by Mike Kilroy
Zack swallowed harshly. “I’ll go.”
Caroline balked. “No, Zack. It’s too dangerous. You have to stay here.”
“For what? To be stared at? I’ll take Harness. Even with busted hands he’s still a pretty good body guard. This is important, Caroline. We have to find the last one before someone else does.”
Harness scoffed. “You think I’m going out there again? No way. I’m staying here. Nothing good can come to me out there. Besides, I’m not leaving Caroline here with you freaks. One of you killed that girl. Zack, take bright-eyes—that black chick with the funky hair. You know how to move around the gimbals now and she looks like she can take care of herself and you.”
“He’s rude,” Tyaz said. “But he’s correct. I’ll go.”
Caroline relented. “Fine. Go quickly.”
Zack and Tyaz gathered some gear, Tyaz sheathing a long, curved sword.
Harness tapped him on the shoulder before they departed. “You know, you may have to kill someone. I mean, actually kill ‘em and not just prick them with a dagger.”
“I know, Harness,” Zack said, somberly. “I’m well aware.”
“Here. Take this.” Harness held out Mizuki’s curved knife to him. “I found it on the beach. I thought you might want it. Maybe to fall on to kill yourself if you don’t have the stomach to kill someone else.”
Zack hesitantly grabbed it and scowled at Harness. “I know you don’t mean that.”
“No. I don’t. If you have to, use it. She wouldn’t want you to die like she did.”
Zack examined the handle; one side had an ankh symbol in plated silver, but the other had the symbol of the two moons of her planet in gold.
It was his most prized possession.
Part III
Chapter Four
The Unattainable Egg
When Zack was a little boy, his mother hid Easter eggs all around their property for him to find. He found most easily enough, but his mother would always hide one egg so well each year that he could not find it no matter how hard he tried.
It bothered him immensely. He stayed out in the yard for hours trying to discover it.
He never did. It was always elusive.
His mother lorded that over him each year, saying almost teasingly, “Well, there’s always next year, Zackary.”
When the next Easter Sunday rolled around, his mother would challenge him again. “Let’s see if Zackary can find all the eggs this time.”
He vowed he would. He vowed he would never give up until he was gripping that egg in his hand. He became so obsessed with finding that well-hidden egg that he began to disregard the ones hidden in plain sight.
Year after year he never found it. Year after year it tormented him.
It wasn’t until his seventeenth birthday that his mother revealed her deviousness.
There never was an egg.
She explained she simply wanted to teach him a tough lesson: that sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you will fail, that sometimes what you seek is unattainable and that everything is in the trying.
He came to call it the Unattainable Egg. He turned it into a slang term, like when he was smitten with a girl in his class, Ava, who was far out of his league, he would call her the Unattainable Egg.
It made him hate his mother.
And Easter, too.
Zack felt like it was Easter now.
Unlike the Unattainable Egg of his boyhood, Zack was sure number eighteen was out there—somewhere. And he needed to uncover this person quickly.
As they walked out of the city, Tyaz cupped her hand over her eyes and scanned the horizon. She sighed. “We have so much ground to cover. Where do we start?”
Zack had no good answer. “I guess we make our way back to the central building and fan out our search from there. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
Tyaz looked toward the horizon again through her ivory eyes. “It’s still going to be nearly impossible to find this person. It’s crazy to think we will.”
“We have to try. Everything is in the trying.”
He didn’t really believe that. It was just a poor excuse his mother used to justify her cruelness, couching it in a lesson that did nothing but traumatize him. Tyaz believed him, however, and that’s all that mattered to him now. She grinned widely and nodded. “Okay, then.”
†††
Zack watched the onyx sky erupt, lightning bolts streaming down.
A storm?
Zack knew better.
And so did Tyaz. Her eyesight was ten times better than that of a human and she told Zack the scene was much different.
“It’s not lightning, it’s the ceiling of a large dome warping,” she said, looking at it in amazement. “I can see three figures sitting at a podium set high above us. They are in shadows.”
The Ankhs behind the curtain.
“It won’t be long now,” Zack said. “One way or another.”
They marched on toward the central ring, the sky flashing and pulsating with light more frequently along the way. It signaled the Ankhs further weakening and Zack was more determined than ever to find the eighteenth and survive.
They reached the lip of the hill and Tyaz peered down to the building.
She turned her frosted eyes to Zack. “I don’t see anyone.”
They carefully repelled down the steep slope of the hill. Tyaz, who was also ten times more fleet of foot than a human, made it down skillfully. Zack struggled to remain upright, but finally made it to solid, flat ground.
He gazed back up to the sky and saw a swirl of dark clouds circling the center ring. Lightning flashed with no thunder. Wind blew hard against his face.
Tyaz also looked up into the vortex, her face grim.
“What do you see?” Zack asked.
Tyaz fixed her eyes on the swirl. Her lips moved, but no sounds escaped.
“Tyaz!” Zack bellowed. She ignored him as if in a trance. Finally, she blinked and set her eyes back on Zack. “Tyaz, what did you see?”
She gulped. “Sadness. Despair. They are dying. The eighteenth is in the building, hiding.”
“How do you know?”
She began walking briskly toward the door as she said “I just do.”
Zack followed her inside and a loud hum greeted his ears. Tyaz covered hers and winced. Her hearing was also ten times better than that of a human.
“What’s that infernal noise?” she asked through gritted teeth.
It came from the other end of the hall and the whirring of it was resounding enough that he could feel the sound waves beat off his body. “That has to be the Ankh’s power source.”
They had bigger things to worry about now; they had number eighteen to find.
Zack walked down the hall quickly and Tyaz followed the best she could as she braced against the noise that brought her pain.
He was done with being scared. He strode with confidence, pushing open every door, checking every room.
Nothing.
They walked down the other hall, pushing every door open.
Nothing.
Then another hall.
Nothing.
Finally, they paced down the last hall. The hum grew louder and Tyaz grew more taxed by the noise.
Zack was more concerned with the fact that Splifkin was nowhere to be seen.
Tyaz leaned against the wall and pressed her hands tightly against her ears. “I can’t go any farther. The pain is too much.”
“It’s okay. Stay here.”
Zack swung a door open and out flew a figure, burly and strong, who tackled him and pinned him to the floor. Zack struggled against the brawn of the figure, finally meeting his eyes.
It was Setal, who released him and covered his head in his arms, cowering.
“Don’t kill me,” Setal whined.
“I’m not gonna kill you. I’m gonna save you.”
Setal lowered his arms and peered at Zack. “You’re not going to kill me?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Why would I?”
“People think I’m dumb, but I’m not dumb. There are eighteen of us. The Ankhs need seventeen. I’m the weakest. I don’t have a Spark. I’m in the way.”
Zack stood and helped Setal to his feet. “You’re not in the way. You happen to be just what we need.”
†††
“Why are we not going back again?” Tyaz asked, frustrated.
Setal fidgeted. “Yeah. Why aren’t we leaving? That crazy lizard guy is still around and he’s red. Red’s not good.”
Zack cracked a smile. “You never choked anyone with entrails, did you?”
“Um. No. I just wanted to intimidate people. Would have been cool if I had, though, huh?”
The hum was getting louder.
“Their power source is in there,” Zack said, pointing down the long hallway toward the door at the end of it. He could feel the pulses of energy now even this far away. “Splifkin was put here to guard it and, at the very least, scare people away so they didn’t discover it. We can end this now.”
Tyaz pleaded. “That’s not the plan, Zack.”
It was the Unattainable Egg and Zack was going to find it this time. “Circumstances have changed the plan.”
“It’s a bad idea.”
Zack didn’t heed her objections. He strode down the hallway to the door and jiggled the handle again. He threw a shoulder into the door but it didn’t budge.
Setal lumbered to Zack. “Let me try.”
He rammed his full weight into the door. It rattled, but remained unopened.
“No good,” Setal said. “The door is steel. Can’t break through it. Oh well. We tried. Let’s go to the others.”
Zack wasn’t about to give up so easily. He was never one to give up easily.
“Maybe there’s a crowbar or a lever we can wedge between the door and the jam and break it open.”
Setal shook his head. “And people think I am dumb.”
Zack threw his full weight into the door again. All he did was send ripples of pain down his arm. His frustration was building and his face became flush with rage.
He thought he must look very much like Splifkin now.
“There’s gotta be a way in!”
“You have to let it go!” Tyaz screamed from down the hall, her hands still clasped over her sensitive ears.
“She’s right,” Setal said as he grabbed Zack on the shoulder. “Even if we can get in there, what are we gonna do? We don’t know their technology. What makes you think you can turn it off?”
Zack slapped Setal’s hand off his shoulder. “I don’t know. I’ll figure it out. This has gone on long enough.”
Zack just wanted it to be over. He was tired of the struggle, tired of the pain, tired of losing people he cared about, tired of doing things he did not want to do, tired of being in fear almost every minute of every day.
It was going to end now.
He banged his hand on the door over and over again. He kicked at it, too.
Setal tried to stop him, but Zack brushed him away again. He pounded and pounded, his hand becoming red and raw. He even butted his head against it a few times.
Zack often did that as a child. He slammed his head off the wall or the floor or even the refrigerator when he didn’t get his way. His mother had the proof in old pictures of his bleeding forehead and others of him wearing a toy football helmet to protect his noggin from his self-inflicted abuse.
He was a stubborn child. He was still stubborn today, it seemed.
Zack finally stopped his fruitless barrage on the door and calmly backed away from it.
He smiled. He finally understood.
His mother was not being hurtful or cruel. She was teaching a good lesson, perhaps in a terrible way.
The Unattainable Egg was unattainable for a reason. Sometimes you have to let go and accept your failings.
In that moment, Zack did. He let go of his hatred for the Ankhs. He let go of his guilt for not saving Mizuki. He let go of his fear of inadequacy and embraced his limitations. He let go of all the things that had held him back in his life.
He turned to see Setal standing in front of him with a strange look on his face, then blood spill out of his mouth. He fell forward, nearly knocking Zack to the floor.
Tyaz stood over him, her sword unsheathed and dripping blood. She dropped the sword, cupped her ears and bent over in pain—from the noise and from her own failings.
Tyaz looked mournfully at Zack, almost begging him for forgiveness with her haunting eyes. “I’m sorry. They told me Setal needed to die, that he was weak and lacked the Spark, that you had it and you must be protected at all costs. They told me what I was doing was serving a higher purpose. They needed me to be their savior. They told me only I could save them.”
Zack shook his head and looked at her with pity. “They can’t be saved, Tyaz. They never could be saved.”
“I killed Tess. I choked her to death with that rope. They came to me and told me she was weak and Sparkless, too, and she needed to go. And now I’ve killed Setal. What have I done?”
Setal gasped for air and then let out a long exhale. Zack’s watch began to drone and he knew once it stopped, all would be lost.
Time seemed to stand still again, but not because of a gimbal lock, but because Zack had another epiphany.
Zack grabbed Mizuki’s knife and peered at the handle, then at the moon on his hand. He smiled as he thought of the glorious time he spent with her, of her enchanting smile and loving eyes and her sharp tongue. They were endearing to him, all.
She was the love of his life. Everyone should be so lucky to have that. He never thought he would ever find it, but he did.
It was only a half a galaxy away.
Zack grabbed the handle of the knife with both hands and turned the blade toward him. He closed his eyes and whispered, “Anneka, Alldan will be with you soon,” and slammed the blade into his chest. He instantly coughed thick blood through his lips and he slumped to his knees and then to his side.
As he fell, he dropped the knife, Mizuki’s symbol staring back at him.
There are no longer seventeen. There are only sixteen now. The Ankhs have lost.
It was a pleasant thought to die with.
Part III
Chapter Five
To the Moons and Back
Zack’s eyes shot open and he gasped for air.
Blood was dried on the chest of his gray nylon shirt and there was a thin slit in it made by a curved blade of a knife.
The spring of his uncomfortable cot poked into the small of his back.
The cell had not changed. Not one bit. It was drab and depressing and he was back in it.
For the first time he was happy to be in this cage.
He stood and walked to the barrier, the aurora swirling and pulsating with energy, and sighed.
“Now what, George?”
Silence.
“Extinction got your tongue?”
Silence.
“Whatever. I’ll be here when you are ready to talk, I guess.”
Zack sat on the cot and clasped his hands on his lap. He hummed a song, the title he couldn’t remember, but it was a ditty he quite enjoyed back home.
George’s voice boomed. “You are very vexing. Vexing, indeed. You would rather die than help us. You would extinguish your own life just to extinguish ours.”
“Hi, George.”
“Vexing to the last.”
Zack tried not to be smug, but he couldn’t help it. “You lost.”
“We lost long ago.”
“Where are the others?”
“Safe.”
“What will happen to them?”
“They will die … eventually, as all life does; but not here and not at by our hand. There was a great deal of discussion about what to do with you.”
“And what did you decide.”
George’s voice was somber. “We are a perishing people on a dyi
ng world. We decided there is no need to extinguish you along with us.”
“What happens now?”
“You will be sent home.”
Zack stood and walked to the barrier, seething with anger. “So, that’s it? It’s over? What of the people who died? Mizuki? Jenai? The countless others who were butchered? What of the maimed like Harness? What of the tortured like Splifkin?”
Silence.
Zack spoke through gritted teeth. “No good answer to that, huh?”
“All will be returned.”
Zack’s eye flared open wider. “What do you mean?”
“The injured will be repaired. We are not cruel. No one perished. We are not murderers.”
Zack backed away from the barrier in shock. He slumped back onto the cot and felt his face crease with a large smile. “So, Mizuki is alive?”
“The one you call Mizuki lives.”
His heart fluttered in his chest. He felt that shudder move through him again. He tried to speak but couldn’t. The joy overwhelmed him and his breathing became heavy and laborious and his eyes welled up with tears.
“Are you injured?” George’s voice was almost tinged with concern. “I can heal you.”
Zack laughed. “No, George. I am happy beyond words.”
He stood and walked back to the barrier. “Can Mizuki come home with me?”
“No.”
Zack’s smile turned quickly into a frown. He felt a sinking feeling. He hated that sinking feeling. “Why?”
“Spearmint and caraway.”
Zack shook his head and shrugged. He was indignant. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“You and Mizuki are chiral, like spearmint and caraway on your world. Like your right hand and her left. Opposites.”
Zack sighed. He felt that eye twitch like the wings of a hummingbird. “I still don’t understand.”
George explained it to him the best he could, using small worlds and tiny concepts so his primitive mind could comprehend. He didn’t have to put it so rudely. He explained how on Zack’s planet spearmint and caraway are flavors that are exactly the same molecularly, except one has a left-handed orientation and the other a right-handed one. They are mirror images of each other. Chiral. Because of this, they are processed by humans in radically different ways and thus taste completely different.
