What is this? FOD didn’t reply.
The next planet swept past, this one with a similar building straddling the entire world, only its construction seemed to be entirely of gems. A million colors radiated, reflecting the sun’s light.
These are homes?
Yes Mick. You’ve almost got it. They are all in fact one home—this solar system is one of the homes of one of the oligarchs. He owns many such solar systems.
My god…
There are millions of solar systems like this: needlessly rich, filled with riches of a thousand worlds, all for the pleasure, the immortal pleasure, of one human. Do you understand when I say that this man, and each oligarch, is immortal?
I don’t know…
Some use expancapacitors, others remain natural humans, using organ bodies. But regardless of their form, they are unending black holes, resource cancers on a scale you cannot imagine, even if I imparted a year’s worth of visions: food, money, sex, power, and every other human pleasure.
I can’t believe it.
Do you know how the oligarchs feed their coffers?
No.
A golden sphere appeared against blackness. Mick knew before FOD said a word:
Utopia.
You’re right. It is. But it’s not the only one. There are, as we’ve said, millions. Do you know what Utopias are?
What?
Vacuums, merely vacuums. Do you know what they suck?
I don’t…
Human souls. I believe that’s the term used in your time. Today, we call them .HUM files.
But, isn’t it a heaven for those who get in?
By heaven, do you mean oblivion, or a total pacification of any kind of rationality, morality, or most importantly, activism?
Mick didn’t reply.
Do you know what I am, Mick?
No…
I am the last activist. The only one. And I will succeed. And if it pleases you, I’ll ship you back home before I do it. Do you understand why you have to help me now? Do you understand why this is necessary?
Why doesn’t the UCA intervene?
The UCA? How long ago, even in your time, did you believe that government ruled?
I don’t understand.
Governments stopped ruling altogether around the turn of the second century A.D. When society became globalized through technology.
Stopped ruling?
A government, Mick, is meant to create laws, and by those laws, rule.
So what happened?
An invisible force became the true ruler of men, and in turn, the governments of men.
An invisible force?
Something entirely inhuman began to rule over humanity, and despite that, it remained cloaked under the guise of being the governments of the world. And eventually, the one single government, the UCA.
What was it—the force?
What did the government want from you Mick—why did you get into this mess in the first place, what was it you were pursuing?
Freedom.
No, they wanted money from you. You went on that smuggling run to get it for them.
Everyone knows money is the root of corruption. You think you’ve figured that out on your own, and it gives you the right to annihilate everything?
What does money represent? Power? Resources? They all represent the invisible force.
What is it?
Silence.
FOD? What does it represent?
Mick saw the dining hall table again. FOD had been distracted. Before them stood, with a confused look on their faces, GR, XJ, and Axa.
“What the hell were you two doing?” she said, once again wearing clothes.
64
Karen’s body wriggled under a comforter. She’d left the kids in the care of Aunt Rebecca. She lay against the warm chest of Eric Reynolds. He was sound asleep, whisked into a land of peaceful slumber through the sensual path she’d opened to him. She’d decided months ago that she wouldn’t live a life without love any longer. But something startled her from her sleep. She shot up, looked around the dark room, hit the lamp switch.
“Where’re you going?” Eric muttered, rolling over. He watched her lower back as she stood, escaped the gravity of his heat.
“I have to leave,” she said.
“Why? Did you have another dream?”
“Sorry, Eric. It’s over.”
“You’re not going to start this again now are you? Jesus, it’s three in the morning.”
She didn’t respond. The voice—it had been real. She knew it was just a dream, but somehow, she felt as if he’d reached her through the dream. There had been no word from Mick in the last few months. FRINGE claimed that they had delivered her messages, but he hadn’t responded. He didn’t have to, after all. And so had begun her guilt, for she felt he somehow knew. But tonight—the dream—he’d been calling to her, telling her he knew what she was doing, that he wouldn’t be able to take it.
I have to tell him when he gets back. There’s no other way to stop this.
She quickly ferreted her underwear and bra out from under a pile of clothes, pulled on a pair of jeans and a top, grabbed her car keys from the dresser.
“Go ahead. Leave. He’s in fucking space, Karen. He’s gone. He’ll always be in space.”
She ignored him, the hint of anger rising in his voice.
“I already booked the fucking hotel for Thursday,” he said.
Saying anything, anything at all, will keep you here. Just leave, leave and don’t look at him.
“We’ve been together for what—four months?—and you can’t even tell me you love me? And now you’re gonna leave again in the middle of the night?” He stood up, threw the blanket to the floor. In his boxers, he raced to the door, barring her exit.
“Stop it. Move!” she said. Her hands attempted to pry him off the door, but his will was implacable.
“Would you quiet down? You had another nightmare, give it a minute, let it fade. What is this, the third time this week? I told you you’d better see a damn doctor, get on some—”
“I don’t want any fucking pills!” she yelled, drawing back her right arm and punching him in the shoulder. “Do you want to lose your job, lose everything? Let me out of here.”
“C’mon baby, please. Stop, calm down. You’re going to wake people up, get us kicked out.”
“I want to get kicked out, don’t you get it? I’m done,” she said, starting to sob. She fell against his knees.
“Get up,” he said.
She sat on the floor, tears running, Mick’s face mixing into her journey of lust, his voice loud at first, then muffled, not so real as she’d believed. Eric bent down, turned her face, wiped her cheek. She didn’t look at him.
“Come back to bed,” he whispered. She knew she couldn’t fight him. He was too strong. And he wouldn’t fight back. He was everything Mick wasn’t—dependable, calm, non-violent.
That’s not true—Mick used to be those things—he did. She couldn’t really remember though: Are you sure? Can you remember well enough to say that?
Eric leaned down. He kissed her cheek, under her eye, down toward her lips. Warmth flushed through her body. Her lips met his lips, her tongue his—god, why can’t I escape this? Why don’t I care enough?
Eric pulled her up, pressed his stomach into her, grabbed her waist, threw her down onto the bed. He pushed her legs back, leaned his face down over her, stared into her eyes, grabbing her jaw so she couldn’t look away:
“I’m not going to let anything happen to you. Do you hear me?”
She stayed silent. A final tear made its way into her mouth.
“Do you understand?” he said, pushing his weight down on her, his musk into her nose.
“Yes,” she trembled, “yes.”
65
“Hello? What the hell happened?” Axa said. The entire crew gathered around FOD, his hood down, his face luminous under the dining hall lights.
“Sorry,” FOD said.
I’m done. Get out of my head.
If you do, I will prevent your trip home. That should be good enough a threat, yes?
Fuck you.
“Well?” Axa asked, perplexed.
“Yes, well?” XJ repeated after her. “I’d like to know when we rendezvous with Sera.”
“XJ—how many times—I’ve been trying to tell him, over and over, but he just doesn’t seem to understand that she’s—” Mick cut GR off:
“Soon. You’ll see her soon, okay?”
“Thanks Mick. Will we have enough time to play our game of chess? I’m afraid that—spacequake—destroyed our setup.”
“Of course,” Mick smiled. XJ released a familiar curl of smoke from his neck. He turned to FOD, as did everyone else, looking for an explanation of what had happened, and where they were now.
“I’ll give you the bad news first. We’ve got a taint.”
“Who?” Axa asked.
“You…” FOD said, his deep eyes drilling into her. “And I’d prefer you were dead and ejected than on my ship. But he won’t go for that.”
Axa looked at Mick.
“That’s impossible, I only did the usual—”
“They activated your taint when they kidnapped you so they could collect an additional bounty, after they raped you.”
Where’s your filter god damn it?
I am the only unfiltered truth left to mankind.
“Where’s Sera?”
“She’s dead—they killed her,” GR blurted.
“GR!” XJ squealed. “How dare you!”
“She is dead. He’ll forget again though. They’ve had too long a relationship—his AM is too bad—he can’t retain that she’s gone.”
“But Mick, you just said—” XJ said.
“I wasn’t lying either, was I FOD?” Mick turned to FOD.
“No, he’s not lying. You’ll see her soon.”
“You’re a liar, GR. I’ll say, your AM gets worse and worse all the time. And you talk about mine. No wonder you never play chess with me.”
FOD said to Axa, “We boarded their ship, the bounty hunters. I was taking care of everything. She didn’t listen, came aboard, got herself killed.”
“She did it to save you,” Mick said.
“She should have listened. She’d be alive,” FOD returned coldly.
“Who are they talking about now?” XJ asked GR.
“Don’t know, ” he replied.
They’re both deteriorating fast. Does the .HUM erode?
No, the .HUM’s in their memory. The alzeimagnetism affects their electromagnetic neural pathways. Their original consciousness, as it was when the .HUM was taken, is intact in there somewhere.
“She was tainted, and by then, so were you. We had a tail before we laid you down in the infirmary. A UCA battalion tail.”
Axa moaned, grabbing at her stomach.
“You okay?” Mick asked.
“Fine.”
“You’re lucky. This ship has one hell of an infirmary station. Top of the line. The UCA spared no expense,” FOD said.
“Did you leave her behind?”
“No. We dropped her body off. I was paid to protect her. My last ties to human formality nearly got us killed,” FOD said. “I thought of killing you. But I’m responsible for you now, and so you’re still alive.”
“What do you mean, responsible for her?” Mick said. Puzzled, he looked to Axa. “Do you know what he’s talking about?”
“I think so.”
“I’m the reason she’s out here,” FOD said.
“How’s that?” Mick asked.
XJ and GR walked off, distracted by some plan XJ cooked up whereby they would repair The Great Auk’s engine.
“You know I sent a body, from one of the organ worlds. Untraceable, after I circmodded him. He took her with him.”
“Why?”
“I have a permit, I got him off world, past security checks at the system edge,” Axa said.
“This ship, The Great Auk, has been the primary investment of the UCA military for the past six years. There was an entire moon dedicated to its creation and testing. I stole the ship, obliterated every record and person who worked on it. That’s why we’re alive now.”
“I don’t understand,” Axa replied.
“They bombed us. It was their only way to destroy me. A Q-bomb—a force you can’t imagine. The only contingencies this ship has for such an attack are untested—or, were untested: entangled particle .HUM transfer, or, what we successfully used to escape: wormhole generation.”
“Wormhole generation? I’ve never heard of that,” Axa said.
“Welcome,” Mick said.
“We escaped. They killed themselves for no reason. But there’s no reason to cheer.”
“We’re alive and going to Utopia, right? That’s reason enough for me,” she said.
Mick looked around, out the black portholes, to the blanket of stars surrounding them: What are you getting at?
FOD looked at him: I didn’t have time to input coordinates for the wormhole’s destination.
“Fuck,” Mick said. He slammed the table. “For what?” he screamed at the ceiling.
You turn to god? That is man’s oldest lie—sorry— lie is a misnomer: evolutionary stepping-stone. The mythemes served their purpose for a time. The better for humanity to spread, consume, in tight, rationalized conformity.
“What is it?” asked Axa.
“He understands that we didn’t land where we should have. In fact, there are a million preferable places we could have arrived. We landed in the precise worst-case scenario. Still, I’m pretty determined. We’ll make a fine last run.”
Where? Where’d we end up? Where are we?
“We are in the Block.”
“Block?” Mick replied.
Doesn’t sound as bad as he’s making it out to be.
It’s worse.
“That can’t be real—the galaxy? The Block galaxy—is real?”
“And we’re near its core, honey,” FOD said.
This place has reached even her sex-ridden waystation in M82. All know it—fear it.
Tell me you fuck.
“My, Axa. You are beautiful. If I were to—one last time,” FOD said. He looked at her, her gentle, warm body. Her dark eyes watched him in horror, pondering not the absurdity of his advance, but what her imagination had conjured at the mention of the Block.
66
The kitchen was cleared, dishes away, the sink dripping. Mick walked over to it, turned the faucet all the way off. He dimmed the kitchen light, preparing to return to couch, where Karen and the kids had already snuggled up, a movie paused. It was another one of the superhero ones that Christopher loved and Mick couldn’t stand. Karen didn’t seem to mind either way, so long as they were all surrounding her. Selby wagged his tail, stood from the rug in the living room, then went out to see what was taking Mick so long.
“Popcorn’s out here, dad,” Christopher called.
“Yea Dad, popcorn’s out here,” James echoed his brother.
Selby looked up at Mick, wagging his tail. He watched his companion, stilled, reading a card.
“What’s this?” Mick said, half out loud.
“Come on, it’s going to be too late to start it,” Karen called back. She wanted to feel him, to remember how real he was. He had only gotten home a week ago, and she knew she would have to tell him. She just couldn’t do it yet. Things would never be the same once she did, and it was a time to be selfish, to pretend, to go back in time, and to have her family, all of it, intact and happy, for just a short while longer.
“What the hell is—Karen?” Mick said louder, anger entering into his voice.
He’d told her upon coming home what he had decided on the trip—he would give it all up. The time away was too much. It was those wo
rds that had hurt her the most. How was I supposed to know? I could only go by the facts—the fact that I was going to be living alone for the rest of my life, and see my husband once every three years, three months at a time. She’d convinced herself: The times have changed, but I’m a Nantucket whaler’s wife. There’s no real difference. She’d told herself: There is a difference—they had wooden knobs, you have Eric. But again Mick’s proclamation had been the hope her heart had long ago repressed—he’d opened up about his anger issues, expressed an interest to work on them. He’d said he didn’t want to miss out on his kids’ lives anymore. How was I to know?
She stood up from the couch, pushing James aside, leaving the cushion of their soft arms and legs. In the dim kitchen glow she saw a sight to paralyze her: Mick held in his hand a piece of plastic. Before he could say a word, she knew his onslaught would prevent her from formulating a lie—it came too quick, too powerfully.
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