Nolan pointed me into a dark room that gaped up at an angle from the floor. “You want me to go in there?” He nodded slowly. I wasn’t claustrophobic, maybe a little afriad of the dark, but the worst thing my mind imagined was a sewer system filled with the pestilential trio, mozzies, roaches and rats. Eugh! “Where are we going?” Seeming to understand my reluctance, he led the way with a flashlight he took from a high shelf. His footsteps patted down the stairs. I wanted to run but I wasn’t very good at that. Nolan had a better physique than me. He’d catch me in no time and if he got into that darned cab of his he could run me over and tattoo me with skid marks before I knew what hit me. I walked downstairs, trying not to touch the mouldy walls. It was like someone had spit all over it, there was a gooey sheen everywhere. I took a few steps down and darkness covered me. I had only Nolan’s flashlight to work with so I tried to speed up before I lost him in this section of sick suffocation.
I kept telling myself, “Please don’t slip, please don’t slip, please don’t slip.” I didn’t want to get this mess anywhere on me, except for my shoes that squelched as they stepped through the muck. “Fifty baths hot and cold, scented oils manifold. Clean as a fiddle, squeak squeak squeak, I love showers...” I forgot the rest of the rhyme and started from the beginning. It made me want to feel clean and bathe, which was a bad idea considering where I was and how far away my tub sat. I walked for what felt like forever but what my wristwatch said was ten minutes.
We emptied into a side chamber, dripping arches and wet floors, sewage rivers flowing on either side of the room. There were eight forms in here warming themselves around a lit barrel. Two of them were recognizably human. “I’m the Reincarnator,” I squeaked. My voice was so tinny that a rat somewhere in the darkness must have thought me kin and squeaked back. This room stank to high heaven but there was some measure of ventilation I guess because I didn’t faint from the thick odor of shh-I don’t want to talk about it. The wall crunched open behind the eight life-forms and they walked through it. Nolan followed, holding his flashlight up so the light hit and spread along the low ceiling. It’s a good thing this city had no spiders or lizards, they creeped the hell out of me.
After coming this far, what else could I do but go along with things. The first thing I heard was grumbling. Perhaps it was soft talking, I don’t know. I walked into a small room lit with electric lamp posts. It was filled with more than twenty people, not including the eight I saw earlier. They all looked at me and said things among themselves. They looked so human I almost forgot to notice their sharp ears, unusually slanted eyes and thick waist and neck. I knew that they knew who I was, so I kept silent and let them judge me with studious eyes until one of them, a woman, spoke. “We’ve been waiting a long time to talk to you, Mr. Reincarnator.”
“What am I doing here? I’’m supposed to be back in government. His Majesty will be expecting me.” Panicked tones went up as people chatted at haste.
“Keep calm, all of you. It’s too late to give in to fear. We either tell him and get this started or we might as well just be thrown into whatever nightmare the King is in the mood for.”
“Tell me what?”
“Mr. Reincarnator. Is it alright if I call you Helidon? Saves time.” I nodded. “We are a small part of Quadrant’s Resistance. I’m sure you’ve heard of us?”
“How can you be sure I have?”
“After more than twenty years we made preparations so rumors about us will go topside. I’m sure some sensitive spiders in government were offered news about us.”
“I don’t know about spiders, but I know a certain Ferxian hippopotamus who fits that description.”
“Yes, Courtier Boremasta,” she said and I was surprised at how she could state political names so fast. “Helidon.” Her voice lost its authoritative tone, and it sounded so soft and calm I thought it was someone else. “After the scare following the end of Moo-Day, we knew we had to work fast. We waited for proof and it came early this morning. As much as the Resistance has been secretly in effect for the past two decades, we couldn’t find this proof until several hours ago.”
“What do you mean, Mizz...?”
“Molina Guitrash Hooliona Jezzta, please call me Molina. What I mean to tell you is that the Liranova Quadrant is not the only one involved in the Resistance. We have a good number from all seventy-three. At first, Helidon, ours was a passive rebellion. We didn’t plan anything aggressive nor did we want to. But over the past twenty years the scientific minds in our organization wanted to try an experiment.”
“Like what?” At this point, I was lost and had no choice but to wade through this swamp of mysteries.
“Select life-forms who showed eligibility in the matter were allowed to carry on their sex lives but with select partners only. Our doctors mixed a batch of fertility hormones and kept these patients in a particular bio-condition. After twenty years of failed attempts, Helidon, we’ve finally managed to create life. Many of the female life-forms have becme pregnant at which point we kept them in hiding until delivery date. All of our hopes were stillborn. But early this morning—and we waited to verify this before we leaped to any conclusions—our first live birth has happened.”
“What!” I exclaimed without any dignity or composure.
“A life-form from your own Human Quadrant has given birth to a healthy baby boy.”
“But. But. But no new life can exist here but in soul-form. These are Death’s lands. How can a new soul find its way here and His Majesty didn’t know about it?”
“Nature has a way of finding loopholes.”
“May I see this baby? Are you sure?”
“The mother is quite certain, I can assure you” said Molina and rolled her eyes.
“I’m sorry, I meant no offense. But. But. This is impossible.”
“We thought so too.” A tiny form came from the back of the room held by the mother. She was a plain woman, bad hair, curious eyes and an overall sense of simplicity. “Here he is.” Molina smiled as she took the baby and showed it to me.
I stretched a finger and poked it gently in the belly. I pressed my middle finger against its plump cheek; I had read somewhere that this finger had the gentlest pad. I felt the few strands of black hair he had on his head. The infant wiggled his legs as he played with a small toy in his hands. “Is this a good place to keep the child? It’s a dump, no offence.”
“It’s the safest place. Nobody would look for him in the poorest quadrant.”
“I’ll need data to verify this. Birth records, and all other details, videos too dare I ask. By the way did you or another Resistance member have anything to do with the bomb up top?” There was silence. I was too busy staring at the kid to notice the nervous expressions on the faces in the room.
“It’s a real live baby. It’s a real live boy. This is not possible. This is Suicide City, a dimension for souls, and souls only that have taken their own lives. How can this...”
They ignored my muttering. Molina discussed something with the others. “Helidon, the Resistance is ready to fight back no matter what it takes. I know it’s unfair and that we should be grateful, especially since we took our own lives and all. Moo-Day’s scare has shown us that Death wants all of us gone from this dimension and fast. But, Helidon, we have made a whole world for ourselves here, all of us Quadrant citizens. We have now proven that we can make life as well. We have a place we know and have lived in for centuries as immortal souls. Getting new versions of our own fleshified bodies every year was the only thing that brought us close to rebirth so to speak. Imagine what we can achieve here. We’re all like minded, we’re all immortal and can therefore never take our lives even if we wanted to, which cuts the risk of us committing suicide in any future reincarnated forms. Yeah? We have a King we may not like but respect for all that he’s done for us. We get to eat well on festival days, sleep and work and do normal things and we don’t have major diseases because as souls we can’t really die and any injury we get can be heal
ed by soul-medics. We have minds from every life-system in the Orion galaxy here, meaning we can do amazing things if we all work together. Helidon, the—”
“—possibilities are endless,” I completed for her. I stared into nothing.
“His Majesty forbade marriages, you know that. Some of us are starting to question why. Is it because we would get an idea into our heads? An idea about children to enliven our immortal afterlives? Remember that twice weekly soul-medical check-up he made compulsory for every life-form? Could it be that he wasn’t just doing it with the intention to keep us healthy but to also check our women for signs of pregnancy? You are responsible for reincarnating us. You can speak on our behalf. And if you don’t, there’s no point killing you. You’re already dead. Plus, you think he won’t find another Reincarnator to carry on this nonsense? It used to be a good thing but times are changing.”
“Calm down. The King would have known if such a thing were possible. I’m directly responsible for reincarnating everyone in Quadrant City. Do you think he wouldn’t tell me something as crucial as this? A chance at life, a possible reincarnation from Juba knows where?” They kept silent. “But why the bombs, Molina? All this can be brought before the King or kept silent until there was no way around it. Why draw attention to yourselves and drag me into all this? The King and I are not really buddies. He’ll skin me as well as all of you, though what he’ll do with the child I don’t know.” The mother came forward and collected her baby before going back to her original spot deeper in the room.
“We’re desperate,” said Molina. She looked and sounded it. “Not all of us wanted the bombings. But we have to show that we’re not sheep. We don’t want to go back, Mr. Reincarnator. We have lives here, we will only get worse if we are reincarnated. Our karma was bad enough in life, which is why we’re so dirt poor and miserable even in this afterlife. But we won’t even have this if we reincarnate. We’ll have no food at festivals, no chance at going up in a world like Quadrant where we’re immortal and can work without sickness or serious injury. We have more here than our souls remember having in most of our lifetimes. If King Death wants to torture us or throw us in realms of nightmare, we’ll make him look bad before we’re kicked out or soul-stinguished. We’ll bomb it all, we’ll destroy everything. We’ll give him a bad name so others might come to hear of our rebellion. If there’s one thing he can’t stand it’s insult to his pride, and the shattering of law and order.”
“This is treachery, Molina.” The people took a step toward me. “No, no, don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to turn you in or anything. I’m just saying that you’re creating a fight without knowing how His Majesty would react to news of a baby born right here in the city. You can’t be sure. This is Death we’re talking about, not some ordinary ruler who can abdicate or be hung. This is the one and only Death, the very entity himself. No matter how desperate we are, to make him angry is to invite something, um, worse than death.” I perked my head up. “Do you hear that? Are you expecting company?” We held our breaths and listened. Footsteps came from several meters above us. They must be heavy footfalls for us to hear an echo. They went click-clack-whoosh, clonk-tonk-swish.
“The Velociraptor Unit,” said Nolan. Everyone instantly moved. Another wall opened on the west face of the room and people leaped over the small sewer stream and took to the secret corridor.
“What are they?”
Nolan touched my elbow to get my attention. I still haven’t forgiven the man for what he put me through. “They were used once several years ago, before your time, sir. Death needed crime to be halted in the city and he sent those animals out to mete justice, his justice. People relented, crime went down and so he took them out of circulation. We thought he’d destroyed them all, that’s what he told the people of Quadrant anyway. If you’re looking for candor from His Majesty, sir, proof to the contrary are those animals up there. Come with me, sir, we need to get you out of here.”
“You were in on this from the very beginning, weren’t you?” I was miffed with Nolan’s attitude. “All the times you coincidentally appeared to help me out of an inconvenience? You were tagging me, following me. You’re a Resistance spy and you knew all this time that when they gave you the signal you’d kidnap me and bring me here. Let go of me, don’t touch me.” He moved back and kept his head down.
“We need to go, sir.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you. If those are Death’s hounds up there...”
“Velociraptors...”
“Well, whatever they are, they’re not actual dinosaurs, are they? I don’t care, don’t answer that, all I know is that if they find me here with you people they’re going to peg me as being part of the Resistance. I’m not doing so well in government as it is. I had a good thing happen yesterday and I want that to go on, not end so soon. You have thrown me in a terrible mess, Mr. Weatherby.” Before I knew it, I had caught hold of his collar and started to shake him. “He will burn me for this, I will burn for all eternity because of this.” Nolan suddenly slapped my hands off and ran. Was I that scary? He slipped and sprinted to the west wall. The shadows moved, the shadows leaped. The electric lights caught details.
The Velociraptor Unit were cyborgs with undefinable organic features that were eclipsed by their more mechanical ones. Their feet had strange bounding metal plates, long and sleek, hock-like, that I guessed could make them leap great distances not to mention run as fast as the dino they were named after. Their forearms had multi-shot guns, one on each arm. In each hand they held a deadly curvy scythe-blade. The Velociraptor Unit with their frightening red-blue masks and black-metal design stared at Nolan and me. They dragged the cabby out the corridor. One of these things walked up to me and I heared that sound again. Click-clack-whoosh, clonk-tonk-swish.
“Helidon, you are under arrest for actions deemed conspiratorial against the Crown.” He turned me around. “You will be tried under suspicion of colluding with the Resistance.” He checked my body for weapons. “Until such time as His Majesty acquits you of all charges, you will no longer perform your duties as Reincarnator.” He cuffed me. “You will comply with your arrest calmly and decently or force will instantly be used to subdue you. Anything you say or do in the presence of the Velociraptors will be included in our arrest report and used against you at His Majesty’s court of law.” I went quietly, though the Velociraptor enforcer wasn’t gentle when he strapped cuffs on my wrists and dragged me out the same corridor as Nolan.
Some of them were already breaking down the west wall that had closed in all the hustle. I eventually found my way outside and was glad to breathe clean air, in a manner of speaking. My hands were tied and I couldn’t do anything about the dratted Press who shoved their cameras and microphones in my face and threw more questions than anyone could answer in one lifetime.
One of the cameras bonked me on the head and with a ‘Raptor pushing me forward and the cameraman pushing his device at me, I had to groan loudly to get someone’s attention. My suit was spotted with filth, my head ached from being pressed against the camera, and I saw a flash go off before I was shoved into an armored vehicle that reminded me of a rhinoceroes.
21
The courtroom was full to bursting. The Press were reporting non-stop. Cameras flashed sporadically. Life-forms of all shapes and sizes filled the seats inside the immense echoing chamber while everyone else in Quadrant City watched the live feed. Death vs. Reincarnator. To them it was a legendary trial, one of a kind, never happened before, who knows if it ever will again. To me, it was soil your pants frightening, I’m innocent but who’ll believe it, I’m gonna burn even if the King found me like I found myself, namely in the wrong place at the wrong time.
There was nobody in law but the King, so any reason to appoint a Justice of the Peace was nonexistent and, by extension so were lawyers, juries and whoever else made and enforced the law. King Death had sole control of that in Quadrant City and he used the Velociraptor Unit to deadly effect. I had been a
rrested in close quarters, so I couldn’t really see the ‘Raptors at work. Chatter was loud enough for me to pick up all sorts of negative things being spoken about me and a little something about the Unit. They said nothing could outrace or hide from them. They were nearly all-machine with unmatched mobility.
The clock struck twelve, midnight. I had been in custody for several hours since early afternoon with only a glass of water for fuel. Someone who looked like a Von Heisen stood up at the front bench and spoke loudly. “All rise for His Majesty King Death, presiding Judge and Ruler of the Afterlife Dimensions, Ancient Fire-Heart whose word is law.”
Everybody stood at attention and when the clock struck the hour, the double doors behind the high chair up front opened. He walked out looking like the end of all things. King Death’s aura hit the court and everyone knelt on both knees with their foreheads touching the floor. It was the only way they could keep from shaking. From his wings to his hooves, His Majesty gave fatality a new meaning. His golden eyes didn’t leave me until he’d found his seat. He didn’t sit down, though. He clapped his hands and the sound was like the drums of doom.
“Bravo, Helidon, bravo. Here I was thinking what an imbecile I have for a Reincarnator when all this time he played me for a fool.” I wanted to speak up but was tongue-tied. “Hare-brained, as stupid as the cows you raised on your farm. After all I’ve done for you, for this goddamned city, this is how you repay me?! You and all your Resistance scumbags?!” He shouted, fire engulfed him and scorched a portion of the space around him. He willed it out of existence and leaned over his desk. “I should rip you apart where you stand, make kebabs of each chunk of your fleshified soul and eat you crispy.” I shook like I’d contracted a bad case of cold fever. People behind me stifled their alarm but I could hear a whimper or two. The furniture at court was all Blackthorn, heavy and imposing wood. It was polished to a fault, the walls, pews, chairs and judge’s desk. Death reached his left arm over to catch hold of the desk’s edge and he casually pushed the heavy thing to the side. It scraped its way loudly. He sat down on his gilded chair of judgement, a hand on his knee, the other on the armrest and looked at me. “How do you plead?”
Long Live Death: Welcome To The Afterlife Page 18
