound of soil grows to the side.

  With great care, Hamilton lifts the body into the air without touching it, his orichalcum power doing all the work in a way that is so easy, it’s disconcerting. There it hangs for a moment, suspended in space, like a wet and dripping ragdoll.

  Concentrating hard and sweating a little, he gently points with his baton and lowers the body into the hole that’s been clawed out of the planet’s turf. With a simple shoving motion, all the soil that he dug out a few moments ago topples over into the grave of the other you, covering that body for eternity.

  “It’s over,” Hamilton says.

  Chapter Thirteen:

  The Road Back to Mission Friendship

  You walk out of the living space and down the stairs, looking for Hamilton, who has disappeared on you. The two of you went back to sleep after the attack; you crashed on a couch in his bedroom and slept most of the day away, the guns and the batons still on your person.

  “John?” you call out, disturbed. The door to the outside still hangs off its hinges. Small, yellow bulbs behind iron cages that were dark the night before are lit all over McRoss, giving everything in the parking lot an ethereal glow.

  The charcoal grill by the door has recently been lit and you see a wooden tray table with a couple of raw flank steaks on it. This isn’t beef per se, but actually Afer steaks—Oberon cattle. You can tell by the almost wine-colored tone of the meat.

  John watches the grasslands beyond the chain link fence from his lawn chair. His cane is between his knees and he seems to be lost in thought. A cigarette hangs from his mouth, a trail of smoke leaking out into the air above. The ghetto blaster next to him is tuned to Radio Oberon and not his Old Man at Midnight show. The volume is low, but in the silence surrounding you it is the loudest noise you can hear. The music stops.

  “We interrupt this radio broadcast to update you on the special flash storm warning for the Sargasso Breaks. Any and all persons within five kilometers of the center of Sargasso-3 must take immediate shelter underground. We repeat; this is a flash storm warning for the Sargasso Breaks region. Any persons within five kilometers of the center of City Quadling-3 must take immediate shelter underground...”

  In the pockets of darkness around the station you see the “dog” creep about slowly, wandering to and fro with a slight limp.

  “John?” you say, and he turns his head.

  “Good to see you in a better condition than last night. Come, come, take a seat here. Watch the show that is about to unfold.”

  You sit down with a thump in that same office chair. There are little white flashes off in the distance, over the grasslands, like photos being taken by God. Though it is night, you see the sky turn a bluish-green, with white circles floating and rotating around the cloud cover, dancing with each other. Unearthly groans are carried forth and the wind picks up. You watch, feeling that the storm is both beautiful and terrifying at the same time.

  “Would you like a cigarette, Miss?” Hamilton takes out a pack of Network cigarettes and offers one to you. You shake your head, watching the flash storm unfold. He tucks the cigarette pack back into his tweed jacket.

  “I don’t know what to do next.” You drink another soda and Jack Daniels. It is so cool and refreshing, the bubbles tickling the back of your throat. “I should have started drinking a while ago. My friends always liked it.”

  Hamilton raises a gray eyebrow at that but lets it go. He takes a deep drag of his cigarette. “What we are dealing with is a series of strange events in your life, Miss Orange. Please let me know, from the first moment you arrived on this planet, what has happened to you.”

  You take a deep drink and say nothing. Part of your brain shuts off, locking your tongue. Anxiety wells up like a freshly struck oil well.

  “I have to look to our dinner, Miss. Excuse me.” With a couple of tries he finally gets out of his chair and prepares the steaks. He has strapped a gun belt on.

  A few minutes later he brings you a plate with a rare hunk of steak and a steaming baked potato already sliced down the middle, loaded with butter and pepper. A little bit of blood oozes from the meat, soaking into the white of the potato and turning it purplish.

  “It’s Afer, so I hope you’re not the allergic type. It’s good and it’ll pump you full of enough energy that you’ll want to run a few miles after this.”

  You cut into it and eat—it is terrifically tender. The storm winds itself up with a sharp piercing wail and the sky to the west turns back to its normal pattern of stars. Hamilton is right—the meat has some sort of kick to it. All your fatigue and irritability start to fade away like a half-remembered dream.

  You and he eat in silence, chewing away like a couple of barnyard cows, staring out past the fence line. The mound containing the corpse of the other you is hard not to s
tare at.

  You get another drink from the cooler. You are beginning to feel, not relaxed, but mellow enough.

  “You can go in the morning. I’ll give you the Ghia. You’ll have to drive it through Sargasso-3 in order to get to the Mission. I’ll show you the route. I can pick it up at the Mission in a few weeks.”

  “I have a map.” For some odd reason, you’re terrified, fearful that Hamilton might ask about your book—the Voice of the Four Winds. He hasn’t had a drop of alcohol since you got up, which is something you just assume is out of character for an old guy like him.

  “Are you afraid of something else, Mr. Hamilton?” You bite your lip. “I’m sorry about last night.”

  Hamilton chokes out a false laugh. “No. Being as old as I am, you get over that sort of thing. At my age, everything is a near death experience. And don’t be sorry. It’s not like you planned that whole affair.” He smiles a tight-lipped grin, raises himself up, and walks back to the ruined door. “In the morning. Oh, shit. Why am I telling a young girl like you to go three hundred klicks alone, especially after everything? I will go with you, of course, you needn’t go alone.”

  You turn in your chair as he points out the dusty Karmann. “It should be just fine. I have to check a few things, but we can take off in the morning. That car runs the best. Should only be a few hours drive. Hell, it’s the easiest drive in the world. I don’t know why I said you should go alone.”

  He lifts his black cane and points it down the yellow X highway, opposite from the direction you came. “I’ve driven it more than a few times without incident.” He laughs but then looks into the distance. You feel that he is becoming surer that his words are now ever so slightly absurd and that some other incident will soon come to you both.

  “It’s a good car, too. Got it off an oriental girl with an Irish last name.”