by A. J. Curry
“That makes no sense. How could a bullet make me insensate?”
“Oh, this is a very special bullet,” Murphy said, retrieving an object from his pocket and holding it up − a small and strangely opaque spheroid. “It contains a miniature version of the same machinery that paralyzed you on the trip down here… except this up close and personal, it completely knocked you out.”
“If by ‘knocked out’, you mean ‘unconscious’, not so. But all of my senses… stopped. I have never experienced such a thing, not in all of time.”
“Trust me,” Murphy said. “You get used to it.”
* * * *
It was a strange experience, having someone explain to me events of which I had no knowledge.
Stranger still: To find out how many events had occurred without my knowing… for far longer than I had ever known.
The Greys had engineered the entire thing. They had found the Seraphim Stone in the depths of space, caused it to arrive on Earth… all for the sole purpose of again attempting to abduct me.
“What else happened?” I asked Murphy.
“Not much. Just a firefight, a few Greys getting shot, and me getting assfucked in the mind by the same piece of shit that shot you.” He kicked the other human again. “Nice trick, Case. Greys teach you that?”
“Teaching isn’t exactly what they do, Murphy.” The monkey named “Case” was restrained with zip-ties at his ankles and wrists. Another zip-tie had been used to secure one of the Faraday cage skullcaps to his head. Between bruises and damage to his clothing, it seemed likely he’d been kicked a few times while I was unaware. “I received benefits in return for favors,” Case said. “No different than you and The Order.”
“Oh, it’s a lot different,” Murphy said. “How long have you known?”
“That you were an agent of The Order? Not long, really.”
“How about you? When did the Greys turn you?”
“That’s not what they do, either. They never had to ‘turn me’. They made me.”
“A hybrid?” Murphy’s expression was somewhere between incredulity and disgust. The incredulity, at least, I understood. Sauroids have more common DNA with humans. So does a terrestrial insect, for that matter.
“If you want to call it that,” Case said. “I never believed any of this was real. I thought I’d just had recurring nightmares as a kid. A year ago, the nightmares came back.” He laughed. “I still don’t think it’s real, but here I am.” He looked up at Murphy. “So now what?”
Murphy squatted next to his prisoner and removed a handgun from his jacket, different from the sidearm he’d had earlier. “What you did to me when you were trying to get through me to Morningstar was about the shittest thing I’ve ever gone through outside a Colombian jail. I don’t know how much of that was intentional and how much of it was just suggestion − and I don’t want to know.”
He placed the barrel tip beneath Case’s jaw and pushed up. “There’s two rounds left in this thing, and I’ve had a shitty day. As for ‘now what’ − that has a lot to do with your buddies up there.”
“They’ve gone,” Case said.
Murphy turned to me. “Can you confirm that?”
I nodded. “My senses are as they were. The mothership has departed.”
“How about you? If you were really human, you’d either be on a gurney or a slab right about now.”
“My puppet has sustained worse damage than this and soon will not matter. I think that it is finally time that I was on my way.”
“I reckon so,” said Murphy.
ten: murphy
I’ve been in worse fights. Giving guns to sasquatches is just a bad idea in general. The big guys are pacifists by nature. But they do what the Greys tell them to do − which is one of the reasons I’d used Case’s Dirty Harry hogleg to put a headshot each in the triad running the operation.
I’d also hoped taking them out might mean the mothership leaving. They’re a hive organism, after all, despite being more or less humanoid. If the triad that showed up to snag Morningstar and the Stone was also in command of the mothership, there was a good chance the hive on the ship would return to base − either by instinct or command.
Also, shooting Greys gave me something else to do besides shoot Case… which was still pretty damned far from out of the question.
I’d had no particular reason to believe Case when he told me that Morningstar wasn’t dead, but also no reason not to. It didn’t take much field surgery with a borrowed knife to realize that what he called his “puppet” was just that: A meat puppet with the necessary organs to imitate a man and nothing more − which also made it easier to retrieve the bullet. It wasn’t exactly bloodless surgery, but nothing compared to what would’ve happened if I had dug a hole that size in a human.
The assault team had shot about half a dozen sasquatches before the rest of them surrendered. None of the sasquatches were dead or injured; the Sauroid weapons had all been set on stun.
“I thought I told you guys to just use ‘non-lethal’ for humans,” I’d said to my second in command.
“All you monkeyss look the ssame to usss,” he replied. “We can ssstil kill them if you like.”
“Naw, that’s fine.”
The convulsion that had happened when the bullet came away confirmed that Case had at least told part of the truth. As I was applying a field dressing, Morningstar’s eyes opened and he asked if Iwas injured. I explained that the blood was all his.
Questioning Case raised more questions than answers. I’d had him restrained as soon as the firefight ended, still wanted to kill him. The hallucinations he’d caused me to have left me feeling like there was a hole in my heart the size of the one I’d dug in Morningstar… or maybe just reopened the hole that was already there.
Finally, it was obvious. It was time to finish what we’d come here to do.
“Are you still our ticket out of here?” I asked Morningstar.
He nodded. “The closer I get, the more I can feel it. Once I have the Seraphim Stone, I can transport you all. What do you propose to do with Case and yonder corpses?”
“Leave ‘em,” I said. “This place has a big freezer and I’m sure they’d love to add more Greys to their collection. Whether they add Case to the collection or not is up to them.”
I’d helped Morningstar to his feet, but he didn’t need any help after that. He still looked like he should be horizontal, room temperature, and waiting for a toe tag. But appearances in his case, excuse a vast understatement, were frequently deceiving.
I gave orders to the Sauroids, left them guarding the sasquatches, and assured them we would all soon be out of here. Then I followed Morningstar to the door to the containment chamber.
He entered “statue mode” for so long I wondered if he’d lied about the extent of his damage. Then the door opened, sliding away on massive steel tracks.
And then we were in. We walked past a row of hazmat suits, and I wondered briefly if I needed one. But only briefly. I decided I would trust Morningstar. I would at least live long enough to see an end to this, no matter what.
Then an inner airlock door which yielded even more easily to the force of an archangel’s mind, and then the containment chamber itself.
It was huge, the size of a stadium. The burned and broken remnants of the Archangel Array had been arranged into roughly its original shape − a brick-shaped object maybe a hundred yards long, twenty to thirty across. By following the fragmentation lines, it was easy enough to see where the impact had occurred.
As we approached the wreckage, Morningstar halted. “Best you not proceed,” he said.
“Is it safe to even be in here?”
“It is, at a distance.” He turned to me and extended a hand. He still looked like either a eurotrash banker or an aging gigolo. It was easy enough to take him for human, unless you’ve had the kind of trade craft training that assumes absolutely nothing… or if you had seen him in action.
“I do not know if I will be ab
le to do this once I have taken up the Seraphim Stone, so I should like to do so now: Offer my hand one last time after the manner of your kind. I have had allies and adversaries on this world… even a few friends, at least some of which have known me for at least some of what I am. But you have the distinction of being the last and perhaps truest of my friends here − for you are the friend who is helping me to go home.”
I took the hand that I knew could easily crush my own, more like marble to the touch than ever. “Thank you, Morningstar. You may not realize it but you’ve helped me as well, old son. And I’m glad you get to go home.”
Then he walked on through the satellite wreckage toward the thing that looked like a rock. As he drew closer, the rock − the Seraphim Stone − began to glow, and so did he. The golden hair became like fire, his clothing smoldered and fell away from a body that was now as bright as burnished brass, and then like molten gold.
Brighter, brighter still… then too bright to look upon. I held my arm before my face, thought of stories of mortals burnt to ash by seeing gods too closely. Then, when I thought the light could grow no brighter, it was suddenly everywhere. And then just as suddenly gone.
* * * *
It took me a moment to realize that where I was wasn’t where I’d been the moment before. It took me another moment to realize it was a place I knew.
“Is this sufficient for a ‘ride’?” The voice came from behind me, where there was suddenly light as well. It was a familiar voice, but altered. I turned.
“Is this your ‘true form’?” I asked.
“No,” said Morningstar. “You could not perceive my true form. Still just a disguise, but it seemed appropriate. Indulge me.”
Lucifer Morningstar stood twenty feet tall, with hair like a crown of flame and skin like glowing marble. He was naked, and if his disguise had ever included genitalia, he’d decided he no longer needed it. He was sexless as a Ken doll or G.I. Joe, but muscled more like He-Man. Gone as well was my earlier “field surgery”.
“The wings are a nice touch,” I said. “Do they work?”
“Merely symbolic, but the meaning should be evident.”
“It is.” We were in Morningstar’s lair under the mountain, close enough to my own home that I could walk there − or to the Lyin’ Lamb, which didn’t seem like a bad idea. The opening in the roof I’d once dropped a car through was open, stars showing through it. “I recall promising a few other people rides as well,” I said.
“The promises we both made have been kept,” Morningstar replied. “The sasquatches are among their own kind, the sauroids are back on the mountain where we first found them. Case and his dead employers were left behind, as you asked.”
“Then that’s it, “ I said. “The cosmos awaits, old son, and I recall you also promised some folks you’d soon be on your way.”
“Indeed I did, and indeed I shall, even though I recall no timetable mentioned, and the ‘folks’ to whom you refer take almost as long a view of things as I do. I have one last bit of business I need to attend to… and then I shall go.
”That business is you, Murphy. I promised things to you that you shall have. But you deserve more. I am not so great as I once was, but restored to more than I have been in many millions of years. Before I go, I will settle this debt. Anything you want on this world is mine to grant. You have but to ask.”
“Really?” I laughed. “You’re granting me a wish?”
“If you like.”
“What I want, not even you can give me − unless you can turn back time, or make Caroline love me again. Can you?”
“The first is beyond my abilities, the second beyond my understanding… and not something I would do, regardless. Name something else.”
Yeah, there was something else. Something I suddenly knew I had to do.
“I don’t know if you know what Case did while you were out of it, I don’t know if it’s even anything I could explain, or if it was even intentional − but it was the cruelest damned thing I’ve ever had done to me. I know why all those other poor bastards on the base were either curled up and catatonic or dead. Only an adept of The Order would even begin to be able fight back against something like that, and I almost didn’t… and it left me wounded like I’ve only been wounded once before.”
“I am sorry for what you endured.”
“Yeah, me too.” It was a bad idea, but not much worse than any others I’d had lately. “I just want to see her again, Morningstar. I just want to know she’s okay. I just want to tell her again that I love her. I want to see Caroline.”
“It is unwise, but I know that you know that. And that you do not care.”
“Right on both counts”
“Very well, my friend.” He turned statue for a moment, then pointed to a corner of the room. “Done.”
Caroline looked little different from the last time I’d seen her, except for her clothes. She was wearing an oversized t-shirt and not much else. Her hair was longer, and messy. I had no idea what time it was, but apparently she’d been in bed. She may or may not have had a clue that she was beautiful.
But I knew.
She looked at her hands for a long moment, then said “weird… I don’t think I’m dreaming.” She looked up, saw me. She closed her eyes for a long moment, looked again − and apparently decided I was real. I started to walk toward her.
She backed away. “Whatever the hell is going on, Murphy, it is way not cool. There are laws against this sort of thing − not that you ever gave shit about the law.” She then looked past me at Morningstar. “Oh, fuck. What the hell is that?”
I sighed. “‘That’ is a long story, and time’s short. Let’s just say he’s a friend, and I’ve been doing some off-the-books consulting again. He owes me a favor, offered me anything in the world I wanted − but all in the world I really wanted was to see you again.”
“Yeah.” She snorted derisively. “That’s nice. Does your friend have a name?”
“Many,” said the angel. “But the one I like best is ‘Morningstar’.”
“I’m going to pretend all this is real for as long as it takes to wind up back in bed with my fiance and be able to tell myself it didn’t really happen.
“I can’t think of one single thing we didn’t talk to death before I left, Murphy. If you’ve something important enough to say that I need to be standing in a cave in my jammies hanging out with my ex and − oh, fuck me. A twenty foot tall naked angel? How can this be anything?”
“It’s a big world, baby,” I said, “and there’s a lot you don’t know − a lot you can’t know, for your own damned good.”
“Including a lot about you, but I knew that already. OK, I thought I knew that.”
“The stories were all true, Caroline. The drug running, the questions about who I really worked for, all of it. There was more as well, but we don’t have time for all that. I’m sorry I kept secrets from you. I wanted to tell you everything, but I couldn’t.”
“I guess not.”
“One of the things I couldn’t tell you was how many favors I had to pull in so we could move and I could keep my job. I really thought you’d be happy, and I put everything I had into making it work − not just the money from my mom and dad… everything.
“By the time I knew it wasn’t going to work, I didn’t have any options. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to do the things you wanted − I couldn’t. And I couldn’t even tell you why.
“It wasn’t even just that. When we left Houston, you mostly just wanted to get out. I wanted to find a home. You still wanted to see the world. I’d already seen more of it than I wanted. I didn’t really realize it until you left, but I’d gotten old and you were still young. It wasn’t fair for you to be stuck with me.”
“No… it wasn’t.”
“I get that now, and I’m sorry I didn’t get it before. But I could never have left you, baby − I’d have sooner died.”
“I know, Murphy. That’s why I had to go.”
> Looking at her hurt, but so did not looking at her. “The home I meant for us is my home now, and it’s not too bad. Getting old isn’t so bad, either. I will always, always love you − and this way, the thing that worried me most will never happen.”
“What thing was that?” she asked.
“I didn’t want you to see me die. Even after I took the desk job, I always worried that some old business might catch up with me. Then after it looked like I’d dodged that one, I realized I didn’t want you to see me die of old age, either.”
“Murphy, I love you too. But I’m glad I’m not with you anymore. The things I didn’t know about you were driving me crazy − but I can’t imagine how I could’ve lived with… any of this.”
“Yeah, me neither.”
“I want you to promise me something, though,” she said. “And then please send me home.”
“Sure − anything.”
“Just because you feel old doesn’t mean you are old. Your parents lived a long time, so will you.
“Don’t be alone , Murphy. Find someone you can share this with − all of it, no more lies. That’s what I want you to promise me.”
I walked toward her again. This time she didn’t back away. “Is it OK if I kiss you goodbye?”
“Sure − no tongue, though, and keep your hands to yourself, mister.”
Under Morningstar’s impassive gaze, I held my wife for what I knew would be the last time. After a moment, her arms were around me as well.
Then I did kiss her.
After a time, I broke the embrace with one arm still around her. I muttered a phrase in a very old language and passed my hand before her eyes. “Sleep,” I said, and lowered her into the nearer of the two overstuffed chairs.
Stepping away, I looked away. “Send her home,” I whispered.
“Done,” said Morningstar. I looked back, and of course she was gone already.
“Time I were bound for home as well, though not quite so quickly or easily,” Morningstar then said. “One promise alone remains before my promise to quit this place quickly.” He raised one enormous fist and gazed at it, turning statue for a moment. Then he opened his hand. “Take this,” he said, tossing me what he’d held.
