Obsidian Worlds

by Jason Werbeloff

  “Just a few words.”

  Agatha smiled, but otherwise ignored them. Ploughed through the chanting crowd. “Condensed milk,” she thought, and popped another manna.

  Hibiscus rushed to her. Hugged her.

  “Take me to Lazarus,” said Agatha, pulling away. “He has to try one of these.” She held out a handful of pills.

  “Whatever you want,” said Hibiscus, and squeezed Agatha’s shoulders. There were tears in the purple woman’s eyes. “This way.”

  Agatha strolled through the maze of corridors. Men nodded at her. Women smiled. “Thank you,” they said. “Thank you, Chicken Sexer.”

  Agatha lifted her double-chin high. Accepted their blessings with dignified superiority.

  “Here we are,” said Hibiscus. “Press this button to open the door.”

  “Good night,” said Agatha, and jabbed the button.

  The bed was as it was. The floor and walls were as they were. But in place of Lazarus was a different animal.

  “Hello Agatha,” said the General.

  Agatha dropped her gaze to the carpet, but not before she snatched a glimpse of his chest. Bronze, muscled. Naked.

  “Humanity is in your debt,” he said. “The squadron tells me the whole of central London was cleared. At this rate, we’ll have the island mopped up by the end of the week.”

  He swung his legs from the hoverbed. Strode toward her. Agatha stared determinedly at the ground. The man’s fleshy toes appeared in her vision. Bare ankles. Shapely calves. Polished nails. “I am here to thank you personally,” he said.

  The memory of her septuagenarian husband flashed behind her eyelids as she blinked. She remembered the way the morning light caught his milky eyes. The way his cheeks crinkled into a pious smile when she delivered her monthly sermon. His oxblood bowtie. The tie she always had to straighten.

  She resisted the urge to spit.

  “I cannot accept your gratitude,” she said finally. She lifted her eyes to meet his. Tried not to gawk on the way up. She’d never seen a penis younger than seventy. The General’s was a vast improvement.

  “I … I am only doing the work of God,” she said.

  The General’s smile never faltered. “I understand,” he said.

  “Where is Lazarus?”

  He gestured toward the open door. “On the balcony.”

  She turned away from him.

  “I’ll be going then.” He grabbed his pants from the dresser.

  She nodded, and made her way toward the breeze.

  There he was, gazing out at the starlit sky, munching on a pile of manna. She stroked his horn. “What do you think?” she asked.

  Lazarus bleated lethargically.

  “Yes,” she said. “I miss the chickens too.”

  He nuzzled her hand. She tickled his ear. Starlight bathed the goat’s ancient eyes.

  She removed her shoes. Sat beside her old friend.

  Agatha let herself soak in the view from the balcony. The airship on which she sat floated above the silver canopy of the Chrome invasion fleet. Above her, the Milky Way twisted its gorgeous light into her retinas.

  Lazarus sniffed at the air.

  She smelt it too. A distant wisp of gunpowder.

  An orange-green glow poured onto the balcony. Lazarus and Agatha swung their heads to see a hole of bubbling light. A moment later, two figures stepped through the orifice.

  “Are you Agatha Wretched?” The man’s voice was tinny, as though she heard it from the other side of sleep. His eyes shimmered silver.

  Agatha stood.

  “Who asks?”

  Lazarus buried his head beneath her dress at the sight of the strangers.

  “Agatha, we need your help.”

  The Man with Two Legs

  “Look at it move,” whispered Fuchsia.

  A lone figure hobbled along the forsaken street. It was Saturday evening, and not another soul drifted through Mea She’arim – the ultra-orthodox quarter of Jerusalem. The men were seeing out the Shabbos, buried in their bunkers and synagogues.

  “How does it stay upright on just two limbs?” asked Lottery 7. “Watching it walk is like watching a hover-delivery crash about to happen, over and over.”

  The two-legged figure seemed to fall forward, then righted itself. Fell forward again. Righted itself.

  “Listen to yourselves …. calling him ‘it’. It’s a person,” said Mantel.

  “I’ve seen men with three legs, but never with two,” said Lottery 7.

  “Three?” asked Fuchsia. “Are you sure?”

  “Yup, obscure sect from the western quarter. Not many left.”

  “Shhhh,” hissed Mantel.

  We leaned back in our chair, and watched the monitors.

  Mantel gasped. “There’s a group of Sixes. They’re … oh … they’re …”

  We stood, four of our eight legs steadying us as we rose.

  The Sixes were carrying clubs. Five clubs. Each of them.

  Our eyes fixed to the airlock. Three steps away. And the two-legged man wasn’t ten meters outside our bunker door.

  Something in us yearned to help. To scuttle out the airlock, snatch him, and haul him inside. To safety. Away from the Sixes and their bloodthirsty beards. But we hadn’t left the bunker in … in months.

  “Three,” said Fuchsia. “We haven’t left in three months at least.”

  Lottery 7 harrumphed. “You and your yearning for the outside. Gonna get us killed.”

  “Put a sock in it, you two,” growled Mantel.

  Our eyes fixed to the silent monitors. The faint thrum of the bunker’s fluorescent tubes and air purifiers was deafening. Silence squeezed between the cracks in the ancient mortar, encasing us.

  “Oh God!” Fuchsia screeched. Our head reverberated with her treble pitch. “He doesn’t have a shield.”

  He crumpled to the ground after the first club hit him. We couldn’t watch it on the monitors a moment longer. We didn’t know who took over then – maybe Mantel – but we grabbed two pulse rifles from the doorway, spun the airlock, and were out the bunker in less time than it took to order a pizza from the hover-company.

  You’d think you’d remember what it’s like on the outside. The humidity. The fine nuclear dust that cakes your nostrils. The wails of rabbis seeing out the Shabbos. The pale edges of the sunset simmering in the toxic dusk. You’d think you’d remember what it’s like to stand on the streets of Mea She’arim. You’d think.

  But every time you step outside that bunker door, the world punches you in the gut. Takes the breath right ou–

  “Stop being so dramatic, Lottery 7. If we don’t get that idiot inside, the Sixes’ll tear him seven ways till Sunday.”

  Each of the Sixes had dropped his clubs, and grabbed a limb of the two-legged man, pulling with all the muscle their six arms could muster. The biped cursed and blasphemed into the thick, evening air. He pleaded and cajoled. Attempted every configuration of words he could think of, muddling syllables this way and that. Anything to get the Sixes to stop.

  “Tourist! I come in peace. Mean no harm. I … I don’t – oh please, no please don’t … Shalom. Shalom. Please, don’t –”

  They travel in packs of six – the Sixes. Each with six arms, and six legs. They dye their beards a carnivorous crimson, and recite the evening prayer in the mornings. Ungodly men, they believe that the Bomb marked the end of days. The –

  “Lottery,” snapped Mantel. “You can read from your bigoted article some other time.”

  Lottery 7 was particularly proud of the fact that he’d written much of the ‘Mea She’arim’ sub-section of the Wikipedia article on ‘Jerusalem’. Commentators regularly requested revisions. “Replete with prejudice,” one commentator complained. “Tactful as a Nazi firing squad,” remarked another. Lottery 7 collected these critiques like badges. Displayed them in glowing yellow boxes on his blog.

  Fuchsia raised two of our arms – the two holding pulse rifles. Aimed their quivering muzzles at the
Sixes standing furthest from the biped.

  “Pull the trigger,” whispered Mantel. “Pull.”

  Fuchsia couldn’t do it.

  “Oh for God’s sake,” said Lottery 7, as he took control of our limbs. Two Sixes vaporized in a cloud of arterial mist. A third lost an arm and two legs to the blast. The stench of burnt hair wafted along the evening breeze.

  The remaining Sixes released the two-legged man. He seemed to lie suspended in the air for just a moment, before he fell to the cobbled street with a sloshy, bony thwunk.

  They turned to face us.

  “You dare disturb the Sabbath,” growled the foremost Six. Flecks of gray and crimson glinted in his beard against the last of the dying sun.

  “Stay where you are,” boomed Mantel through our loudspeaker – the loudspeaker Lottery 7 had ordered from the hover-store, and installed in our left lung just last month. “Never know when it might come in handy,” he’d said when the package had dropped through the ceiling hatch. For a change, his paranoia had proven to be useful.

  The Sixes retreated a step. One of their jet-black boots crunched the biped’s fingers. The man stifled a scream.

  “Give me the blasphemer,” Mantel thundered through the loudspeaker, “and we’ll leave in peace.”

  “Ha! Peace,” yelled the Six who’d lost limbs in the rifle-fire. He cradled his three bleeding stumps.

  One of the Sixes placated the aggrieved underling with a flick of three of his wrists. It was clear this man was their leader. His beard was longer, bushier than the others’. “The Goy entered during the Sabbath,” he rumbled, his voice husky as his religion. “He wears not even a yarmulke. He stumbles on his two paltry twigs, while we pray. Alcohol soaks his breath.” He raised four clenched fists. “His every footstep desecrates the land.”

  “We want him,” said Mantel. “We will deal with him. Give us the blasphemer.”

  The leader regarded our raised pulse rifles. Glanced down at his weaponless hands.

  He sighed.

  We stepped forward, rifles still trained on the group.

  The leader took a step backwards. The other three Sixes did the same.

  “Slowly,” whispered Fuchsia.

  We took another step. They retreated further.

  “Keep those guns steady,” whispered Lottery 7. “Never trust a Six.”

  The biped was limp. Soggy in our hands. Lumpy. Barely conscious, the man groaned when we lifted him over our shoulder.

  “Help me,” he whimpered.

  *

  “Concussion, three broken ribs, a fractured tibia and a nasty cut across his eye,” said Mantel.

  “Ordering extra anti-inflammatories, analgesics, and sedatives” said Lottery 7. “They’ll be delivered in seven minutes.”

  “He’s beautiful,” said Fuchsia.

  “Focus!” yelled Lottery 7.

  “He’ll be fine,” said Mantel. “Relax a touch, Lottery.”

  “Will he really be alright?” asked Fuchsia.

  “Here we go again. What is it with you and lost puppies?” said Lottery 7.

  “Shhhh,” said Mantel. “He’s waking up.”

  The man on the couch groaned. Lifted a hand to the bulge on his forehead. Winced. “Where …” He swallowed. “… where am I?”

  “You’re safe,” said Fuchsia.

  Mantel dabbed his lacerated cheek with anti-bac.

  The biped’s eyes snapped open. He crawled into the recess of the couch at the sight of us. Huddled his knees to his chin. “Don’t hurt me. Shalom. Peace. I mean no –”

  “You’re safe,” said Fuchsia. She touched his knee. The man recoiled.

  “We’re not going to hurt you,” said Mantel.

  “Probably,” said Lottery 7.

  The man’s forehead bunched.

  “Shut up!” said Mantel.

  “Don’t tell me what to do,” said Lottery 7.

  “You’re scaring him,” said Fuchsia.

  He looked at us with confused suspicion. His eyes darted this way and that, searching for an exit from the bunker.

  “It’s okay,” said Fuchsia, replacing our hand on his knee.

  This time the man didn’t flinch. “I … I don’t understand. Who are you talking to?”

  “Ourselves,” said Mantel.

  He squeezed his knees tighter to his chest, then thought better of it. Groaned at the pain in his leg.

  “Lie down,” said Lottery 7. “You’re injured.”

  By degrees, the man unfurled across the couch.

  Fuchsia used two of our hands to untie his shoelaces.

  “You have so many arms,” he said.

  “Thank you. Only seven,” said Mantel. “You should see the Twelves on the other side of Yafo Street.”

  Confusion crept across the man’s battered countenance. “What … what happened?” Tears swelled his eyes. Long, silky beads spilled down his ruddy cheeks.

  Fuchsia clenched our jaw. Handed him a tissue. “Why do you have only two legs?”

  He sniffed. “Uh … two? Everyone has two legs.”

  “Before the Bomb, almost all humans were bipedal. The initial wave of extra limbs is generally attributed to genetic mutations as a result of the radiation fallout over Jerusalem (and an unhealthy dose of interbreeding). With time, the inhabitants of Mea She’arim clustered into more and more grotesque subspecies with similar mutations, each believing their particular genetic abnormality to indicate a holy delineation –”

  “Quiet, Lottery,” said Mantel.

  “What’s your name?” asked Fuchsia.

  “John.”

  “Probably should change that to ‘Yonatan’ so long as you’re in Mea She’arim,” said Lottery 7. “If anyone asks.”

  “Who’s going to ask? We live in a bunker! See anyone else around?” chided Mantel.

  “If you weren’t so suspicious of everything that moved, Lottery, maybe we’d actually have some company in here,” said Fuchsia.

  “Well, if someone were to ask, he should probably –”

  “And your name?” John interrupted.

  We offered him three of our seven hands. “Mantel, Lottery 7, and Fuchsia.” He regarded the three hands – hairy, dry, and manicured. He shook each in turn.

  John jerked as a siren pierced the interior of the bunker.

  “That’ll be the medication delivery,” said Lottery 7.

  “Wait here,” said Mantel.

  “We’ll be back in a moment,” said Fuchsia, winking one of our eyes.

  Lottery 7 sighed. “Could you be any more obvious?”

  “Leave her be,” said Mantel. “She’s only welcoming him. You could learn a thing or two.”

  Lottery 7 grunted. “Welcoming … hmmmph. For the record, I think this rescue was a bad idea. We shouldn’t have brought him inside.”

  “You’re inhuman,” said Fuchsia.

  “Out and proud,” said Lottery 7. “When the Elevens perfect their consciousness upload software, I’ll be first to volunteer. Anything to get out of this head.”

  “It’s done,” said Mantel. “We brought John back. He needed our help. He still does. That’s the end of it.”

  “Yes, Your Highness,” said Lottery 7. And said nothing more. He was too busy coordinating the hover-pharmacy delivery.

  Accepting a package for delivery was a process. At least, it was since Lottery 7 had implemented the security protocols. The deliveryman had to buzz three times on the rooftop; enter the one-time eight-digit code texted to the pharmacy seconds before delivery; undergo an iris scan and fingerprint recognition; and finally, the exasperated deliveryman would drop the package through an air-chute.

  “Don’t you think the procedure’s a little … excessive?” said Fuchsia.

  The hover-companies put up with Lottery 7’s requirements only because we were their best customer.

  “Can never be too careful, what with the Tens developing bio-weapons. If they had their way, anything with fewer than ten legs would be a smudge on
the street.”

  Mantel sighed. “Don’t write that in the wiki update,” he said. “Please, Lottery. Esther, our third cousin, is a Ten. She’s not like that.”

  “Haven’t met her,” said Lottery 7. “We last saw her before my time.”

  With a whoosh of air, the package from the pharmacy clanged into and down the air-chute.

  Lottery 7 typed a series of commands into one of the computer consoles. “Checking for bio-hazards …” An ultraviolet light shone through the glass chute-door.

  “Oh, give the paranoia a rest,” said Mantel, and seized control of an arm before Lottery 7 could do anything about it. He unlocked the chute, and removed the plastic packet.

  “We could all be dead in minutes,” cried Lottery 7. The Tens have modified the latest strain of H1N1 so that –”

  “Shut up already!” said Mantel.

  “Sometimes it feels really crowded in this head,” said Fuchsia.

  Lottery 7 harrumphed.

  “Tell me about it,” said Mantel.

  A groan emanated from the couch.

  *

  The sedatives and analgesics lulled John to sleep while Mantel and Lottery 7 dressed his wounds.

  He sat up two days after he’d arrived. Wide-eyed, John examined the room. We hadn’t had a visitor in months. It was queer, and discomforting, to see the bunker through his eyes. There was the kitchenette, dishes unwashed (drove Lottery 7 nuts). He eyed the computer workstation with its three mouses, monitors, and keyboards. His eyes lingered on the bookshelf in its dusty paginated corner. And our unmade bed, king-size to accommodate our fifteen limbs. How clunky we must have seemed to him. All elbows and knees.

  He tapped on his leg cast.

  “How long have I been asleep?”

  “A while,” said Lottery 7.

  “Almost two days,” said Fuchsia. “How you feeling?”

  We sat beside him on the couch. He withdrew slightly.

  Fuchsia frowned. “We mean you no harm.”

  He rubbed the cast. “Thank you,” he said. “For taking care of me.” He coughed. Grimaced at his broken ribs.

  “More pain-killers?” asked Mantel.

  His eyes rested on the airlock door. “I should go. You’ve been too kind.”

  “It’s not safe outside,” said Fuchsia. “And you shouldn’t walk on that leg.”