The 17

by Mike Kilroy

  The moons were no longer together, separated for another year and Mizuki stared out her window at the dark sky that was rapidly becoming brighter with a rising sun.

  It was another day in Hades.

  She peered over her shoulder at Zack and smiled, then frowned when she saw his wan face. “You don’t look well.”

  “My food turns your stomach and yours does the same to mine, I guess.”

  She pulled the hammock toward her and then released. It swung rapidly and threw Zack to the uneven stone floor with a thud. He blurted out an “ow” and Mizuki laughed.

  “What did you do that for?”

  “Get up. Get moving. You look like death.”

  They left the room and the color came back to Zack’s face. They giggled at each other while they walked to the dining hall. Before they reached it, however, Eb scampered—well scampered as well as a pudgy Zorgite could—toward them.

  “Zack!” Eb said in a loud whisper. “Mizuki! Come with me!”

  He led them frantically to a wall. It warped to reveal a door and they slipped through it into a nook used to store things—sculptures, books, paintings and even a skeleton of a race that had an oddly shaped cranium.

  Zack stared at it all in wonder.

  Eb tapped Zack on the shoulder repeatedly until Zack broke out of his trance.

  “Guys, I ran the Ankh’s DNA.”

  Eb stared silently at Zack and Mizuki. They stared back at Eb and waited for him to continue, but he just stood there, wheezing, expelling his pungent breath. Mizuki finally punched him in his iron kettle belly with her pointy knuckles. “Well? Tell us then!”

  Eb let out an “oof” following the gut punch, and then gathered himself.

  “Their DNA,” he said, “is human.”

  Zack wasn’t sure he heard Eb correctly. He just stared at him, his mouth ajar like it often was when he was surprised.

  Zack finally spoke. “Did you just say the Ankhs are human?”

  Eb cleared his throat and continued. “There are major differences, probably from millennia of evolution, but there are markers that are an exact match with your DNA. There’s no doubt. The Ankh’s are very much either your ancestors, or progenitors. Everything you are now, they once were.”

  It made perfect sense to Zack, which shocked him almost as much as the news he just received. The Ankhs had always had a fascination with Earth, most likely because they either once dwelled on the planet or seeded it.

  It was a revelation that should have terrified him. Instead, it intrigued him. He wished to have just a few moments with George to pry into the Ankh’s history, to delve into the mystery of their origins, and as a direct result, his.

  “Did you find anything else?” Mizuki asked.

  Eb nodded, but did not speak.

  “Do I have to punch you again for you to spill it?” Mizuki blustered.

  Eb shook his head and mouthed a “no,” cleared his throat again and spoke. “Their DNA is degrading. It’s degenerated so much, they can’t produce viable offspring. I think it’s been happening for quite some time. They are in their death throes.

  “They must know,” Eb continued as he made a sweeping motion with his bloated arm. “Perhaps that is what this is all about.”

  “So, they need more than a ‘Spark?’” Zack asked.

  “Oh, indeed so. They need to incorporate a whole new biological matrix. Even that most likely won’t work. There are serious mutations in the DNA, likely resulting from a dying sun and a withering planet.”

  “Can’t they just colonize another?” Mizuki asked.

  “It would just delay the inevitable. Quite simply, they are doomed.”

  And so were they, it seemed.

  Apparently, no one—not even the Ankhs—could live forever.

  YOLO was a universal constant.

  Part II

  Chapter Six

  The Spark Comes With a Price

  Two more Sparks were ushered to their rooms. One was a humanoid boy with a long mane of brown hair like a lion and a button nose with what seemed like a thousand whiskers fanning out in all directions.

  The other was a girl. She was as dark as coal, with bright silvery eyes and stark white hair that was slicked back and trained down to the curve of her spine. She was quite exotic and Mizuki caught a glimpse of Zack admiring her. She jabbed him hard in the ribs with her boney elbow.

  Zack liked it when Mizuki became jealous. She was fetching when her nostrils flared and her jaw clenched and her eyes narrowed.

  They hadn’t spoken about their relationship, but it was a burgeoning one. They spent nights together, cuddled on his bed or in her hammock, talking for hours about their lives back on their very disparate worlds.

  She told him of her five brothers and three sisters, all very different in personality and temperament. She was the youngest—a very difficult position to be in, particularly on their sprawling farm.

  They grew various types of grains that were a staple of their diet. They also grew a root called a shoga that, when boiled in water, made a very nutritious broth.

  Their people rarely consumed animals, instead living off what could be grown on the land. They had a very eclectic ecosystem with many different kinds of wildlife.

  It sounded like a haven to Zack.

  He told her of McDonalds and Wendy’s and Pizza Hut. Of how humans had become obese in some countries and how they starved in others. He told her of how people on his planet slaughtered animals by the millions for their horns and their pelts and just for the plain sport of it and how they had wiped nearly a thousand animal species off the face of the Earth.

  Her mouth gaped wider with each horrific story.

  He also told her of the great beauty his world contained, of the tulip fields in the Netherlands, the colors like a rainbow; of the Grand Canyon; of the Mendenhall Ice Caves in Juneau, Alaska, and how they shimmered blue—she liked that one in particular—and of the simple way the stars twinkled above him as he lay out in a field in Maine, far away from the street lights. He told her of how he could see shooting stars and made wishes on them, and how he could watch a satellite orbit and then stare and wait for it to come around again.

  Her smile grew wider with each stunning picture he painted with his words.

  They talked about how they both often felt like outcasts. He as an only child, alone and misunderstood; she as the youngest in a large clan had tried to do anything she could to attract attention and be noticed before she was eventually cast out.

  She set off on her own to make a different path for herself. She joined a group of others who were shunned like herself, but still felt detached and forlorn.

  “I doubted I would find any place that felt like home,” Mizuki said, her big brown eyes filled with tears, “then I was dropped here with you.”

  They came from vastly different worlds, yet were so similar. It amazed them both.

  Zack felt he had known her species as well as he knew his own.

  Mizuki had spent the night with Zack in his room. They stayed up late to talk about everything and nothing and ate Hot Pockets that Zack had filched from the dining hall. Mizuki was beginning to find them palatable, but wondered how they were always hot on the outside and lukewarm on the inside no matter how long they were “nuked.”

  Mizuki awoke peaked in the morning. It was the lack of sufficient sleep, or the “nasty Hot Pockets,” she barked. “Why did I eat those things?”

  They had bigger concerns now, however.

  The Ankhs had collected six Sparks already and the numbers were rising far too rapidly for their tastes. There was also the issue of the Ankhs impending doom, and theirs along with them.

  Before they even had the chance to go get breakfast—“and get some real food,” Mizuki joked—another Spark was brought in: A thin, wiry girl who looked very human.

  Zack groaned. “That makes seven.”

  “Zack, we have to go to Splifkin.”

  He objected strongly. “Oh, no
. He’s liable to eat us like we’re norges.”

  Mizuki snickered and shook her head. “Zack, I love ya, but sometimes you’re so basic.”

  Zack didn’t much hear the end of that sentence as he did the beginning.

  She winked at him. “Come on. What do we have to lose?”

  That was a familiar refrain.

  †††

  Zack’s palms were sweating. He hated when that happened. He really hated the sensation—the clamminess, the way his fingers tingled.

  He had a ring of sweat under his armpits, too. It was very unsightly and he hoped he didn’t reek like Eb.

  Mizuki seemed calm as she stood straight and confident in front of Splifkin’s desk as he cumbersomely poked his finger at the keyboard.

  Zack knew better than to clear his throat to get Splifkin’s attention. He knew better than to make any sort of sound. He tried to stand as straight as Mizuki, but his legs were quivering too much. Instead he swayed like pine tree in a stiff wind and he hoped no one would notice his wobble.

  Finally, Splifkin leaned back in his chair and turned his gaze—well, his primary gaze—in their direction. “I assume this is important.”

  Mizuki told Zack she would do all the talking, that it was better that way and Zack agreed. The last time he engaged Splifkin in a heated conversation, he was nearly dismembered. He followed her lead. “It’s very important.”

  “What is it then?” Splifkin asked with a palpable degree of annoyance. “Let’s get this over with.”

  “Well, sir, we have some information about the Ankhs.”

  Splifkin laughed deeply. “The Ankhs. How quaint you have taken to calling them that as Apparat and the others have. If you only knew who they really are.”

  “Well, that’s why we are here. We do.”

  That got Splifkin’s attention. He sat up straight in his chair and leaned forward over the desk. His skin began to change hue, darkening, turning almost ebony. “Is that so?”

  “Yes. We did a little digging …”

  Splifkin interrupted; his voice boomed. “You did a little digging?” He stood from his seat and towered over them. His skin had lightened again and began to swirl red. “You wouldn’t even know the location of a shovel. You mean Eb did some digging, correct?”

  Mizuki stammered. She pinned her arms behind her and Zack could see her hands shake as she rung them.

  Before Zack had realized what he was doing, he spoke. “It was my fault. I coerced Eb.” Mizuki shot him a frightened look but Zack continued. “You know Eb. He is intimidated easily.”

  Splifkin laughed again. This time, though, it was more like a derisive snicker. “You’re telling me you, Zack Earnest, intimidated someone—even someone as docile as Eb—into ‘digging’ up information on the most evolved life form we know of in the universe?”

  “Well, when you put it like that …”

  This time, Splifkin’s laugh bordered on hysterical. His skin had turned almost pink as he pounded the desk.

  Zack looked at Mizuki, and she back at him, in shock.

  “You kill me, Zack Earnest,” Splifkin said between uproarious laughter. “Okay. Tell me what you think you know.”

  “The Ank— … the most evolved life form in the universe are humans. Well, highly evolved humans, anyway. They are also dying. Rapidly.”

  Zack got the sense from the way Splifkin glared at him that this was information he already knew.

  What was he going to do to them for knowing it as well?

  Splifkin stared calmly at them—Zack could tell because his skin returned to its neutral green—for several moments before he slumped back into his chair and crossed his arms on his broad chest. “This muddles things.”

  “You knew?” Mizuki blurted indignantly.

  Splifkin snapped back. “Yes, I knew. I’ve been here with them longer than anyone else. I was one of the first life forms they plucked out of that hell to aid them. They had to make me privy to certain facts for me to do my job, and I happily did it.”

  It was Mizuki’s turn to have her skin flush red. “So, you just sat back and let them torture us, knowing full well it doesn’t matter?”

  Splifkin pounded his fists on the desk, which made both Mizuki and Zack flinch. He stood and walked around the desk toward them, his skin becoming a deep crimson. “Do not take that tone with me, girl! My motives will not be questioned! I did what was best for me and my race. I did what was best for all the other races stuck in this flytrap. To resist them is pointless. They do what they want. They do it to who they want. We are but feces on the bottom of their shoes.”

  Zack smiled, which took Splifkin aback. “No, we’re not. They need us. At least they think they need us. Even though they are advanced and brilliant and can do so many things far beyond our comprehension, they are in denial. They are scared. I know what scared is. I’ve been scared all my life. And they, Splifkin, are frightened.”

  Splifkin backed away and leaned against his desk. Mizuki simply cocked her head and stared at Zack with a strange look he had never seen her have before, a sort of mix between awe and who the hell are you?

  Splifkin lowered his head in thought, and then snapped it back up to look at them with contrition. “What do you think we can possibly do with this information?”

  “It’s a blind spot. They have a weakness: their own mortality. They haven’t had to face death in who knows how long. Now it is staring them in the face and they are desperate to stop it. We can use that. Fear is powerful.”

  “I still don’t understand what you think you can do to them?”

  “George is the key. George knows the truth. If we can convince George that no matter what they do, they are doomed, maybe the others will realize it and they will let us go home.”

  Splifkin chuckled again. “Home? I’m not even sure if my home is still there, or what I’ll find there if it is. This is my home. The only one I’m sure of now.”

  “Don’t you want to see your real home again?”

  Splifkin’s skin turned burgundy and he grinned wistfully. “For what seems like an eternity, I have wanted to see the Jillonna Falls again. The water flows over a cliff a mile high into a cerulean lake. It is the most breathtaking location on our planet. The sound of the water crashing is deafening, but is like a song that I have so longed to hear again.”

  “Maybe you can,” Zack pleaded. “I just need to talk to George. Can you set that up?”

  Splifkin nodded. “I’ll see what I can do. Now go.” He winked with the three lids of his large left eye. “I’m tired of looking at you.”

  †††

  Mizuki’s feet pounded down the hallway, her strides long and purposeful—and a bit angry.

  Zack struggled to keep pace.

  “Hold up,” he said.

  Mizuki just walked faster.

  “Hey,” Zack yelled. “What’s wrong?”

  She walked faster still.

  She spilled into the dining hall and brushed her shoulder past Eb as she did. It nearly knocked him to the ground. However, shaped as a weeble-wobble like he was, Eb didn’t fall down.

  Mizuki grabbed her mug of steaming broth and set it forcefully on the table. Some of the steaming liquid sloshed out onto her hand. She defied the pain with just a slight grimace as she sat and slurped loudly.

  Zack had a plate full of eggs and bacon, but had lost his appetite as he sat across from her, staring dumbfounded.

  He began to speak, but stopped. Her eyes darted about everywhere but at him. He began to speak again, but swallowed his words.

  Finally, he worked up enough courage to ask. “What’s wrong, Mizuki?”

  She finally looked at him and scowled. “I thought I told you I’d do the talking.”

  “I was just trying to help.”

  “Well, when I need help I’ll ask for it.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, Zack, you are. You are sorry.”

  “What’s wrong with you? We have Splifkin on our sid
e now. He’s a powerful ally.”

  “I could have handled it.”

  Zack poked at his eggs with his fork as he searched for the right words to say. He couldn’t find them. He rarely could in situations like this. He hated confrontation, but it seemed that was all there was in this new reality. This place was nothing but discord.

  He didn’t expect strife with Mizuki. She was one of the few people he had ever met who he seemed to connect with on a deep, personal level, and now he feared that was over.

  And why? Why was she acting like this?

  Zack tried to change the subject. “Hey, why don’t we go to that room Eb took us into and poke around. There’s some cool stuff in there.”

  Mizuki just snapped her eyes up from her broth and glared.

  Zack’s pleas cracked with desperation as they escaped his quivering lips. “Please, Mizuki, talk to me.”

  Mizuki took one last loud slurp of her broth, set the mug down harshly and stood. “I’ve got things to do.”

  As she walked away, Zack reached out and grabbed her arm. She jerked it away.

  His voice cracked more now with heartache. “Staying with me tonight?”

  “That’s okay. I think I want to be comfortably cold tonight.”

  She walked away in a huff and Zack could feel his eyes well with tears as she did. He felt like crying, but held them back as he poked at his eggs with the prongs of his fork.

  A foul smell snapped him out of his sad stabbings.

  “Is this seat taken?” Eb asked. He held a tray with a plate of what looked like worms crawling over it.

  Even his food was disgusting.

  “Have a seat. You’re my only friend today.”

  Eb plopped down, picked up a squirming worm and sucked it into his mouth. Zack used to do the same thing with spaghetti, only the spaghetti was never alive.

  “You seem down.”

  “Yes.”

  “Woman troubles?”

  Zack snickered. “You could say that. I just don’t understand.” Zack began to explain and the words just kept gushing out. “Everything was great between us and then we met with Splifkin and he did his whole Splifkin intimidation act with Mizuki, so I stepped in and calmed him down. I talked him into helping us, which is what we wanted, and now Mizuki is giving me this attitude. What did I do?”