by Jon Sauve
THE EVENT
and Other Stories
by Jon Sauve
TABLE OF CONTENTS
STORIES
1. Disco Lights
2. The Stretch
3. The Awakener
4. Happy Birthday Land!
5. The Event
6. Portable Hyperspace
POEMS
1. Interstellar Jump
2. When the Light Turns On
3. In Moonlight
4. I Don’t Exist
5. An Hour Before the End
DISCO LIGHTS
The helicopters are swarming everywhere. The people from the news are all around, waiting, recounting the same information again and again to new viewers as they come; the door will be opened in ten minutes. Nine minutes. Eight, seven, six, five...
The door had been found a week before by a demolition crew working on an old parking garage. It had been set inside the wall, under three or four inches of concrete. The original builders were contacted, the blueprints procured, but as far as anyone knew the door should not be there.
Everyone was prepared to ignore it. Break it down, they said, let’s get on with our jobs. But there were the sounds, and the lights through the crack. Anyone who got within ten feet of the door keeled over in pain. There were headaches, stomach aches. Dental fillings cracked, eyes began to burn, hands trembled.
The door was marked as a health and safety hazard, and a hazmat crew was brought in to deal with it. One of them made it all the way up to the door and actually touched the handle. He woke up in the hospital later, having suffered a mild heart attack, and claimed to have heard voices telling him not to open it.
Open it? How could anyone open it? There was just concrete behind it, wasn’t there?
Someone had the idea of sticking a camera in through the crack below the door, where the lights came from. The camera failed almost immediately. All it managed to capture was a single dark frame, smeared across the middle by a vaguely human form.
After that everyone took a big step back. Word had started to spread about “the door” and people came to see it. Civilians at first, then news agencies. Finally, two days before the door was opened, the government showed up on the scene and barred everyone from entering. For their own good, they said. But they recognized the need of the masses to see what lay beyond the door, and set up live cameras for the “grand opening,” as one reporter put it with a smirk on his face.
What might be behind the door? Nothing, some said. Just some Christmas lights and a set of speakers blasting out weird noises. Maybe some sort of microwave device that messed you up when you got too close. Just a weird prank by the builders, maybe by some disgruntled person who had quit right afterward and disappeared.
The cameras were set up. Four people stood there, ten feet from the door. Medical personnel were on standby, ready for anything.
“If one of us suddenly explodes,” said one of the openers, “cut the cameras, alright?”
They approached the door. At eight feet the woman on the right started to feel it, even through her lead suit. Just a weird sort of feeling, like you get when going through a loop on a roller coaster.
As they got closer they all felt it. Waves of something hitting them. There were the sounds, and the lights, stabbing out from under the door.
“Opening in ten... nine...”
Thus went the countdown, and the openers kept going. Four of them, fighting a sudden and extreme sensation of illness and foreboding. They did their best, and reached the door at the count of two. They lingered for five or six more seconds. Someone reached out tentatively for the handle, then let their hand fall back down.
“I can’t,” he said. “You do it.”
The woman on the right seemed to think he was talking about her. With a spasmodic flick of her hand she grasped the handle, turned it, and pulled.
It was all darkness beyond. The city followed into darkness an hour later. But for several days afterward, there were screams as the last of them died.
They should not have opened the door.
Four days later, a man named Lonnie Howell was crouched at the foot of an escalator in a department store. He was ranging far right now, way too far; his shelter was six blocks away, six long and shadowy blocks. He had to wait here, staring out through the huge windows at the front of the store, and pick his time to run.
The wraiths kept going by. Invisible flying men, who cast a shadow of dancing rainbow lights. That was the only way to see them. Their shadow.
The wraiths went past, flying along the street, lights curving up and over cars and bus stops. They were stalking the dark city, seeking out the final survivors. For all Lonnie knew, he might be the last.
Maybe it would be good to get out of the city. Maybe not. Lonnie had climbed up some of the taller buildings around, getting onto the roofs and looking out. All dark beyond the city, too. Even now, at about eleven in the morning, just darkness. Except for the wraiths.
Lonnie hadn’t seen one for a little while. He’d been timing them. It seemed like one passed by every ten minutes on average. So he would wait for the next one, let it go by, wait a little bit longer, then make a dash for it. It could work; it had worked before.
Here came the lights now, flashing and blinking down the street. Lonnie froze, pulling back a little behind the potted plant he was crouched at. He twitched a little, and the cans in his pack rattled against each other. The wraith kept going. Lonnie counted ten Mississippi, got up, and booked it.
The cans rattled and rattled. They sounded ridiculously loud, especially when he got out onto the street. Lonnie weaved around cars, hopped over downed bicycles, skirted the messy remains of his fellow men. Back to sanctuary. Eventually, they would find him even there, but maybe he could live a bit longer. Maybe he could even think of a plan.
They all screamed when the wraiths got to them. Every last one screamed their heads off, as if that would save them. Lonnie bet the wraiths liked to see fear in their victims, and so he had decided that, whenever they got him, he would clamp his mouth shut and just act all bored. That would teach them.
Actually, no it wouldn’t, but Lonnie wasn’t going to die that other way.
There was a peculiar twilight in the city. Objects were only visible at a distance of ten feet. It helped that Lonnie had sharp reflexes, or else he’d be tripping and falling four times a minute. Plus he had traveled this way a few times, and sort of had a feel for it. Had it really only been four days?
Lonnie let himself go into his thoughts. It was either that or lose his mind with fear, alone like he was on the dark street. He started to imagine what he might eat tonight. He’d found a can of pasta sauce, and he already had a few packages of instant noodles. They were Asian flavor, but he could dispense with the seasoning packets and do a sort of spaghetti instead. There was that little bottle of grape juice, too. He could pretend it was wine. There were liquor stores, but those were farther away than he really dared to go.
Here was the laundromat, and the little restaurant across the street advertising four mini burgers for two dollars, plus a beer or a soft drink for an extra fifty cents. Good deal, Lonnie thought. The landmarks meant he was close to his hideout.
He slowed down a little. The road right up here was almost impassible; a bus had tipped over and a bunch of cars had crashed trying to get around it. Lonnie gripped his pack tight with one hand and, with the other, began to scale the cars. How fast could they have been going to end up all piled on each other like this?
At the top he paused and looked around the street ahead of him. Empty and dark, no screams to indicate another survivor gone and a wraith nearby. Just below was the little staircase leading down t
o a basement video rental place. That was his spot. Home sweet home. He started to climb down.
Weird, he thought. Maybe his eyes were just adjusting, but the street seemed kind of bright now. And maybe a little colorful.
Lonnie froze again. A cold, creeping feeling went up his spine. He looked back slowly, and saw the disco lights coming behind him. The wraith was still a block away, and Lonnie was hidden behind a car. But that didn’t matter. If he was on the street, the wraith would find him.
He had a couple of cars to go down yet, and that was a noisy affair. And also the cans in his pack. Lonnie made a quick decision. Caution and quiet be damned, he was running for it. Speed over stealth.
He stuck out a leg and leapt. The street rushed up out of blackness. He could only really see it a few inches before he hit, and had no way of timing his tuck and roll. And it turned out there was some object there, dark and hidden. His foot hit it and folded over. Pain burst in his ankle. Lonnie tried to stand up but his foot wasn’t having it. The lights were getting brighter. They were halfway down the block, maybe more. Brighter and brighter still. The wraith was swooping lower now. It knew someone was around.
Lonnie dragged himself along, as fast as he possibly could. He reached the stairs and peered down them. Fifteen steps of cold, hard concrete. Screw it. He grabbed hold of the railing and threw himself down. Rolling, crashing, flipping. His knee slammed against one of the supports for the banister, and the back of his head slapped down hard on one of the steps. His hand twisted under his back. He felt a pop and a rush of hot pain in his shoulder, and a throbbing as his hurt ankle jostled around.
Act bored when they got him. That had been his idea. He forgot all about it now. He was seeing stars, unable to tell what way was up. He was already at the bottom of the stairs, but he still felt like he was spinning around. All he saw was disco lights, dancing around him.
He screamed. And that was the end of Lonnie Howell, last man in the city.
THE STRETCH
The Apollonia cut out of its dock approximately 200 hours after the object had been spotted. In the time between then and now, planning and deliberation had ensued. The council aboard Plano Plato Prime would be outside of its jurisdiction in launching a mission to scout the object; they contacted the Growth and Expansion Project for instructions.
It was decided that a small mission would be launched at first, something that could move fast and quickly detect whether the object posed any sort of threat. The Apollonia was the only docked ship in operating condition. Its crew were among the most experienced available.
Leaving the station at Triple P behind, the ship sped forth to meet the object.
Max Valleis, the captain, got on the coms to remind his crew of their job.
“Remember,” he said. “Our first move will be to attempt communication, then we are to identify. Third and final, depending on the outcome of the first two objectives, we are to attempt interception and docking.”
Max turned to his second-in-command, Carlene Fullam, and gave her a nod.
Down at communications, Russ Kallidy and Azaleena Trasidro worked backed to back, getting things ready.
“Frequency?” Leena said. Her eyes, like those of a hawk, swept over to him.
Russ shrugged, swiping sandy brown hair back from his eyes. “Keep it. If anyone’s there, they should pick it up.”
They turned back to their work.
Augie, their mechanical engineer, was coming up the hall, wiping his hands on his pants. He went by without a word, shaking his head. He’d been doing that ever since they left Triple P. Russ shrugged at Leena again, and she bit her lip in that way that was supposed to show frustration; all it really did was make her exotic beauty grow by leaps and bounds.
“You know,” Russ said when Augie had gone, “one day he’s gonna have to say something.”
“I wasn’t thinking about that,” Leena replied.
Russ nodded, double-checking his work.
“What do we know about it?” Carlene asked.
Max rubbed his eyes. “It’s a little under five solar radii from us now.”
Carlene looked out the windscreen, shivering and folding her arms over her chest. “Yeah, farther out from Triple P than we’ve ever been. On this ship, anyway.”
It occurred to her that, since they were headed out in the general direction of Pluto, this was actually the farthest she’d ever gone in her career.
“Captain, what I meant was…” She rubbed her shoulders, feeling cold all of a sudden. “What I meant was, what is it?”
“That information is fully declassified to the crew of this ship,” Max told her. “You know as much as I do, as much as anyone at Triple P or GEP headquarters. Hence the second objective of our mission; identify.”
“Aye, sir.” She said no more, but she was remembering the briefing they’d received from the president of the GEP himself:
“What we have is an object approximately two hundred yards by seventy-five in size. It is mostly flat, with five large protrusions roughly the size of houses, with a smaller bump at one end. It could be the rubble of one of our own ships, destroyed at some point in the past. It could also be something else.”
That something else was what bothered Carlene. Rarely did the GEP speak in anything but absolutes. If it wasn’t a human vessel, or the leftovers of one, it seemed there was only one other thing it could be. She didn’t say so to the captain or the rest of the crew, but she was sure they were thinking the same thing. What if they, a scouting crew from a small research station, happened to be the ones to make the most important discovery in history?
“Get some sleep,” Max said suddenly, making Carlene jump. “When you are needed, you will be woken.”
Carlene nodded. It had been over twenty-four hours without sleep, preparing for the mission. She struck out through the ship for her cot. The Apollonia was small, only thirty yards long, and had been built for speed. There was little in the way of comfort; its crew usually didn’t have to spend longer than five or six hours aboard her at a stretch.
She could hear Leena and Russ working further up. As usual, Augie was nowhere to be seen. She turned into a small room with five cots, each too short and narrow to provide true rest. She had the advantage of being small, her and Augie both. Leena and Russ must have had a problem getting anywhere close to comfortable.
She curled up and tried to get to sleep.
Augie was coming out of the airlock, rubbing his hands together. Times like this, he liked to keep busy. His heart rate was up a little, and it made his toothache hurt more.
There wasn’t much to be done. The Apollonia was in perfect shape; he never let it get in any shape less than that. But it was good to check everything, over and over, just to be sure his standards weren’t slipping.
He went quietly into crew quarters. Carlene looked to be sleeping, though very lightly. She was sprawled out, one arm twisted awkwardly behind her head, her left foot and hand hanging down to the floor. She hadn’t undressed or covered herself.
At communications, Leena and Russ were bouncing nervously on their feet, feeding themselves with rice and vegetables. Augie went by and neither party said anything.
At the rear of the ship, Augie spent at least forty-five minutes checking and rechecking their stores. Everything was as it should be. All levels were normal. He wiped his hands on his pants and went to rest for a while.
Russ felt something hit him in the back, and heard it splat on the floor. He turned and saw the snow pea pod on the steel, in a nest of thick sauce. Leena was grinning at him.
He looked over his shoulder and moved toward her. They set their bowls down and kissed.
Max didn’t often check in with his crew. He didn’t often need to. Carlene was fairly new, but he had been riding with the others on this very same ship for several thousand hours of flight time.
But he had seen Leena and Russ before. They made their exchanges brief, at least when they were on the job. He was sure back at
Triple P they were much less discrete.
He switched the camera view to crew quarters. Carlene was shifting on her cot, and he was sure she wasn’t actually asleep. Augie was there too, sitting on his cot like a bench, his head against the wall and his eyes closed.
Some time passed. Max looked out the screen for a while here and there. Other times he looked around the dash, checking levels and trajectories. Then he switched the camera to rear view, and saw the shape of Neptune growing smaller until it resembled a marble, rolling away into the unimaginable distance.
The Apollonia, the fastest scout vessel in the neighborhood in the GEP’s time of need. They would reach the unknown object within the next hour.
By the time he switched back to the view of communications, Russ and Leena were long done with their little rendezvous. They didn’t appear to be busy, but he knew them well enough to see they were nervous.
Whatever this thing was they had been sent to encounter, Max had a feeling it would change things.
Thirty minutes later, he woke the sleepers over the intercom. Carlene sprang up like she’d overslept her alarm clock, and Augie got to his feet and walked fast into the hall like he’d been waiting on the edge of his seat the whole time.
Leena and Russ were already beaming their communications out.
The object was still not visible. They would cover a lot of distance over the next half hour, and the object was not considerably bigger than their ship.
“Switch frequency,” Russ commanded.
Leena was already doing it.
“Hello,” Russ said into the receiver. “This is the Apollonia, a 9-class scouting vessel from the research facility Plano Plato Prime. If I am being heard, please respond.”
Leena, the well-versed one of the two, sent out the same message in several other languages. Carlene and Augie started moving up the hall, headed to the airlock to prepare for the inevitable encounter.
