“Status of Olympus?” Laverne asked.
“All systems are active and on standby,” the computer voice said. “All are tested regularly and any issues repaired.”
“Good,” Laverne said.
“Any crew on board at this point?” Ben asked.
“None of the crew has returned in over seven hundred years planet time,” the ship said.
Laverne nodded. “Please recognize these three new arrivals as official members of the crew.”
“Understood,” the big ship said. “Welcome.”
I think my brain got my body to say “Thank you.”
Patty did the same.
Stan just nodded.
“Olympus,” Laverne said, “Can you give us an image of space outside this ship on the big screen please, aimed sunward?”
So we were on a spaceship? In space.
Good to know.
It sure didn’t feel like I thought space would feel.
A massive image of stars spread out over the screen. Beautiful didn’t begin to describe it. Millions and millions of stars filled that screen.
“Oh, my,” Patty said.
“Please indicate the sun we orbit,” Laverne said.
A line was drawn around one tiny star that looked only slightly brighter than the others. Wow, we were a long, long way out in space if that was the sun.
Laverne turned to the three of us. “We are in an orbit just outside the system where Earth lives. The ship is hidden among debris here and made to look like a small moon on the outside. It is completely shielded.
“Why?” Patty asked a half second before I could. “If you have this ship here, why didn’t you just move on? Or go home. Or whatever?”
“Our home has always been Olympus,” Laverne said, a touch of pride in her voice. “This ship is about the same size as the Earth moon and can hold hundreds of thousands at any given point.”
“Were you born on this ship?” I asked Laverne.
She shook her head. “I was born in a distant galaxy and recruited with my husband to have the honor to be the Chairman of this wonderful ship. Olympus was my home for sixty thousand years before we arrived here through a series of accidents.”
“So Olympus is working?” I asked.
“I am working, Poker Boy,” the ship’s voice said.
“We chose to stay and live on the planet,” Ben said. “At least for a time.”
A time? I had a hunch that forty thousand years was more than the time they had planned to start.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because we found aliens,” Laverne said. “Three different races, actually, all growing and expanding in the same galaxy. Titans, Elves and Dwarves, and Silicon Suckers.”
“Normally,” Ben said, “it was rare to find even one alien race in the billions of worlds in a galaxy. We did not mingle with alien races in any way. We just gave the galaxy a wide pass and moved on. The universe is a very empty place out there. Alien races are very rare and seldom survive, let alone move between stars as the three in this galaxy have done.”
“But this one planet and a dozen others, through complete error and circumstance, we had already seeded with humans in this galaxy,” Laverne said. “Some of our seeder ships got out ahead of us and this galaxy was not well scouted, clearly.”
“Seeder ships?” Patty asked, again a second before my brain could ask the same question.
“That was the Olympus mission,” Laverne said. “To seed human cultures through the different galaxies.”
“So once we discovered the mistake, we decided to stop,” Ben said, “pull in all our ships, and go into hiding here and help the planets with humans survive.”
“And thanks to this team,” Laverne said, indicating me and Patty and Stan, “We are continuing to do that on the last human planet left in this galaxy.”
“What happened to the others?” Stan asked.
“We lost many battles in the war,” Laverne said.
There was no chance in hell I was going to ask more about that.
“Do you see a time when many of you will return to Olympus and move on?” Patty asked.
Laverne nodded. “At some point, in the distant future, we hope to do just that. And with many new crew members.”
Laverne looked at the three of us. “But first we need to keep this planet, this last human world in this galaxy, safe for as long as we can.”
That much I understood.
Saving the world made sense to me. Spaceships on the other hand were another matter altogether.
Laverne turned. “Olympus, would you please ask my husband to join me. We need to check in with Chairman Wade if it has been seven hundred years.”
“I will be glad to, Chairman,” Olympus said.
Laverne turned to me. “Now, we have answered the question as to our origin. But you three will need to keep it to yourselves. Most of the new gods and superheroes do not know of Olympus yet.”
I nodded, completely understanding. “May we visit Olympus again to get a tour, if that would be all right with Olympus?”
“Yes, please,” Patty said.
Stan nodded.
“I would be honored,” Olympus said. “If the Chairman gives permission.”
“They will always have my permission,” Laverne said.
I nodded to Laverne. “Thank you for being honest with us.”
She nodded and a moment later I was sitting next to Patty in the booth in my floating office over Las Vegas.
My half-eaten part of our cheeseburger still actually looked good.
Ben was smiling, staring at all of us.
Stan just shook his head and dug into his remaining fries and cheeseburger. I hoped someday to be that calm and collected about world-shattering news as Stan was.
“Thank you,” I said to Ben.
“For exactly what?” he asked, smiling.
“For answering what seemed to be a silly question with respect.”
“Our history should always be respected,” he said. “Here and on Olympus.”
“There is a lot to learn,” I said.
“We have time,” Ben said, smiling.
I nodded and went back to working on my cheeseburger. Before today I had thought the history here on Earth of the gods and superheroes was complex and a lot to learn. Now I also had thousands of years of Olympus history as well to try to figure out.
I was going to need a lot of years.
More than I could probably imagine at the moment.
A whole lot more.
Lacey Temlin hated her husband. She called him Dead Man. He cheated on her, she watched.
Her plan to kill him seemed perfect.
Lacey needed everything to always be perfect.
Until it became clear they lived in the twisted world of Bryant Street.
A LONG WAY DOWN
A Bryant Street Story
Nude, standing in the center of her kitchen, Lacey Temlin let the lukewarm and slightly bitter taste of her morning coffee settle her nerves. She drank it black, no cream or sugar to mar the desired taste. But now the coffee had sat too long after she had made it. It was the only thing not perfect around her at the moment.
Her modern, light granite kitchen counters shone with a polish she doubted they had when installed. The dark tile floors were like a mirror and every handle on the cabinets had been wiped down at least four times.
Every dish in each cabinet had been washed and put back carefully in perfect order after she had wiped down the insides of each cabinet.
The modern steel appliances didn’t have a fingerprint on them and a person could eat out of the sink it was so clean.
The kitchen smelled like a combination of lemon juice and bleach. She had a hunch the smell was far stronger than she was noticing, considering how many hours she had been using the cleaner.
She eased her shoulders up and down a few times to loosen them and took another sip of her almost-cold coffee. She had made the coffee after her showe
r, then had spent too long in the bathroom working on her brown hair trying to get it perfect. But after three hours of intense cleaning, she had to get herself clean as well.
And perfect.
Everything had to be perfect.
And now, finally, it was.
She turned slowly in the kitchen, studying to see if she had missed any detail at all. She had even climbed up and cleaned off the top of the refrigerator. Any blood drops would be easy to find now.
She let out a deep sigh that seemed to echo in the large, suburban home. She had so loved this house when she and Dead Man had bought it. They had been so happy.
Three bedrooms that they talked about using for future children, a two-car garage where her Mercedes lived beside his Lexus, and a kitchen she always described to friends as perfect.
They had even had the back lawn that looked out over the city below refurbished and put in two swings. She had spent many a summer’s night sitting in that swing staring out at the city.
She had someday hoped her children would use the swings. Now that would never happen.
And last night, she had once again sat in the swing after she discovered his affair.
She had actually walked in on Dead Man and his secretary having sex on his desk in his office after hours. His desk stuff and some papers had scattered everywhere on the floor, making an awful mess, and Dead Man and his secretary had both been so preoccupied, they didn’t notice Lacey peeking in and then filming them for a minute with her phone.
The secretary had blonde hair, much larger breasts than Lacey, and a slight roll of fat around her stomach. How could Dead Man even be interested in such a woman when he had a perfect-bodied wife at home?
Lacey had no idea what had gone wrong with Dead Man’s thinking.
She and Dead Man were both thirty, both successful in real estate, both in love with each other.
Clearly not enough.
The sex had slowly faded to nothing over the last two years, even though she was going to the gym every day to keep fit and trim just for him.
Yesterday, she knew that their ideal marriage in their perfect home was over. Dead Man was sleeping with his secretary and there was no returning to marriage bliss from that.
In fact, in short order, there would be no more marriage. Period.
Perfect had been ruined for good for her.
She knew she could never live without perfect in her life. Perfect had become everything she lived for, actually.
And there was no point in continuing to live without perfect.
She took the half-cup of cold coffee and went down the tiled hall and into their master bedroom. The bed was made exactly, everything in its exact place on the dresser and vanity. She had laid out on the bed the perfect dress for the evening, something with some lace and trim and a nice pattern. Not a going-out-to-dinner dress, but not her exercise clothes either.
When she bought it, Dead Man had said it made her look younger and sexier.
She put it on, not bothering with underwear. The dress would be ruined anyway, so there was no point in also destroying perfectly fine underwear as well.
She then took her coffee cup, still half-full, and went back into their living room. On the inlaid mahogany coffee table in front of the big screen television, she had set up her phone to play Dead Man’s sex scene with his secretary over and over again.
Luckily she hadn’t recorded the sound of the sex. She would never want to hear that again.
She put her coffee cup on the table beside her phone, adjusting it so it looked like she had placed it there naturally. Then she did the unthinkable just a day ago.
She tipped it over, letting the coffee run away from her phone and off the coffee table and onto the tile floor.
At first she wanted to jump up and grab a cloth and clean up the mess. Then she realized that the mess was exactly what she wanted, what she had planned, and she forced herself to calm down.
Perfect.
She had made a perfect mess.
She glanced at the time on the big decorative wall clock over the kitchen.
Any moment now. Dead Man was always punctual coming home at exactly the time he said he would.
And right on time, the sound of the garage door opening rumbled faintly through the house.
She tapped the phone without shutting off the video. She had set the phone to send the film on the screen to Dead Man’s boss and his secretary’s husband and the police.
The message with the video to the police said simply, “He’s going to kill me. I discovered his affair. Hurry.”
And then she had typed in most of the Bryant Street address, but cut off the last few letters to make it seem she had been interrupted. They would find the house easily.
She sat back on the couch, staring ahead at the screen as if she was in shock. She might have been in shock when she saw the scene in his office the first time, but now it just looked disgusting and messy and actually kind of boring.
And she could actually look at it now without seeing large clawed monsters crawling on both of them.
“Lacey,” Dead Man said, the way he always did when he came home and her car was in the garage, “I’m home.”
That had been funny for the first few months. After that it had just grown tiring.
She could hear him come into the living room behind her and then stop.
“Did you clean up your office or did you make her?” Lacey asked.
Dead Man said nothing.
Lacey could feel the thick tension in the air and she kind of liked that. It made her feel alive for the first time in a very long time. Too bad she was about to die.
In the distance she could hear the faint sounds of sirens, more than likely the police coming.
She stood and without looking at Dead Man, walked into her perfectly cleaned kitchen.
She took a long, very sharp carving knife from the knife block on the counter, then turned and said to him, “Might as well cut my heart out.”
“Wouldn’t that make a mess?” he asked, turning and moving toward her.
“Yeah, it would.”
“You hate messes.”
“I hate you more,” she said, her voice calm even though she was having trouble breathing.
“Did you get off standing in the door watching me and Darla?” Dead Man asked. “Or were we covered in monsters?”
She wanted to take the knife and stab him at that moment. It had been slightly exciting, but she would never admit that to him.
She handed him the knife. “Go ahead, make a mess.”
He did exactly as she knew he would do. He took the knife by the handle and then tossed it on the counter. He didn’t put it back where it belonged, he didn’t put it beside the sink to be cleaned later. He just tossed it aside.
What had she ever seen in this man?
“Being a little dramatic here, aren’t you?” Dead Man asked.
She smiled as the sirens outside got louder. “You ruined my life.”
“I think you did that all on your own,” Dead Man said, shaking his head and looking sad. “When you had that affair with the broker and brought home crabs.”
She shuddered. She had forgotten that.
She had never felt clean again after that.
Everything had changed.
Every time she and Dead Man had tried to make love after that, she imagined giant creatures swarming all over him. Twice she had thrown up on him.
And professional help had done no good.
In fact, it was the professionals who suggested that to get past the mistake she had made and the problems she had caused and the images of giant crab-like monsters on people and herself, she needed to keep clean.
Now she kept everything clean.
“So you called the police again?” Dead Man said, shaking his head and looking at her.
She could no longer tell what his expressions meant.
“Again?” she asked, feeling confused.
Dead Man
pointed to the screen in the living room replaying his affair. “Lacey, you know, if you let yourself remember, that’s not me. That’s an old clip you found on the Internet five months ago. You just believe it’s me and my secretary to make yourself feel better.”
She glanced at the screen of the man going at the woman on the desk. Of course that was Dead Man. She had watched him, she had caught him, she had filmed him.
“You want me to have an affair so that everything is even. You said that once. But I only love you. Only you.”
Her perfect plan was falling apart.
“As the doctors told you,” Dead Man said, “you are just trying to blame me for your affair.”
“You ruined our perfect life,” she said, trying to keep her voice level, but she knew she couldn’t hold on much more.
“I have never had an affair,” he said. “You had the affair and ruined our perfect life. You are the one that can’t seem to let go of the fact that you caught crabs and let us move on together. I have forgiven you from day one. Remember? You need to forgive yourself.”
She shook her head violently from side-to-side.
“That’s not true!”
“Of course it’s true, Lacey,” Dead Man said.
Behind them the police knocked and then came in. One was a young man looking puzzled and the other was an older guy by the name of Donny. She knew him from somewhere.
“Lacey having troubles again?” Donny asked, looking genuinely concerned as he came up and stood beside Dead Man.
“More than likely forgot to take her meds again,” Dead Man said.
“The place does smell of cleaning solution,” Donny said, nodding.
Lacey couldn’t believe all this was happening. They were talking about her as if she wasn’t there. Her perfect plan was ruined. They had got to her before she could stab herself and make it look like Dead Man did it.
“I’m sorry, Devin,” Donny said. “What can we do?”
“Just leave me alone!” Lacey shouted.
She bolted for the back door and out into the yard. There she climbed into the swing that looked out over the beautiful lights of the city. The stars were out and there was a full moon.
She made herself take a few deep breaths and gaze out over the perfect view.
Smith's Monthly #31 Page 2
