by The Behrg
Sir William uncorked a bottle of rum, emptying its remains into his glass. “Cheers!” he said, eyes heavy and red but all smiles.
After a light meal of crackers, salty and wet cheeses, and fresh deli meats, along with several more glasses of “magic juice,” as Sir William called it, he led them up the winding staircase.
Faye caught her breath as she entered the room above. The odd angles and sharp faces of the dome outside came together in an intricate design, its black ceilinged walls reflecting an array of stars like she had never seen before. It was like watching the galaxy form around you.
She spun in a circle, staring up at what could have passed for sky, only hundreds of light years closer.
“It’s amazing,” she uttered.
Donavon moved over to a network of telescopes aimed up through an open slat in the ceiling. “How did you …”
“I’ve always had an affinity for sleeping beneath the stars,” Sir William said, a tinge of sadness to his words.
Beyond the telescopes and computers networked to a globed projector, a mattress lie in the corner almost as an afterthought. One worn dresser and a desk crowded with overturned books, papers and drawings.
“Look here,” Sir William said, using a laser pointer to circle an array of stars displayed on the ceiling. “The constellation Scorpius, the only scorpion you’ll find in these parts. Those three stars in a row form its head, then we follow it down with the curve of its tail here. Proof that our ancestors had imaginations, no? This brighter red star in its center is Antares, fifteen times the size of our sun. Can you imagine? And here, this shiny cluster near its tail almost in the shape of a butterfly? That’s M7, commonly referred to as Ptolemy’s cluster. Astronomers have been staring at these same stars, these exact formations, for centuries. Nothing like the heavens to ground humanity.”
“You built this?” Donavon asked.
“Engineered it, yes, though the benefit of having some money is being able to delegate the physical labor. I’m sure one day you’ll get there, chap.” He clapped Donavon on the shoulder. “If the blinking lights on the ceiling keep you from sleep, this lever here will close the window above.” He pronounced the word ‘leever.’ “There are fans in the corner, I’ll see to some clean sheets. It is a bit drab. I’m afraid I’ve never had a need for more.”
“It’s amazing,” Faye said.
“Where, uh, should we –”
“The bed, of course,” Sir William said. “It’s not often I have a celebrity and a beautiful woman grace my home.”
“You don’t have to …” Faye began.
“Oh, shush, I prefer the couch. Just don’t be surprised if Spree joins you at some point in the night. He loves to spoon.”
Once they settled in, new sheets on the mattress and Sir William shutting the lights out below, Donavon held Faye’s hand as they lay next to each other staring up at the brilliant stars.
After a while, Faye spoke. “It’s just like the rainforest; looking up at all these stars. You don’t realize how big it is until you see it. Makes you feel small but … important. Like your part of something bigger. Connected.”
“I wonder if I could hire whoever built it for him,” Donavon said.
“Stop.” Faye hit him lightly on his chest. “Some things are so beautiful you can’t replicate them.”
“Like you?” he asked.
“That was reaching, even for you.”
He barked out a laugh beside her.
“We are like these stars, though,” she continued. “You put one of us out there in the dark, all alone? You won’t even see our glow. But put us all together and we make the heavens shine. We’re making a difference here. Tomorrow. You’ll see.”
Soon Donavon’s breathing became heavy, his grip relaxing in her hand. Faye finally dozed off, her thoughts flitting like the gaseous streaks of a thousand suns regarding the incredible potential of humanity. For generosity and kindness, even to complete strangers. And also its potential for cruelty and destruction.
Verse XVII.
Dugan watched the monitors scroll from screen to screen, crouched beside a computer terminal. One of the IT tech-heads, a runner by his lean physique and thick calves, navigated at the computer, a scowl on his face.
Oso sat to the tech’s right on a fold-out metal chair, sharpening one of his curved long blades on a whetstone. Dugan still wasn’t sure what the blade was made of, its metal dark and black, almost liquid in appearance. He could almost see the invisible threads where the sheets of metal had been folded into itself, layer upon layer, like a samurai’s sword.
“I’m not finding anything,” the tech said, running one hand through his bed-head hair. “I’d almost have to repurpose the software …”
“We’ve done it before,” Dugan said, blowing a cloud of smoke toward the wiry man. He and the technician had already resolved the issue of the ‘no-smoking’ policy in the control room.
A stream of formulas appeared on a new blue screen, the technician typing away then looking to the second monitor on his left. “The FV-5 is a sedative not a homing device. It’s not meant to track animals but bring ‘em down.”
“You’re wasting my time,” Dugan said with an air of finality. “Can you do this or do I need to get someone more competent?”
The technician’s mouth pulled to the side, a nervous twitch or tic he was probably unaware of. His fingers rattled against the keyboard. “Yeah, I can do it.”
While the majority of the employees here were kept in the dark as to his team’s real research, Dugan’s reputation was such that when he asked, they jumped. Only afterward would they inquire if it was high enough.
Oso slid his long knife onto the tech’s desk, the bleary eyed man pausing only briefly before continuing. Oso pulled the marker from behind his ear, his small notebook open on his lap. When he had finished writing he ripped the sheet free and handed it to Dugan.
Something wrong
“With what?” Dugan asked.
The technician turned around. “What?”
“Not you.” Dugan turned back to Oso. “Not him, right?”
Oso shook his head once.
The tech pulled on the collar of his shirt nervously. Dugan couldn’t blame him.
“You don’t think we should go after him?” Dugan asked.
The lines in Oso’s face crinkled. He wrote:
Not that
Then what? Dugan thought.
If he hadn’t held Oso’s instincts in such high regard it would have been easy to dismiss him out of hand. But experience had made Dugan a believer. At least in trusting the native’s intuition.
It was strange having a mute as his confidante, but Dugan had never known anyone who could understand his thoughts as clearly as the native. Sometimes he even found himself wondering if Oso, like many of the supposed aboriginals, didn’t have some spark of telepathic ability.
Oso began writing, then tore the page out, crumbling it into a ball and tossing it at the waste basket below the desk. His next message he handed to Dugan, his eyes wide, head shaking.
Can’t explain
“Is he still out there?”
Oso nodded. He knew Dugan wasn’t talking about Guayanata.
“He knows we’re looking for him?”
Another nod.
“What kind of animal’d you say it was?” the technician asked.
Dugan watched as the closest monitor revealing a map started diving in, an after image of each screen shot morphing into a closer and closer view. Finally the screen settled, a red crosshairs blinking at its center.
If only you knew how appropriate that was, Dugan thought.
“I had to re-triangulate the coda, capturing an increased expression in isoforms of haptoglobin caused by the serum’s blotting of protein –”
The tech cut off as Oso stood, leaning over him to jot down the coordinates.
“I don’t need to know what happens when I flick a light switch,” Dugan said. “I just need th
e light to turn on.”
Oso’s hair fell into the man’s face, the tech turning slightly while trying not to make it obvious. As Oso finished, he grabbed his knife from the desk, the side of the blade brushing against the tech’s arm. The tech gave an almost imperceptible squeak.
“Wake the others,” Dugan said. “I need to see Morley before we’re off.”
As Oso turned to leave the room, Dugan reached down and grabbed the crumpled paper the native had tossed away, unfolding it as he followed the man out. On the discarded note were written the words:
Maybe a trap
“You know you could at least say thanks,” the technician said. “All the crap we do for you, at your beck and call regardless of the hour … do you even know my name?”
The thud of Dugan’s boots coming to a stop on the tiled floor seemed to quiet even the tower of servers buzzing behind him. Cords and wires floated to the ceiling before snaking invisibly through the rest of the facility.
Dugan turned back, the technician wilting beneath his stare. “Trust me pal, you don’t want me to know your name.”
Verse XVIII.
The prison was more like a horse corral: dank, dark, and eerily deserted. Windows within each cell allowed a drift of light into the long corridor, enough to see you didn’t want to see more. The smell of the place was overpowering, like the mortar between blocks had been crafted from human excrement and re-applied daily. It required all of Faye’s efforts not to turn around and march right back out.
The guard who led them swung a rusty iron gate to the side, opening the way in. She hoped it would remain open on their way out.
Eight cells, four on either side.
More than the hotel rooms in town, Faye realized.
“Oh gawd that’s foul,” Donavon said.
The ground was covered in matted and muddy straw, sticking to their feet as they trod through. Further in, the smell only worsened.
Faye pulled her shirt up to cover her nose and mouth. Ordinarily the act would have made her feel foolish, but this was no ordinary stench.
As the guard passed the second cell on the right, liquid sprayed out as if thrown from a bucket, sloshing between the bars and catching him by surprise. It splattered his uniform, dripping down the side of his face and coat arm.
Donavon extended one arm out in front of Faye protectively. This was new territory for both of them.
The guard turned toward the cell without even a change in countenance. A bubbling laughter spilled from the other side of the bars, rising like a monkey’s chortle, definitely the voice of a woman.
That’s the sound of insanity, Faye thought, wishing there were some moments you could take back, voices you could erase from memory.
It wasn’t the first time that wish had crossed her mind.
The guard spun through his ring of keys, pulling a baton from his belt, then dug the key in to the side door. The gate swung out and he stepped inside, Faye losing sight of him. She closed her eyes at the sound of his club striking flesh again and again, another violation she didn’t want in her head.
Thwack – thwack – thwack.
It continued long after the laughter subsided, the whimpering began, and the howls followed. It continued until whoever was in that cell was incapable of making a noise.
Thwack – thwack.
Donavon held Faye’s arm just below the shoulder; she wasn’t sure when he had grabbed hold of her but was grateful he had.
Minutes past. What felt like days.
When the beating finally stopped, the guard exited. He didn’t even bother closing the gate to the cell, instead nodding for them to follow. He continued as if nothing had happened, moving to the final cell in the back.
Donavon brought his arm around Faye’s waist, keeping her away from the cell. “Don’t look,” he said.
They stepped around the sloshed liquid, Faye once again covering her nose and mouth. No wonder the guard had been so upset. She was sure now those clumps of matted straw sticking to her shoes were not mud.
Despite Donavon’s warning, and her better judgment, she couldn’t keep herself from glancing inside the cell as they passed. The first thing that struck her was how bare it seemed. No toilet, no sink, no mattress or cot, just an overturned bucket and lumpy pile of discolored blankets on the ground. The straw here too was stained with liquid, but not feces; blood.
It was spattered all around the blankets, the woman trying to ward off the blows with a thin layer of cloth. And then Faye’s mouth dropped.
She looked away, her breath catching.
There were no blankets in the cell – that lumpy form, huddled into a misshapen mass of spoiled color, was the prisoner. The only thing that kept her from going to her knees was Donavon at her side. Still, she had to swallow the bile slipping up her throat.
Inside the last cell, three faces stared out at her, all ghostly pale. The big guy, Kenny, looked like he had been crying. The intern was the only one standing, the exhaustion in his eyes a clear sign he hadn’t sat since entering last night. Both Kenny and Grey were hunkered on the floor, Grey’s knees brought up to his chest, both leaning against a filthy and probably disease-ridden wall.
“Hey,” Grey said.
“Hey,” Faye answered, followed by a sharp intake of breath. The guard rattled through his ring of keys.
“Come to join us or we joinin’ you?” Grey asked.
Faye nodded, Donavon catching her inability to speak.
“We’re getting you out,” he said.
“Thank God,” the intern said.
Grey swallowed hard, nodding. “Find a place to stay?”
Faye felt the tears break through the dam, rushing down her cheeks. She wiped at them quickly, callously. “You’re okay?”
“No. This was not okay.”
“Come on, we’re leaving here now.” Donavon extended his hand down, pulling Grey to his feet.
“We going home?” the intern asked, his voice like a child’s, asking his parent for permission.
“Yeah,” Donavon said.
Eventually, Faye thought.
Verse XIX.
“‘In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.’”
Josue repeated the words but in Spanish, switching from the worn King James Bible to the smaller Reina-Valera Spanish translation. He always read from both, hoping to instill a desire to learn English in any who studied with him. Not that there were many who did.
Or any, ordinarily.
A small group of children sat at his feet, their parents watching from a distance in their partitioned four-by-four cubicles made up of stained sheets and faux-marbled floors. Natural disasters and tragedies often had a way of bringing people to God, but the parents of the families who had come to the church for shelter weren’t yet ready to seek a deity who had so recently struck them down. Remmy couldn’t blame them.
One of the children, a girl with light skin and eyes too large for her face, raised her hand before Josue could continue. He called her by name, asking what she wanted. Remmy didn’t understand her response, the Spanish spoken much too fast for his old ears.
Instead of answering, Josue turned to Remmy. “She has a question that I do not know the answer. What was there before the beginning?”
“By definition, the beginning is the start,” Remmy said.
“But did God exist before the beginning? Or how could he have created everything?”
“The scriptures don’t talk about it, neither should we.”
“Did he create the earth from nothing?” Josue asked.
The absolute innocence and faith staring back at him made Remmy want to answer. Even if it was a lie. “I don’t believe God is a magician. But maybe to us, what he does looks like magic. I believe he’s bound by the laws of science, even if we can’t comprehend them. Like the first cavemen. They were in awe over fire, almost worshipping it. It’s science, they just didn’t understand it yet.”
“Were the cavemen after Adam an
d Eve?” Josue asked.
Remmy realized he was opening more doors than he cared to close. “God probably created the earth and the heavens using … materials that were here just … unformed. He fashioned them, so to speak, put them together. Took chaos and put it in order.”
“So chaos existed before the beginning?”
And ever since, Remmy thought.
“Theologians have debated these things for centuries, Josue, but no one knows for sure. Why don’t you use the picture books for the young ones? They’ll understand them better.”
He pushed past the small group, leaving before Josue could ask him another question. Questions to which there were no answers.
In the adjoining classroom where the kitchenette resided, two motherly women were busy at the gas powered stove. A pot of black beans and another of rice. Arepas cooking in a frying pan filled with grease.
The contents weren’t enough to feed half of the mouths in the church and their small storage shelves held little more than what was being used. Funds were almost non-existent; he wouldn’t be able to support this many people for long.
If there was ever a time for miracles, this was it.
Remmy squeezed by the two women, thanking them for their help, then went through the back kitchen door. He closed it behind him with effort, the cut of the oversized door scraping against the bottom frame.
Once outside, he leaned back against the stone wall of the church, sucking in gasps of air. The sun beat down on his face and he closed his eyes against its affront. It was important, on occasion, to recognize that the prison bars around you weren’t there for decoration.
The panic attack finally ran its course, Remmy’s breathing returning to normal. Or at least what amounted to normal when stuck behind a life that wasn’t his.
“God didn’t create heaven and earth, he created heaven and hell. And this …” Remmy flung an arm at the world around him. “This is hell.”
He wiped at the sweat on his face before turning back to the door, jostling it with his shoulder to get it to open.
