Skyquakers

by Conway, A. J.

  Alright, no physical contact. I can live with that.

  Psycho left the hospital ward closely behind the escort. He was armed, he noticed: there was a bulky item with a gun turret strapped to his back. The weapon appeared to be made of glass or crystal. It made him feel uneasy as they stood side by side in the awkward silence of an elevator, but months later he came to realise how much these giants feared humans for both their irrational volatility and as an impressive biological hazard to their health.

  The short trip up to Engineer’s quarters was physically exhausting due to the change in oxygen pressure aboard the cloud. He felt as if he was breathing the high-altitude air of the Himalayas, and by the time he and the escort made it to the doors of Engineer’s study, Psycho felt as if he would pass out. He tried to stay strong, but when he began to see black spots he called out for help. The escort would not touch him, but Engineer, as fearless and as magnificent as ever, came to him and scooped up his frail body in his long arms. Psycho was carried the rest of the way in. Engineer put him to bed in a small corner, wrapped up in blankets and with a toy from his childhood: a plastic fire truck. He waved his hand and mumbled through his headscarf in fractured English, ‘Ze air.’

  ‘I’m fine.’ He tried to sit up.

  Engineer pushed him back down. ‘Lie here now.’ He left to return to his work.

  Psycho wanted say something, but the exhaustion took hold and soon he was asleep again.

  SHIP

  Psycho was quickly immersed in the wonders of the ‘cloud’, or the ‘motherfucking alien spaceship’, as he’d rather call it. It was like a fully-operating miniature city, completely enclosed and hovering several kilometres above the Earth’s surface. During the first few weeks spent by Engineer’s side, he came to understand how things operated. The ship was nuclear: radioactive materials had been brought with them from their former world, stored in vats of water the size of Olympic swimming pools. The core generator was a highly volatile and epic piece of machinery, and the cracks of ‘thunder’ were caused by the engines working at high pressures. Their fissionable material was far better utilised than what was achievable with elements on Earth, so it was long-lasting but not infinite. The water vapour created by the chamber was expelled as exhaust, forming the clouds which concealed the ship’s underside. Mirrors and stealthy technology helped strengthen the mirage, and several other unknown pieces of alien junk had kept satellite radars at bay and allowed them to hover unseen over the planet for what Psycho suspected must have been upwards of twenty years.

  The fuel powered the storm, but air pressure and sunlight also played a part in their ability to keep a machine the size of a super cell afloat: hot, humid airs pushed them up and cold air pushed them down. In order to remain balanced, the ship was always moving, following the atmospheric currents as they curled and spiralled around the country. Sailing on air lessened their fuel expenditure.

  The beams were also nuclear powered, although how they worked was a science well beyond Psycho. He had only once seen where they were operated. Should one journey to the lowest levels of the ship, beneath its nuclear compartments, its plumbing, right down to the very hull, one would come across the underside of the cloud to find a colossal hole there. A circular pit, perhaps more than fifty metres in diameter, revealed a 30,000-foot fall down to Earth. A metal ring following the circumference of the hole was connected directly to the nuclear engine and heated up so incredibly hot that it shone a purplish-pink when activated, and thus the beams were generated into existence. Standing before this epic cavity in the underside of the floating ship, clinging to a railing which encircled it from above, Psycho felt as if he was standing over a gigantic fan: the outside air was gushing in with hurricane-strength winds. He would not want to get any closer, in fear of tripping and plummeting unsuspended to Earth. Obviously, this was the only room entirely oxygenated, meaning Engineer had to wear a gas mask to walk through here.

  The beams operated both up and down; the lever which directed the flow of power was fairly standard and the whole system was less complex than operating an excavator. Its ability to vaporise organic matter and transport it aboard, or to other ships nearby, was an arm of physics mankind was yet to practice, although Engineer admitted it was fairly new for them too. In fact, many aspects of their journey and their coming to Earth had been entirely trial-and-error, and it was only once this technology was tested on the various species of the new world that they found it could not penetrate water, along with some other manmade physical barriers. Psycho pointed out the obvious flaw then: there must still be several species unaccounted for, and many humans, for whatever reason, who were momentarily underwater or concealed at the time could still be roaming about down there. Engineer agreed that it was a frustrating issue he was attempting to solve.

  All up, twelve thousand operated one ship. Twelve thousand. There used to be eighteen, he had heard from another human once over casual conversation. Nearly a third had died already during the journey alone. Excessive numbers were needed to keep the ship’s population from diminishing; this whole operation required them to think several generations ahead.

  ‘It won’t even be their generation who finish it,’ one said. ‘It’ll be their children, or their grandchildren.’

  Engineer was part of the first generation, making him one of the oldest and most senior operators on board. His role was just as Vet had described: he was the builder of the new world, their new world. What this entailed precisely was kept from Psycho. In fact, Psycho’s role on this ship was vague. Nothing was ever made formally clear to him or the others about their purpose here, or the purpose of anything, really, while aboard the storm cloud. He was disappointed, in all honesty, to be woken on a floating platform of intergalactic travellers and be given little more than a thorough clean and a brief introduction to an old friend. While Psycho wanted nothing more than to be with his teacher, his Baba, he was also a pilgrim of truth. Now, standing before the Mecca of his lifelong pursuit, he still failed to see why he was here; why he, amongst seven billion other candidates, were chosen, and what they would all be rewarded with for their loyalty and faith. He had spent so much of his life trying to decode the visions of his childhood, but after more than a decade of waiting he was still met with silence and omission.

  Questioning Engineer about any of this was futile and resulted in scornful stares, enraged rants, or occasionally the sharp sting of his hand. Although he was sure the love was there, Engineer was not one for softness, especially in public. Outside his quarters, Psycho’s place was behind him, out of sight, silent, obedient. He never asked Psycho to do anything in particular: he was not a slave or a butler or a secretary to him; he was just there, always in his presence. He was expected to follow Engineer around the ship, sit in on his meetings, and to be quiet while he worked. Psycho attended many meetings a day with a variety of poncho-draped giants in large corporate rooms. He was never greeted or addressed by anyone while he was there, nor were the other transitioned humans in suits who accompanied their Babas, and so all he could do was listen and learn. Language-wise, he was picking up more and more everyday. The speed at which they conversed was often mind-boggling, but gradually the content of these meetings became easier to understand, and thus more interesting. While the other transitioned humans remained zombified and blank-faced where they stood, Psycho was paying careful attention and taking mental notes. ‘The Planet’ was the only topic they ever spoke of, either amongst themselves or with correspondents on large digital screens. It was a slow process, reconstructing an entire planet for a new ecosystem, but they were working desperately to meet a deadline. This only became apparent to Psycho when he walked into Engineer’s study one day and saw a 3D hologram on his desk of two enormous rotating spheres, hovering side by side, similar in size, but different in nature. While one was a familiar blue-green, the other was a brown-red wasteland.

  ‘Is that your planet?’ he asked.

  Engineer turned the holograms off
and both spheres disappeared. He ordered him to leave him alone. Psycho insisted on knowing, but the moment he stepped closer, Engineer lurched up from his chair and towered over him with the twitchy glint of impatience in his eyes. Knowing he was inches away from a more physical response, he backed away submissively.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  ‘Go over there.’

  He went and sat in the corner.

  Vet was more helpful on the matter. He told Psycho the whole story during a routine health check, giving him the first answer to one of many obvious questions: why were they here?

  Vet responded with a question of his own: how do you keep a planet from running dry? Psycho wasn’t sure if this was literal or rhetorical, so he just shrugged. Whatever the answer was, they didn’t have it. Their planet was a dead rock now, left to rot by desertification and overpowering heat which dried everything up too quickly to replace. Most of their kind had starved to death and nearly all forms of edible plants and animals were gone. They would be extinct by the end of the century, so extreme measures had to be taken.

  Psycho wanted to tell a story.

  ‘So, there was this guy, thousands of years ago, named Noah. He was told a flood was coming which would destroy every living thing on the planet, so he built an ark – a giant ship which floats on water. Then he stored two of every animal on board, so that he could use them to repopulate everything. The flood came, everything died, and then it all started again.’

  As a scientist, Vet began to point out many obvious genetic and biological flaws in that concept. Psycho stopped him. ‘It’s only a story. But that’s what this is, isn’t it? This is an ark. You’re Noah.’

  Sort of, but not quite, Vet told him. He asked if Engineer had showed him the beams. He responded yes, so Vet elaborated:

  This planet was their last hope for survival. In order to make it a liveable place for the remainder of their species, it had to be wiped clean first. The beams had evaporated all animal life within their reach. This meant almost every bird, horse, reptile, sheep, dog, frog, mouse, and Sumatran tiger sucked up by the beams was being housed on this ship and many others like it. Some things didn’t make it: fish, plankton, lake-dwelling hippos, whales, as well as small insects and spiders and anything too deep underground which was not reachable, but the vast majority of animals on Earth now floated in the sky.

  And most of it was instantly culled. Psycho was taken aback by this truth. He had not been told this, nor had he overhead it in any of the meetings he had attended. Vet looked remorseful. He said he should not be telling a native all this, in case it upset him. Psycho was more curious than upset and asked why.

  Vet was in charge of all the specimens, both from his own planet and from Psycho’s. He would have loved to keep them all, but it was not practical and there was just not that much room available. More than half of every species had been incinerated within the first few days. Rare species were kept. Others were only kept in their hundred-thousands. Psycho asked about the human population, but he refused to comment. He wanted to see them. Vet was hesitant towards such a bold demand. He kept saying it would just upset him, but Psycho promised it wouldn’t.

  Vet knew it was an enormous breach in policy and secrecy, but he liked Psycho. He had many conversations with him and they had shared a lot of knowledge over these past weeks. He also pitied the natives; he saw his own kind be quick with them, raise their voices at them, even strike them if they clumsily dropped something precious or did something incorrect. Psycho pleaded and pleaded to see the specimens and promised he’d never tell, never ask for anything again. Defeated, Vet finally agreed, perhaps again in pity.

  He looked around him at the dark warehouse, at the hundreds of thousands of glass pods stacked up and down the walls, each being fed through tubes and swimming in brown water.

  ‘He took me here,’ he said, ‘and, sure enough, I eventually found you.’

  Lara was still awfully confused and frightened.

  ‘And this was ages ago? Why didn’t you free me?’

  ‘I couldn’t. I can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Psycho was hesitant to answer. He said solemnly, ‘I just… I can’t betray them, Lo.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Them.’

  Lara couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She pounded on the glass again with her fists, making a dull echo.

  ‘Get me the hell out of here! What is wrong with you?’

  ‘I can’t let them fail,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen what they’re trying to do. I’ve helped them achieve so much. My loyalty is with Engineer now.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ve followed him closely over these past months. I’ve sat with him, spoken about the universe with him. I’ve watched him lay down his plans, and I’ve helped too. I’ve seen his marvellous creations come to life with my own eyes, and it’s beautiful. At first, yeah, we were almost strangers to one another, and to him I was just a little puppy programmed to follow at his heel, but I have roles now. I’ve helped Engineer in his construction of the new world and I’ve helped take care of some of the hiccups. We’re all doing this together.’

  Lara narrowed her eyes on him. ‘You’re… helping them? They destroyed our planet and you’re helping them?’

  ‘No, it’s not destroyed, not at all. I’ve seen it, it’s all fine. As long as his plans aren’t interrupted by… well…’

  ‘What, Psycho, what?’

  He ran his hands down his face. ‘Look, others just don’t understand the bigger picture like I do. People think they’re invaders, like they’re here to blow up the place and enslave us all, but it’s not like that! No matter how they approach it though, humans are always going to be aggressive towards them. Our aversion to change, this obsession with conservatism, and the egocentric idea that we are all there is and ever shall be, was always going to make the transition difficult.’ He looked down and shook his head. ‘Others are never going to accept the things that I’ve accepted; they’ll never understand what good they’re doing here and how important it is that they succeed. The only way we’re going to survive is if we salt the earth entirely; dig out the roots of the problem.’

  ‘What problem?’

  Psycho stared at her through the glass of her pod with unflinching, ghastly eyes. He murmured, ‘People are the problem. They’re pests. They’re trying to ruin our plans, burn our creations, fight against us. If we were ever going to succeed, well, some measures needed to be taken to ensure the continuation of—’

  She backed away, horrified. ‘Psycho, what have you done?’

  ‘I burned them,’ he hissed through the glass. ‘I smoked them out and burned them. There aren’t many left now. Soon, there’ll be none.’

  She could only stare. ‘Oh, Jesus.’

  ‘It’s what I have to do, Lo. There are some out there who want to fight us, but they can’t win.’ He stood up, adjusted his lapels and straightened back his once wild and untamed hair. ‘I’m proud of what I’ve done. People die only because they’re too dumb to understand. I’m clearing the fields of the rodents and weeds so that we can start anew. I’m making this a better place for all of us. You’ll appreciate all my work one day.’ He shouted to the hundred-thousand others in hibernation, ‘You all will!’

  ‘You really are…psychotic.’

  ‘No, I’ve just grown up and learnt my place in the universe.’

  ‘As their dog.’

  ‘No! It’s nothing like that!’

  ‘Look at you!’ she cried. ‘They dress you, right? They tell you where to go, when to eat, when to sleep… They tell you to do things and you do them, don’t you?’

  ‘Because I want to, not because—’

  ‘You’re their pet.’

  ‘I’m their equal.’

  ‘You’re nothing to them,’ she snarled. ‘And one day they’ll get sick of you, or one day you’ll be in their way, or maybe they’ll simply run out of things for you to do, and when they don’
t need you anymore, you’ll be in here with me and everyone else.’

  ‘Never,’ he hissed. ‘Engineer loves me and I love him. No one understands that except me.’

  ‘Get away from me,’ she snarled. ‘Put me to sleep again. I’m done with you.’

  Psycho felt a little offended, a bit heartbroken. ‘Lo,’ he said softly, ‘you have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for this. I was so prepared. And I was so prepared to share all of this with you. This was what we were trained for. This was meant to be the purpose of our existence. I really wish you were here with me.’

  But Lara was not speaking to him anymore. She curled up, turned away on her side, and crossed her arms in a pout.

  Psycho knelt down to her pod and sighed. He looked around cautiously and whispered, ‘The one you call Baba…’

  Lara swung back.

  ‘I know who he is.’

  She sat upright. ‘I want to see him.’

  ‘You can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘No one ever sees him. Some say he’s sick. They say he can’t sleep and has gone mad in his room. Engineer said he’s ill with depression. To them, it’s a serious affliction. You know, I’ve seen us become infatuated with them, but I’ve never seen one of them become infatuated with us.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Psycho smiled. ‘He’s lovesick. Lovesick for you.’

  Lara pressed her hands against the glass. ‘You have to tell him I’m here! Please! I have to see him!’

  ‘I can’t—’

  ‘Please!’

  ‘You’d be too terrified to see—’

  ‘I’m terrified already! Please, I won’t ever ask for anything else. I don’t care if I sleep in here for eternity; I just want to see him once. Please, Psycho, please. If you have any humanity left in you, you’ll let me see him.’

  Psycho considered this for a while, as though it was a challenge of his loyalty. He looked around to make sure they were still alone in the epic silence of the warehouse. He looked back and saw Lara desperately pleading at his feet. He stood. Where the feeding tube extended from her pod, he had placed a single alligator clip to cut off the flow of anaesthetic-like drugs, allowing Lara to emerge from her coma. He undid that clip, and, once relaxed, the clear fluid began flowing again through the tube, into the cocoon, and directly down her neck.