by Grant Fausey
The memory was there, like the horror of the reality on Jake’s face. Unforgettable. Something unnoticed awaited them on the sidelines, hidden from the rest of the world, abiding its time. It slithered forth from the embers, waiting for the exact moment of its return with great anticipation. Its long neck weaving back and forth through the ruins, pressing hard against a serpent’s stone in order to reach the liquid metal cupped within the hand of its prey. It would only reveal itself among the dark ooze of bio-matter, near to where the bounty hunter laid in the rubble. Crimson saw the memory in her mind, reacted before it seeped into the physical sense. The bounty hunter, now the mere reflection of the old man spared a living death in the abyss, resided in front of her protected by a simple piece of jewelry he held in the palm of his hand. The medallion shimmered with the impression of a woman’s face, visible only for a moment in the golden light of its existence: Perhaps, discarded as nothing more than fanfare, but not forgotten. For within the confines of the metal, hidden from all not intended of its receipt, resided a symbiont’s knowledge and love, never-ending.
The bounty hunter twitched, eyes open, frozen in time; his mouth wide with the torment of a thousand unheard screams. He reached for Crimson, the canister slip from her fingertips. He rolled across the platform in open flight, only to have the flask snatched away.
“Not again,” said Samuel Nomad. “Consider it changed.” The temporal agent, face flushed in the wake of the distortion, his body in two universes as he pulled Jake from the platform.
“Don’t blow it this time,” he told the two young lovers, returning Krydal to the youthful bounty hunter. “You owe me one kid,” said the agent. “You’ve been given a second chance at love.”
Jake nodded. He understood. It was their moment in the sun, so he took Crimson by the hand and drew her near to him in a loving embrace that ended with the golden kiss of a new day’s sun spread upon a moisture-ridden leaf. Samuel Nomad turned away, vanishing into the depths of the distortion, his body rippling in the convergence. The disturbance dissipated from around his face revealing the infamous bounty hunter, and his companion, Crimson, a being of living light.
Nomad took one look back. A moment later, the two young lovers teleported from the surface in a flare of amber light, wrapped in one another’s arms.
FORTY-ONE: Of Crimson Indigo
• • •
Nilana Keri pulled her BMW 735i in the driveway of a split-level house and stared at the building. The look on her face was saturated with tears, a moment of posttraumatic disorder. “This is crazy,” she said pushing the gearshift knob into park. “That’s not my house.”
“What’s wrong, mommy?” asked Lisa, the older of the twins. Nilana glanced up to see her daughter in the rear view mirror. They were both looking up at her with a devilish smile. She reached up and turned off the engine, pulling out her keys while staring at the number address next to the front door.
“Nothing is the matter, sweetie. I’m just a little confused is all; its been a strange day.” Laura opened the car door. Lisa tugged on her seatbelt. Nilana stepped out of the car, only to immediately sit back down. She took a moment to breathe then opened the back door and removed her daughter’s seat belt, sending her on her way.
“Daddy … daddy … daddy.” Nilana cringed. Slammed the car door.
“Great, that’s all I need,” she said under her breath
Laura ran straight for the house, a cute little waddle that made Nilana smile. Lisa, on the other hand, managed to unbuckle her harness and took off like a light, yelling.
“Daddy … daddy … daddy.”
“Pumpkin …” shouted Reuben Taylor, familiar but not so recognizable. He was standing in the doorway. “How’s daddy’s little girl?”
“What are you doing here, Reuben? It’s bad enough I have to hear you on the radio. I don’t need to come home and find you in my house too.”
“Your house?”
“Yes, my house,” she said, angrily. “I got it in the divorced settlement a year ago … remember?” A round little man dressed in black, a gun to his side; all too familiar for Nilana’s taste, but not so complacent to her needs. He looked at her rather self-indulgent.
“That’s her officer,” said Reuben.
Nilana stepped past the cop and entered the house, rather unhappy at the situation. She dropped her coat and purse on a chair and reached down to take Laura in her arms. She gave her daughter a hug then patted her on her butt, and sent her on her way to the playroom. “You can’t keep doing this,” she told Reuben.”
The officer tipped his hat, and said: “Ma’am, if I could have a word with you.”
“All that’s changed now,” said Reuben.
“You’re crazy.”
Nilana walked to the door and calmly opened it. “I want you out of my house.”
“I’m not the one leaving,” said the disk jockey.
“Please leave, before I call the police.” She looked up at the officer embarrassed. “Sorry.”
“How do you like the new car?”
“You didn’t steal it, did you?” asked the officer.
Nilana went wide-eyed with anger, then fear. “Awe–– NO!”
“You know what I’m talking about, right? It wouldn’t be as much fun otherwise.”
“A Suburban Utility Vehicle this morning …” Nilana glared at him. “A BMW this afternoon. Seems a little odd, don’t you think, officer?”
At the same moment, an ambulance pulled in the driveway, flashing lights; a paramedic with the hospital name on his sleeve. “A might peculiar, if you ask me.”
“What are you two talking about?” Nilana glared at Reuben, the light from the ambulance reflecting off the walls. “You switched cars on me somehow, didn’t you?” Reuben raised an eyebrow, curiously at the officer. “My God,” she continued. “When will you ever stop?”
“Everything’s about to change. Most of all you.”
“Someone called nine-one-one about a deranged woman?” The paramedic reached for the door, and stepped in to the foyer.
“That would be me,” said Reuben. “I’m afraid my wife is having a nervous breakdown.”
“He’s not my husband,” she interrupted. But the police officer didn’t listen.
“Ma’am …” The officer put his hand on his gun…just a precaution. “I’m going to have to ask you to calm down.”
“I’m afraid she needs care,” continued Reuben. “The kind I can’t justify giving her anymore.”
“Get the hell out of my house, all of you!” screamed Nilana, fighting with the paramedic. The officer quickly subdued her.
“No wait,” she screamed. “He’s not my husband. You have to listen to me. We divorced a year ago. I don’t know this man.”
Reuben watched the paramedics for a moment then shut the door and walked to the window. A dark haired woman behind him closed the blinds.
“Don’t do this,” screamed Nilana, struggling with paramedics as they strapped her on a gurney. “I’m not crazy. Listen to me …”
Reuben stepped deeper into the house, pulled a phone from his pocket and opened it, dialing an odd phone number with a lot of extra digits. “She’s on her way,” he told the person on the other end of the line. “Let me know when it’s over.”
Reta Jordan picked up a small travel bag and emerged from the dining room just in time to pass the handbag to Reuben. “Thank you,” said the disk jockey, slipping the phone back into his pocket. The good doctor nodded. Reuben opened the lid on the travel bag and took a look in side. A golden light glistened against the luster of the bag, hiding the confines of the travel purse.
“One of these days,” said Reta. “You’re going to end up an Industrial experiment, if you’re not careful.
“If that’s so, you’ll be the one beside me,” laughed Reuben. He dared not screw this up. Reta Jordan snarled at him and walked away, dawning her hat and coat as she proceeded out the front door en route to a secluded convalescent home in th
e hills above new Los Angeles.
“Scalpel,” said Trinod Rex leaning over his patient amidst a host of medical personnel. Nilana gazed up at him through foggy eyes. He glanced down at her emotionless, hidden behind odd wire rim glasses. Nilana screamed in silence, her eyes wide open. The reflection of a glowing iridescent orb only millimeters from her face as the paramedic closed the door to the operating room.
“Daddy,” said Lisa lovingly, running down the hall into the arms of her father. Reuben Taylor picked her up and hugged his daughter, carrying her past the operating room to a place in the back of the facility, where he sat her on the floor next to another youngster in the waiting room. Lisa immediately stood up, pushed a toy out of the way and trotted off on her own to play with an army of other Lisa and Laura Keri’s, each an identical twin. Reuben smiled and stepped out of the room into a grandiose panorama of spiraling meadows set amidst a flourishing forest filled with towering waterfalls, set against a majestic cliff-side fortress filled with the patrons of a thousand worlds.
“Awaken, Nilana,” said the voice behind a blue-faced researcher. “Tell me of Crimson Indigo.”
EPILOGUE
• • •
“What do you see?” Growled Relix. “Move over, will you … I can’t see!”
Tee didn’t answer; he just stood there in awe, nose to nose with the world. Relix pushed aside the twin-tail Gandee and abruptly stopped. The planet was in full bloom in front of him, exfoliating with the green and red stripes of terra-root, but the world was different. Silent. A cold-hearted menagerie of otherworldly life forms that resulted in a resurgence of eco conscious individuals whose only purpose in life was to harvest the prospects of what nature had to offer. How it changed exactly wasn’t as important as understanding what caused its alteration. Temporal incursions were as common as root weed and just as plentiful. But for the Manchi clan it was a life-changing event.
“Do you know how high we are?”
“Will you shut up and throw over a line,” snarled Tee.
“You can’t be serious,” shouted the little Trod, trembling. “I don’t have enough line to––” Relix’s voice cracked. “You are serious!”
Tee calculated the distance, stepped back from the edge of the cliff considering all the variables: distance, altitude and trajectory, accounting for the movement of each hunk of land like it was a steppingstone on a river of fast moving mist. The landmasses were free floating ranges, passing over one another.
“How far do you think it is to the city?” asked Relix, while pulling the multi-purpose pod off his back.
“Twenty-seven, point two miles,” announced Jerolda.
“Miles?” asked Relix. “What the dickens are miles?”
“They’re measurements,” mumbled Jerolda; his face suddenly slammed tightly to the rock face at the other end of the ridge. There was a loud, distinctive click. Tee hooked the rod to his line then handed it off to his companion, connecting the device to the end of Relix’s cord.
“Then it shouldn’t take us too long to get there …” said the little biped.
“No,” muttered the bear-shaped creature. “I don’t think so.”
“Great. Then let’s get going!” Tee tugged on the line, bouncing on his hand-feet then slipped over the edge like a mountain climber, steadying himself against the cliff-side. His feet struck the ground, plowing across the sandy surface to the other side of the ridge, where he dropped over the rim to another landmass. Relix flew over the edge behind him, dangling like a counter-weight in mid-air. Jerolda, on the other hand, slid down the line behind Tee hand-over-hand, releasing the harness at the bottom, only to have it smash into a clump of terra-root on his way down. The trio looked sort of like a circus act in training. Above them, the land looked as if it had been pried apart, separated by the hands of God himself. The underside of the island was tapered off in curved mounds, woven tightly into the heavens like a tapestry glued together by the thinnest of threads. Sodin was more than a failed experiment in evolution; it was deliberately discarded. It was a world of untold secrets, alive with a frail contingent of inhabitants that scurried about the ground in the wind. Yet, the mystery was larger than life.
High above the burning core of the planet, among the smallest of the floating otherworldly landmasses, a Shadowrider reined to a halt. The beast’s biomechanical head bellowed blackened smoke like an old blast furnace in need of repair. Its rider, a dark-haired Gandee in her early years, scanned the drifting rocks with a sophisticated viewing device. Its wide beam fit tightly to her brow, cushioned snugly to her face. She cupped her hands, allowing the curve of its long pointed end to depress lightly into her palms, while she stared outwardly into the heavens. Her appearance was more machine than woman, a thick combat armor layered in folds outfitted with an arrangement of assorted biomechanical appendages, each of which followed the contours of her body. Her long, silky black fur swept across her face. Her eyes glistened between shades of jade and emerald green.
The machine beeped. The young Gandee pulled it from her face, and dropped the device along her side. The instrument bounced softly against the rough leather of her body armor, allowing the looking glass to float near her waist. The scanner hummed, adjusting in micro movements with the whine of perfectly matched gears. “We’ve a couple more on the north ridge,” she beckoned. “Looks like they’re heading for the old ruins
“All right …” echoed the voice of another Shadowrider’s techno ghost. “I’ll intercept them at the west gate of the old spaceport. We don’t have much time, but we can’t chance anyone coming to harm.”
A metallic wedge maneuvered through the mountain flows, crossing a valley of lush wetlands to disappear like a needle through a woven tapestry. There was every probability the newcomers were simply lost. Although, the prospect of the Industrials leaving the ground crew behind did appeal to her. The crew had moved the Tanis mining rig to the far side of the planet overnight. But something had frightened the crew off-world. Whatever it was they discovered, it blackened the sky devouring nearly half the planet. What was left resembled a sand pit of disjointed landmasses and crumbling waterfalls. The mountain ranges had all but disappeared, replaced by hollow canyons of steep cliffs and narrow pedestaled platforms that opened into an abyss of churning biomass endowed with bursts of thermal lightning. The core of the planet was gone, ripped away into the corridors of time.
The young Gandee reined the flying beast in her hands as she nudged the steed forward into a gallop, stretching out its legs. Its biologically engineered talons dug deep into the protruding rock, allowing the living machine to pivot like a lizard and plunge downward over the edge of the rim. Grolla leaned forward on the old flyers back like a jockey, allowing the beast’s leathery wings to open fully as the wind carried it aloft. She couldn’t understand the need for taking such a risk. If the little creatures were a product of the Industries, send them back to where they came from. There was no point in exposing herself to the consequences. The trespassers only complicated matters. That was why the young Gandee believed in life. Even when events like this one changed her world forever. Everything needed to be viewed from every possible angle. How else could one see all the sides of what they were looking at? It was vital to the future. Sodin was showing signs of evolution. Life was taking root again.
Grolla pulled the reins of the mechanical beast and banked into a descent, practically falling on the ruins below her. The remnants of one civilization gave way to another. The surface was draped in rubble, its landmarks littering the highways and byways. Once an asset to the vast empire created by the Industries, Sodin was now something else. The young Gandee knew it wasn’t going to be her home for much longer, but she couldn’t help feel it was a part of her heritage. She had heard all the stories; the truth of her people’s achievements. She loved the living machines and treated them with respect. To her, the tiniest of creatures deserved to live. Genetically engineered, or otherwise, they were technological milestones. The Trods m
eant new life was sweeping the boundaries of the universe, replacing mankind with a new breed of humanity in a time of change. But not the way the Industries intended. A reunification had to start from somewhere, and the center of the universe seemed as good a place as any. The future of the galaxy was at stake. The machine society was ingenious, nothing short of a miracle. Man’s civilization collapsed amidst the eons.
At the end, man was steadily replaced in a series of events that systematically altered the corporate mega machine. The Industrials used wealth and power to extremes. But the future held promise, even if it was only in the eyes of the two little Trods, like a page out of a storybook, as if the artifacts of some untold fable had come to life. Grolla would shed light on the secrets she held inside. She understood the way of the world.
