Black Hull

by Joseph A. Turkot

  “Eric Reynolds? What the hell is Eric’s plastic doing here?” Mick said, his volume elevating, his tone deteriorating.

  She tried hard to sound normal, “Paperwork. He had paperwork for me to sign.” The children already cowered in fright next to Selby, who had retreated. Though their father had been away for several years, they hadn’t forgotten his rage, or the sudden rise of it.

  “Paperwork?” he said.

  “Yea, from the night at Fedeli’s,” she said.

  “Yea?” he said, testing her bait.

  “I told him to come do it here, I couldn’t leave the kids. He left that—I’ve been meaning to call him, I just haven’t remembered.”

  “Christopher,” Mick said, staring out to his son from across the dark room.

  Scared, the boy didn’t respond immediately. The direction of Mick’s increasing anger transferred to his child:

  “Christopher, you answer when I talk to you—do you understand?” Mick shouted.

  “Yes dad.”

  “Was Eric Reynolds at the house?”

  Mick watched Karen’s reaction; she turned immediately to her son.

  “Don’t fucking lie to me Christopher. Turn around Karen, what’s the matter?” he went on, stepping forward.

  “I don’t remember,” Christopher sobbed. His mother had given him enough of a look to let him know in an instant: lie for me. He had interpreted it as lie, or else Dad will hurt us, maybe kill us.

  “What do you mean you don’t know?” he said, an urge rising in him to take his son and lift him up by the neck. He refrained—he wouldn’t start his home stretch off that way. He’d never really hit his kids—nothing he couldn’t justify.

  “Was he here or not?” Mick said, softer, lowering his tone. Karen knew the edge in it though—it was as dangerous, if not more, than his roar.

  “I don’t think so,” Christopher said. “He might have been.”

  “Go to your room, get to your god damn room. Both of you.”

  “I didn’t do anything,” cried James. He moved his small body away from the dog.

  “You’re going to cry now?” Mick charged.

  “Mommy!” screamed James.

  “I’ll give you something to cry about,” Mick said. Karen stopped him by the shoulder.

  “Are you lying to me?” he said, pausing, looking into her soul.

  “No, no, no,” she moaned. “You’re imagining it.”

  “I’m not imagining this,” he said, throwing the card to the floor.

  The kids raced up the stairs, the joy of their movie, their family time, forgotten. The wholeness, the security, the resumed strength of the Comptons as a solitary unit shattered in as much time as it took for their father to discover the evidence of their mother’s infidelity. Darkness filled their minds, hopelessness. The end of all things had come into their home, and it was eating their father alive. They couldn’t explain why, but they could understand the fear—the fear lit their muscles and brains. Atop the stairs they listened:

  “You stay right here, you know why?” Mick said.

  “Please Mick, calm down,” she pleaded, managing to stop her tears.

  “Sit down in the chair,” he pointed.

  “What are you going to do?” she asked, wiping her mouth.

  “Sit the fuck down!” he yelled.

  He grabbed her arm tight, without caution or concern, and throttled her down into the chair.

  “I’m calling Eric. He better, and I mean he better have the same story,” Mick said.

  “It’s eleven o’clock Mick,” Karen said.

  “I don’t give a shit if it’s three in the morning. I’m calling now.”

  Karen tried to decide how to handle it: should she arm herself? Pick up a kitchen knife while he dialed? No—she brought this on herself. She could save the children. Maybe he wouldn’t pick up?

  Mick dialed. She could hear the muted ringing. Riiing. Riiing. Riiing. Riiing. Riiing.

  “Hello?”

  “Eric, Karen told me she had to clear some things up with you about Fedeli’s,” Mick said.

  “Mick, hey. Yea, a while back we did that.”

  “Oh really? A while back? When was it?” Mick said, trying to keep his tone in check. He turned, glaring at Karen, his fists balled.

  “Oh, I don’t remember man. After you left. After it happened. What’s going on?”

  “I was just concerned about you coming over my house after I left. I mean, you wouldn’t do something like that, would you? Coming over to sign some papers?” Mick said.

  “No, of course not Mick. She came to the office, always out here. It’s business, you know. We’re best friends Mick. Mick?” said Eric, but the line had gone dead.

  The boys’ bodies rattled, the dog’s ears shot up in alarm, as a phone exploded in the kitchen below, shattering in a million pieces. They heard shards of plastimetal sliding, tracked their individual movements across the floor. Heard paintings shatter, smash, and fall down from the walls. Why? Why does this have to happen? Why does he have to destroy everything, why does he have to ruin everything, why does he have to hurt us, when he says he’ll do anything for us? That he loves us? Christopher could only spew questions—the darkness forbade any form of answer.

  “He’s dead,” Mick said, grabbing his Mustang keys.

  “It was a mistake Mick,” Karen pleaded, crying again.

  “I don’t give a damn,” Mick said.

  “Well you should—you’re frightening your sons,” Karen replied, summoning her last strength to stand up against her powerful husband.

  “This guy has been in our fucking house Karen!”

  “I know that, but you can’t go after him.”

  “I’m done with this—I’m taking care of this myself.”

  “Don’t go Mick!” Karen sobbed. Her voice trembled.

  “Get the god damn kids to bed. Stop crying. It’s always more of the same with you. He comes into my house? I’m gonna snap his fucking neck.”

  67

  “Who’s there?” Eric said, groggy. “Hello?”

  “Open the door,” Mick said.

  “Mick? Is everything okay?”

  Eric’s phone buzzed. Someone was calling. He glanced at the clock: it was nearly midnight.

  “Hold on one second Mick,” he said. “Hello?”

  “Eric, he’s coming, I had to tell you, I don’t know what he’ll do,” Karen said.

  The door broke down, Mick stood over its splintered frame. Eric dropped the phone and stared at the wildest face he had ever seen. Dark, bearded, and mad, Mick ran at him. Eric backed up, half-awake. He tripped over a bar stool and banged his head.

  “Did you fuck my wife?” Mick said, dropping his body onto Eric. Eric reached to his side, Mick slammed down. “Going to pull a gun on me? Your best friend?”

  “Mick—you have to understand—we have to talk this through.”

  “That’s a yes?”

  Mick didn’t allow a response. He lifted Eric up by his throat, twisted, then slammed his body through the glass coffee table. Long after Eric’s heart stopped beating, Mick pounded his fists into his face, until the blood running over his fingers was equally mixed with his own sweat and tears. Lights flashed through the broken door behind—red and blue. Traditional UCA law enforcement colors. He collapsed. Is this the meaning of my existence? Torture? The voice of Eric Reynolds father replied: You torture yourself Mick. I gave you a choice. You had a shot, and you didn’t take it.

  68

  The The Great Auk sped toward a black obelisk that filled the horizon.

  “Pull it up yourself Mick,” FOD instructed, walking to the cockpit. He strapped himself in and kicked The Greak Auk into gear. Mick pulled himself to the nearest wall terminal, swiped his fingers. Axa huddled behind him, watching.

  The entry appeared:

  THE BLOCK ZONE: The Block zone, or Vital Extraction Center, consists of a series of detention centers used for the collection of organic matter essentia
l to the creation of human life and health. The UCA initiated the construction of the Vital Extraction Center under the Genetic Betterment branch of its Fundamental Math and Sciences Association (This sentence has been flagged as insubstantial and opinionated, and should be researched further). The block is known as the foremost wonder of the M82 galaxy, and the universe, as it consumes a space equivalent to that of seventy-five solar systems (This sentence has been flagged as insubstantial and opinionated, and should be researched further). Originally the size of a moon in 3740, the year of its creation, the venture soon increased profitability by ten-thousand times its original worth, and expanded in an exponential fashion, supplemented by numerous private corporate entities (This sentence has been flagged as insubstantial and opinionated, and should be researched further).

  Some terrorist sects, namely the Force of Darkness, have compared the Block zone to “ultimate form of torture,” citing its extraction methods as “evil incarnate.” Despite the misinformation spread by the Force of Darkness, the contiguous stretch of the block zone continues to grow.

  Mick backed away from the screen, sped toward the cabin. In the cockpit viewscreen was the obelisk, crawling from one side of visible space to the other, no way around its mass.

  “What is it?”

  “Didn’t you read?”

  “Yea, it’s all bullshit. What is it really?”

  “Do you know what the best source of organic molecular compounds most directly suitable for humans is?”

  Fill me in…

  “Humans. Do you know how to make it more effective?”

  “How?”

  “Keep them alive, thinking, emotionally charged. Develop an entire branch of military devoted to gathering more raw resources.”

  “But this thing, its endless,” Mick said, staring again at the incomprehensible, unlit form that blocked out all starlight.

  “It’s the all-purpose human depot. Human anything, at the cheapest prices. If you’re poor, and can’t afford an organ body dedicated to you, made exactly from your own genes, then you’ll always be able to shop here.”

  “My god,” Axa said.

  “Eyes, skin, brain, slaves, torture victims, whatever your delight is.”

  “How is this allowed?”

  “This? Do you mean how is the most profitable factory in the known history of the universe allowed to thrive? Do you have to ask that, Mick?”

  “It’s the—”

  “The human factory farm. And we’re riding in with a taint.”

  “Can’t we get around?”

  “Nope. We can’t do anything. They’re pulling us in. Directional gravity.”

  “No!” Axa cried.

  “They’ll be on us in a minute, maybe ten.”

  FOD stood up from his cockpit chair. He looked at Mick with tired eyes. He’d been fighting the corruption for too long. A fatigue, inexorable, intonated in his voice:

  “You’re the only one who can leave. Through the entangled particle transfer.”

  “Use the damn wormhole generator,” Mick said.

  “Hah!” FOD said. He walked out of the cabin as two blips appeared on the radar. “It’s gone. One time use. Requires a fuel cell that never had more than one production run. Do you know what they’re going to do to us if we transfer—me and her?”

  “But you’re not tainted,” Mick argued, trailing him out of the room as more blips filled the radar screen.

  “I know, but it doesn’t matter. They know the contingencies now. Every .HUM with a plant that we transfer—tainted or not—will be scanned, scrutinized, mapped. They’ll take every last bit of me, and then they’ll wipe me. They’ll torture me first. And her,” he said, looking to Axa, whose starving eyes teared.

  “So what then? I transfer and what?”

  “You go unnoticed for a little longer, an unidentifiable .HUM file, no plant signature. You’ll be like a million other files on their system.”

  “What the hell can I do as a .HUM?”

  “Hope that you go unnoticed long enough to transfer into a body.”

  “You want me to disappear, and hope I reappear in some other body?” he repeated.

  “Unless you want to go in there,” FOD said, turning to the cockpit window and the colossal Block. “You have to trust me. I planned for this.”

  “What about us?” Axa asked.

  “We die before they get to us.”

  Axa turned and left the room. Mick heard her sobs, but could do nothing to prevent or console them.

  “Can’t we fight them?”

  “There’s nothing Mick—nothing at all that we can do.”

  “What about XJ and GR? I promised I’d take them to Utopia for Sera.”

  “That’s a pipe-dream, nothing more. It means nothing. And it can’t be done now.”

  “Well what good are you then, with all your fancy words and ships, what the hell good are you?” Mick cursed into his stony eyes. FOD reached back and pulled his hood over his head.

  “Now I need you to promise me something,” he said.

  Mick backed up, braced himself against the wall, felt the ancient swell of rage burning in his chest. The undeniable impossibility of his hope had been fragile, easy to destroy. Somehow he’d kept it alive. Now it had shattered irreparably.

  Karen, I’m not going to make it. I’m not coming home after all. I have to tell you something, so that you can hear me. I need you to know, I wanted more than anything in the world to start over. To live open, honest. To communicate. To grow, to love, to share our dreams. To better myself, using my past as my teacher. It took me too long. I was blinded by ambition, my drive…I know now what matters most, and it is too late. I cannot right the wrongs. I cannot forgive you, and you cannot forgive me. But through the span of space and time, I need you to know—I love you. Christopher, I love you. James, I love you. Selby, I love you. Goodbye.

  69

  Karen awoke with a start, checked her wallscreen for the latest FRINGE news—nothing.

  Mick had disappeared weeks ago, without a trace. Some said he’d gone on a smuggling run to raise money to buy out the judge. Others said he’d split altogether to live on some fringe colony, totally forget his life back home. Karen refused to believe he would abandon them for good. Something told her they would somehow be together, that somehow everything would right itself. Despite the evidence, and all signs pointing to the truth that he’d left, hope held out. He’d escaped from prison, that much was certain. The last they’d talked, through the bars of the UCA penitentiary, he’d been a picture of emptiness—a blank stare his only expression. It was as if he couldn’t grasp what he’d done, what she’d done, what had become of his once beautiful life. His hopes, dreams, spirit, had been gone. She’d tried—she’d said that he shouldn’t beat himself up. That it was her fault. That it was the rewiring, and that with the right appeal, he’d get off. He hadn’t bought it.

  She laid her head back down on the pillow and stared at the clock. Four thirty in the morning. The endless insomnia. But something happened—she fell asleep. It was the first time in nearly a month. And then it came.

  She looked down. Against her skin was the silken fall of her golden dress, the one she’d worn the night she first met Mick. She was standing in a hall of dancers, under elegant light, stirring with optimism. There was the scent of flowers, the glow of candles adorning the walls, the sound of chamber music pouring through each soul.

  There in the crowd before her, the mass of entwined arms, splitting through them, came a dark, handsome man. At first the face was blurred, unrecognizable. Then, in the next instant, it was Mick: his eyes full of vigor, hope, luster. He opened his mouth but did not speak; instead he leant in, breathed against her neck, rubbed his nose along it, and took her hand. Silently, neither of them able to speak, they waltzed into the center of the dance hall. All the others vanished. The lights diminished, and after the gold candles disappeared there was nothing but blackness. And then stars appeared, filling the ceiling,
popping into focus one at a time, then in clusters. The music carried on but there were no longer any players, no longer anyone else. She felt his tight muscles, the pull of his arm, the strength of his back. He moved in close and kissed her. She closed her eyes, just to be sure it was all real, and then reopened them. When she did, he stood still before her, the same as before, smiling now.

  “I want you to know something,” he said to her.

  “We’ve just met—what could you have to tell me?” she replied, unaware of the future they shared.

  “That I love you,” he said.

  “But we—” she said again, but then it clicked: she remembered who he was: she saw their wedding, the lines of her white gown and the cheering children; the pastoral scene behind them, and in front an orange sun setting over waves. She saw the birth of their children, each one, beautiful, faces that flashed in her mind. The scars materialized—she realized, staring at this man, what he would put her through. She heard the screams, the pounding fist, the shattering plates. She closed her eyes. It doesn’t matter, does it? Or should I run? Run, run! Something inside her begged for her to run from him—to depart, to prevent his spell, to find a different future.

  You cannot run. There is no choice. He is your soul mate. Each part of him. He has already given it to you.

  She opened her eyes and Mick was gone, but she still danced, and someone still held her close, but more tightly than ever before. She spied the shaggy haired boy before her, his chin whiskerless, his smile more goofy than ever, but as recognizable as ever: it was still him, he was a child. Looking down, her dress was gone, and she wore the old blue frock given to her by her aunt that she’d been forced to wear to school once a week. She hated it. She was ten years old, and so was he.