by Maggie Allen
Jaggers stepped in, grabbed the oval glass, and separated us, “What’re you trying to do? ‘Find a way out of this’?” he muttered. “Get!”
My fourth mother shot up and backed away. “Don’t waste a second.”
“Get!” Jaggers barked.
She scowled at him and then left. For a second, I believe I saw my escort flinch under my fourth mother’s glare.
Jaggers was not happy as he led me away. “Should report her,” he kept mumbling. “Should have her fined, something.” Poor Jaggers was wrestling with his conscience; reporting my fourth mother might land her in exile, and no one wanted to live with condemning anyone to that fate.
“She kids ’round,” I offered, shuffling toward the living levels. The condensation on the rock walls was rich. The warming days across the surface above brought forth water from the rock walls and ceilings below in Spesterra. Other condemned prayed for a storm to come and scare the Haze away. I knew better: the sky-watchers are trained to know how long a heat spell will remain. “She means nothing by it,” I told Jaggers.
He grunted as we rounded the bend to my level. Soon, he’d lock me in my apartment.
I tried again as we reached the main corridor, “In two days’ time, it won’t matter, huh?” People hugged the edge of the corridor as we strolled down the center. My crooked leg continued to burn from all the climbing; I didn’t give a hint, though.
Jaggers slowed his pace, nodded, and we went the rest of the way in silence. Such a good-looking man. I had seen his wife, Carleine. She was as beautiful as he was handsome. Did she understand the strain he was under? Did his kids run up to him and make him forget for a while? Were any of his kids “damaged”? Would he see them go someday?
Sheesh, Sha-shen, gotta warp even your vague thoughts into eerie dismay.
Another of the condemned came our way. An older gentleman surrounded by family. A line of drool hung from his chin. The old man’s guard trailed far behind the group. I caught a whiff of their conversation—they were reviewing property rights. The old man didn’t seem to have much, but whatever he owned, it was being fought for.
I recognized Venna, a fellow tanner and seamstress. She glanced my way but quickly averted her eyes. Her family did not barter any goods to allow their elder to die peacefully in Spesterra. The drooling old man would not live out his days naturally.
“We’re here,” I told Jaggers as we reached my door. He too was eavesdropping on the passing group and got lost in their peckings. He shook it away and turned to face me.
He reached in his pocket and removed the smooth oval of glass and asked, “What is this?”
“Curiosity,” I said with a shrug.
Jaggers held the piece in his giant fingers, peering at me and waiting for more of an explanation.
“I was eleven seasons,” I explained as I leaned against the doorframe to my apartment, the day’s weight catching up with me. “We had pulled apart a goat’s eye during a regimen course—”
Jaggers cringed at this.
I continued: “Well, to learn about the workings...part of the eye had this oval type of lens, but bulbous like it had swelled.”
Jaggers frowned, “And you thought to make one? Why?”
I closed my eye and rubbed my finger across my eyelid, “I noticed we have the same oval piece in our own eyes, and was curious about what would happen if I held a larger piece and looked through it. My fourth mother showed me how to shape and polish burning glass.”
Jaggers held the glass to his eye. “It’s odd.”
“Hold it a bit farther.” I stepped forward to show him. “Adjust it until you see the image grow.”
He did so, studying the back of his hand. “Hmm,” he grunted as he opened my door and ushered me inside.
Jaggers didn’t say goodbye, just set the oval glass on a shelf and shut the door.
Alone inside my apartment, I lay down and stretched my weary bones across my pallet, grateful for the respite. I kept the gown on—the accursed thing was comfortable.
My fourth mother would be expecting me to devise some glorious plan of escape. Just over a day to come up with something. Escape where? Spesterra is a giant tomb with nowhere to hide, not some underground metropolis, as the Regulator Office would have us believe.
Like all my mothers, she praised my analytical mind. Unlike my other mothers, she never scolded me for questioning everything. Never told me it was a waste of time for someone like me to try so hard. “Damaged” don’t get assigned any of the challenging tasks to improve development.
In two days my scientific mind won’t matter. It’ll be nothing but a haze of the Haze.
I laughed in my empty room.
Why did I opt out of the elixir? Why not just go out numb? Maybe my body wasn’t the only thing damaged about me.
I pulled up my blanket, but the thing caught on the pallet edge, and its worn threads tore right in half. The thing had barely held together anyway. I sighed as I pinched the wispy material between my good thumb and finger. At least I won’t have to peddle for a new one.
Funny. Staring dumbly at my ragged old blanket in self-pity and blowing away the drifting pieces of lint, it came to me. Fourth mother would’ve been proud: it had taken only a bit over an hour.
I pulled off the stupid gown and tossed it at the door. After massaging life back into my sore joints, I grabbed my longshirt and leggings and got dressed.
The Haze has closed the circle around me. I take a deep breath and fight the terrors that bubble in my stomach.
The good thing about a clawed hand is it serves well as a hook when needed. I hang the satchel from it as I dig past my glass jars for the gob of honeycomb wax. I pull a plug, break it apart, and stuff it into my ears and nose.
The Haze follows me as I move left to right.
I grab a jar from the satchel and unhinge the lid. Three more jars clink in my satchel.
My lips are close to sealed as I breathe. My heart’s racing. That doesn’t help.
The sun doesn’t shine as bright. The amber cloud has closed in.
The desire to run pell-mell and try to break through is strong, but I know better.
I wait to strike.
After waiting until night gave way to early morning, I placed torn shreds of the gown and parchment at the bottom of my apartment door. It didn’t take long to ignite—the flint and steel sparks glowed bright. The flames lit quickly and didn’t need much fanning.
I prayed Jaggers was on time with my breakfast. After feeding me, he was assigned to take me on my final rounds for good-byes. He’d tuck me in again, and the following day we’d join the rest of the non-contributors to leave for the surface when the sun was at its highest.
“Help!” I yelled. Smoke covered my floor.
My plan required that I sneak out and make my way topside alone and with my gear. The Regulator Office demands that we go barefoot in only our fine robe. Robes that are stripped from our bodies after the Haze consumes our minds.
“Help!” I tried again.
Nothing.
I pounded the locked door. “Jaggers! Jaggers!”
The smoke rose to my knees. I pushed my face to the small opening between the door and its frame.
Finally, the door shuddered and then flew open. I scuttled back. Wide-eyed, Jaggers scanned the room, realizing there was no great blaze.
I cupped the tanning awl in my good hand and rushed toward him as he stomped out the meager flames.
Hating to do it, I reached around and struck him in the left buttock.
“Ah, no!” he cried, cupping the wound.
I stumbled by him the best I could.
Jaggers dove and locked onto my ankle; we both tumbled.
I tried to kick free, but my crooked leg flopped around, missing the mark. One kick brushed his wrist.
The fire thinned and then died away completely.
“My ass! You stabbed my ass?” he groaned.
Tears blurred my vision.
J
aggers chuckled, “Oh, Sha-shen.” He released my ankle and sighed. “Best of chance to you.”
I hoisted myself up and hobbled away.
The Haze bites into my skin. I lunge into it with the first glass jar and scoop the air. There’s a pinching sensation, like a hot poker, down my left cheek. My eyes are squeezed shut, but it doesn’t matter, the Haze digs in.
I close the first glass jar and trap in it a whiff of the Haze. I shove the jar in my satchel and pull out a second.
The Haze has solidified parts of itself into wormy tendrils. They pull at the wax and cloth compound I’d stuffed in my ears and nose.
I keep swiping at my face wherever I feel the prickling, but it’s like trying to stop a swarm of fiery ants. A lost memory of an old woman clawing at her face resurrects itself in my mind’s eye—an image I had forgotten but which now comes at me with a fury, her white hair yanked away with strings of Haze as it pushed in relentlessly. Other memories of terrified victims hit me like a barrage of nightmares. Clear memories that I had somehow stuffed deep inside.
I claw my face, too, but I’m holding something. The jar. I shake my face and back away. I duck down and crawl on my knees and elbows. I close the jar around a thick chunk of Haze—my clawed hand stretching and squeezing more than ever in my life—and grab another.
The Haze follows me like a shadow, gripping onto the back of my neck. Pushing. Pushing.
The glass jars are filled, they clank in my satchel as I stumble on.
I swipe in a final bit of Haze and keep the last jar locked in my good hand. I lie low to the ground and open my eyes fully so I can examine the contents. It burns, but I have to see the Haze up close. The scientist in me can’t resist: I have to know what I’ve done, if anything.
The Haze inside the jar thrashes around angrily. It bangs against the glass. Worried that it might get out, I get to my feet and rush to the yam rows to bury the jars in my satchel, hoping the moist dirt will help keep the contents trapped inside.
A calming caress washes over me, entreating me to stop and relax.
I don’t.
The Haze is manipulating me, worming into my thoughts, soothing me.
A comforting touch at my feet tempts me to stop. I ignore the pleasant sensation and push on. The mollifying touch under my skin turns into a cramp. The stab starts in my calf and runs up my leg. Being damaged, I’m no stranger to my muscles being twisted.
I’m not far from the yam rows, but my good leg is growing sluggish. I can no longer feel my crooked leg.
The surface-side windows blink in the distance. By now, many are watching me—only me alone and not among a group. They have realized I have come on my own. They must see I have collected and trapped the Haze in a jar.
They see I am the first of Spesterra to do so.
Are you cheering me on, Rafe, the way I cheered you? I’m sorry I doubted you. My mind filled with acid when you finally collapsed and succumbed to the Haze’s onslaught. I swore I’d never keep hope in my heart again when I saw you fall.
Someone laughed during your death.
I dug my fingernails across the man’s cheek.
They had to drag me away.
The Haze continues to push into me, but small clouds of it have gathered around my satchel.
I strive on. My bones burn as if I have no skin to protect them. The Haze is enraged; I feel the potency of its anger.
I reach the first lip of the yam rows. My good hand and my clawed hand dig into the earth.
The Haze’s anger shifts; now it’s desperate. I can sense the change.
I shove the satchel into the earth and push dirt over it.
Oh, Rafe, I can hear you cheering for me from wherever you are.
The Haze panics. Tendrils leave my skin, the movements anxious as they hover over the mound of dirt.
I blink away a torrent of tears and wipe my eyes. With what I have left of my soul, I want to see.
I set my last Haze-filled jar atop the mound where I buried the rest within the satchel.
An errant thought strikes me: I pull out the oval glass from my pocket and peer through it into the jar.
The Haze inside the jar has become bits of dust.
I bring the jar and seeing glass to my eye—I have to examine. I have to know.
Tiny machines break away from one another and convulse. Some scurry around aimlessly before dropping like dying insects.
In a craze, I grab the jar and taunt the Haze with it as frail tendrils return to tear at me.
“Is this all you are? Tiny machines that die when separated?” I tease the Haze.
The Haze spears its tendrils into the earth after my satchel but pulls back.
They can’t get to the jars! I push more dirt on top and mock the Haze. I know the scientists and scholars of Spesterra will relish this information. I have lost, but they will learn. I have contributed.
I set my oval looking glass on the mound of dirt, marking it, and then I throw the jar filled with the Haze into the distance.
The Haze shrieks and chases after it!
The remaining tendrils are pulled from my body and race after the discarded jar.
In that bloody moment, I can feel Jaggers, my fourth mother, and others all cheering me on. I want badly to lift my body up and stand as a hero stands, but strength has left me.
Maybe the jar broke when I threw it, maybe it didn’t. I don’t care; I just wanted a reprieve. A last few breaths to rest before I become nothing.
Water rains down.
I blink to the blue sky in disbelief.
Someone from below has opened the irrigation lines. Someone has deemed me worth saving.
Water soaks my skin.
The Haze retreats farther.
I hear laughter and realize it’s coming from me. A stitch in my side flares as I laugh, but I can’t stop.
Drops patter in the quickly forming puddles.
I’ll tell the Regulators what I did, how I trapped the Haze. I’ll help them make plans to fight it.
But with the others I’ll share the secret beauty of topside. I’ll light fires within all their hearts. I’ll stoke the fire that started with you, Rafe.
The First Dawn of Earth
by J.D. Harpley
J.D. Harpley is Astral Scribe, a dedicated word ingester and producer. A past laden with science fiction books led her to follow in the footsteps of those she found great and create vivid, brain-tantalizing works of her own.
Project manager at a game studio by day, she spends her weekends romping around between the trees carrying airsoft rifles, and her nights furiously typing or gaming.
Expect elements of horror, lengthy and delectable action scenes, and a heroine sporting some kind of deadly weapon–in no need of a hero to save her.
Stars speckled the black abyss beyond the viewport, clouded by the artificial light of the docking bay. Chen took a deep breath through her nose as the courier drones circled in and out of sight, running last-minute errands to prepare the colonization craft. Soon, she and the other four hundred million inhabitants of the orbiting space stations would abandon their homes to return to the one they left a little over three hundred years ago: Earth.
Chen knew she should be more excited than she felt, but there was hardly anything to be excited about. So the Earth had towering mountains covered in snow, natural rainfall, and animals she’d seen only in educational vids. Big deal. The Earth, to Chen, was still a toxic, polluted wasteland holding nothing of interest. The space stations had massive astronomy centers, talking robots, protein synthesis plants, and huge reservoirs to swim in. Xiao-ping had everything Chen wanted.
“All first-wave residents are required to fill out their departure forms by no later than 18:00 hours. For underage residents, the parent or guardian is responsible for this form.” The tone of the typically unenthusiastic PSA office clerk was ecstatic; Chen assumed it was because she was part of the first wave.
The speaker on Chen’s bracelet crackled to life
again, “And don’t forget, we’re all getting together tonight at 20:00 hours for the departure ceremony in conference hall A-12.”
Chen cranked the volume down as Bao-jin went on about the tea and snacks they would have and all the details the conference owner would cover. Clops around the corner alerted her to the approaching presence, and Chen straightened, pressing down the wrinkles in her suit caused by her extended cross-legged position.
“Here you are, Miss.” The robot, clearly labeled M-23 on its chest, extended a well-oiled hand to Chen.
“Yes,” she sighed, “here I am.”
“Your mother is looking for you. She needs your help filling out the rest of your departure paperwork.” It motioned for Chen to follow, but she stepped past it.
“I know. I’ve been avoiding it.” The gray metal walls echoed with their advancing patters, but Chen wasn’t heading home. Colored lighting on the floor guided the way to her only real friend, Robert.
M-23 gripped her arm gently. “That is the wrong way, Miss.”
“Depending on where I’m going, it might not be.” She pried its fingers open and removed herself from its grasp.
“But Miss, you are in the first wave. You need to finish the paperwork to return to Earth.”
Chen’s lungs filled with an indignant rage. Didn’t she get a choice? What if she didn’t want to leave? Earth wasn’t all that great, and she wouldn’t have any friends down there. She would be forced to teach, act proper, and revive the ways of her people. No one ever asked Chen if she wanted to do that, and she didn’t.
“Well, I guess I just can’t go then, can I?” She continued on her path to the recycling center. Robert was at the recycling center, and he wouldn’t bother her with stupid things like paperwork and Earth. He loved Xiao-ping just as much, if not more, than Chen.
“But Miss Li, your mother is the cultural ambassador; she needs you at her side.”
Chen scoffed, “Right. She needs me like a hole in her head.”
“Ambassador Li has several holes in her head, each of which provides a specific function, Miss. What function would another hole in her head provide?” Stupid robots, they couldn’t even get her jokes. Robert would get her joke.
