Never Never Stories

by Jason Sanford

  “Go!” Helen yelled. We ran for the light, Helen in the lead, me bringing up the rear and pushing the scared people along. A tall woman ran next to Helen, and as we neared the spotlights I saw she had red hair. But even as such a worthless detail registered in my mind, the woman disappeared, the barest shimmer of a ripper standing in her place. Her screams echoed across the dark empty all around.

  “Get away,” one of the men yelled. He panicked, slamming me against the side of the building, my helmet hitting hard on the cinderblock wall. I collapsed – dazed – as the man bolted across the shadowed night and fell into another ripper. I again saw a glimpse of that dark world as the man begged for mercy. Then Helen stood before my face and pulled me up.

  The other two men and one woman we'd been trying to rescue stayed with us, and Helen placed them between us and our spotlights. She talked the civilians through their fear – ”Just keep going, we've got you” – until her light crashed to the ground, a ripper vanishing from where Helen had stood. As I would have expected of Helen, she didn't scream at whatever the ripper did to her. Only a single, pained groan floated through the air, followed by silence.

  I threw my spotlight at the vanishing ripper. “Go ahead,” I yelled. “Take me.”

  A greater dark rose before my face, ripping space and time into whispers and tastes – the roar of the fire becoming Carie's body beside my own, the fire engines' comforting flashing lights becoming Sammy's final cry as the ripper stole her away. As my world disappeared into the ripper's darkness, my arms and legs tore into base strings of muscle. My throat spasmed once before being pulled through my mouth even as it refused to stop screaming.

  The ripper giggled, and I suddenly knew the worst was yet to come. It would merge our souls. Me into it, and it into me. Worse, the bastard would never stop laughing at what it'd done to me.

  And then, just like that, the pain disappeared.

  I remained partly inside the ripper, it in me, but the perverted amusement I'd felt moments before was gone. Instead, my daughter's monotone voice whispered, “It's okay, Dad.”

  The ripper seemed irritated at this interruption and tried to dispose of Sammy. But Sammy merely flicked herself from wherever she was and appeared alongside me in the ripper. For a moment the ripper's consciousness screamed before it was absorbed by Sammy – just like the ripper had been trying to do to me.

  I fell to my knees, unable to understand what was going on. I was split between two worlds. I distantly felt the three people I'd been trying to save, who huddled around my body back on Earth. But I also floated in a world I couldn't begin to comprehend. Darkness surrounded me. My eyes were worthless, even as I saw millions of shadows circling and laughing and tearing into one another with wild abandon.

  “I'm one of them,” Sammy said, both of us sharing the ripper's body. “Mom promised I'd be with her if I came here.”

  And just like that, my wife's consciousness appeared in the ripper with me and Sammy. Carie hugged me, if I could say she still had arms to touch with. Instead, she and Sammy were ghosts, haunting the strange emptiness which was the ripper's body.

  Seeing I didn't understand, they opened themselves to me.

  I saw the rippers – ancient, powerful, their way of life completely alien to humanity. They traded consciousness the way we communicated words. Their shadow bodies were merely containers to hold an eternal parade of souls – souls which continually merged and changed with each interaction among the rippers. A strong consciousness might absorb a weaker, only to be enveloped by an even stronger soul moments later, and split into two new rippers the next second. But nothing was ever truly lost as the rippers merged and split and merged again.

  “I don't understand,” I said.

  “Imagine we're talking,” Sammy said. “Imagine human souls as simple words. Each time you spoke, your consciousness would go out, mixing with each person who heard you speak. As people repeated what you said, you'd continually be turned into something new. But you'd also remain. Changed. Different. But still partly you.”

  I shook my head, vertigo shoving my mind as I felt a renewed vision of Carie and Sammy holding me. But this wasn't the Carie and Sammy I remembered. I felt the hundreds of rippers which had already merged with them. While Carie and Sammy still loved me, they were also quite capable of tearing my soul to shreds for their own needs.

  “You make it sound bad,” Carie whispered in her dream of a voice. “But it's so simple: The rippers need an occasional infusion of new consciousness. This time they chose Earth. It's a true honor for humanity.”

  “Honor?” I asked, shocked at these creatures which were no longer my wife and daughter. “Rippers steal people. Tear them to pieces. And you call that honor? It's wrong! No other word. Wrong!”

  Sammy giggled. “Wrong is a human creation. Rippers don't understand the concept.”

  I screamed as Carie and Sammy dug into my soul, each licking different pieces of me, each tasting and deciding which parts to absorb into their own beings. I knew I should simply give in. That this would let me live with them forever. But instead, a familiar anger built in me. I kicked and bit and hit and yelled, a ghost fighting ghosts. Unable to tell if this was truly my body or merely an illusion, but still refusing to give in.

  Carie and Sammy paused.

  “You don't want to be with us?” Carie asked, hurt by my decision. The anguish of tears formed in my eyes, but I knew that wasn't my emotion. It was hers. Theirs.

  “No,” I said. “I won't live like this.”

  I thought Carie would be angry with me, but she only laughed. She danced her mind through the air like her fingers used to fly across her magical canvases. But instead of creating colors and pictures, this time the rippers swirled to her motions, each oblivious to the changes the humans they'd stolen were making to their world. Carie dipped her being into a passing ripper. An echo of her soul lodged in the creature, which had been about to snag the scared woman who still clung to my body back on Earth. The ripper released the woman and floated away, unsure why it now felt shame for the deed it'd almost done.

  “This is art,” Carie said. “The deepest of arts.”

  I remembered Carie sitting before the smart canvas in her studio, Sammy working at her side, and I was tempted to stay with them. So sorely tempted. But the Carie I loved would never have taken our daughter to a world like this. The Carie I knew was gone, and I didn't like where what remained of her and Sammy were going.

  “No,” I said again.

  For the briefest of moments their souls locked together, swimming back and forth into each other, trading bits of themselves as they discussed my fate. Then Sammy, and Carie, kissed me on the cheek.

  “We'll miss you,” Sammy said, letting me see her a final time as that red-haired child hugging me before each shift.

  Carie and Sammy stretched me and sewed me and stitched me back together before throwing me toward reality. I woke to find the people from the fire still huddled around me in fear. I stood them up and told them everything would be okay. I then led them toward the fire engine and the protection of its lights.

  * * *

  A few days later the rippers disappeared.

  There are endless theories about what the rippers wanted, but I believe what Carie and Sammy showed me. That the rippers are built for darkness. Are unable to tolerate even the faintest light shining into their world. But the idea that they didn't enter our homes and buildings out of respect for us is bullshit. They did that because it made the hunt more fun. Granting an illusion of safety made us more afraid – and the more we feared, the more the rippers enjoyed feasting on our final moments of agony.

  I refuse to accept the rippers' belief that “wrong” is merely a human creation. Now that I've been to their world, I know their way of life is wrong. Absolutely wrong. Until I die I'll scream this simple truth.

  But maybe, just maybe, the rippers can be forced to change.

  * * *

  After returning home from fi
ghting the shelter fire, I slept for two days. When I finally woke, I wandered into the basement, where the smart canvas glowed its gentle blue light.

  I pulled up the single piece of art the canvas had recovered. It was a finger-painting of our family, created by Sammy when she was only six. Carie stood beside me – red hair down to her shoulders, her outsized-drawn hand holding my own. On the other side of me stood Sammy, a giant green grin touching both of her circle-face cheeks. Her cartoon hand also held mine.

  I smiled, feeling echoing smiles from the remnants of Carie and Sammy now living inside me.

  I wondered what Carie and Sammy would be like, years from now if the rippers ever returned. Maybe the art they hoped to create would actually work. Maybe we scared humans really could change the rippers. Maybe whatever remained of my wife and daughter would be the conscience which finally stopped the rippers from doing such evil.

  Or maybe I'm lying to myself, afraid to see the truth of life.

  Seeing no choice but to keep to my flicker of hope, I saved Sammy's painting and shut off the canvas. I then walked back into the night to work a new shift at the station.

  Rumspringa

  The English arrived at the farm shortly before supper, their ship buzzing my draft horses and baling combine and kicking a cloud of hay dust into the dry air. Even though I wasn't impressed with the ship's acrobatics, my younger brother Sol, who'd been wrapping the hay bundles with twine, stared at the English with excitement. Knowing I wouldn't get any more work out of him, I stopped the horses. The socket in the back of my head itched in resonance to our new visitors, which I took to be a particularly bad sign.

  The ship landed by the barn and three English stepped off. One, an older woman named Ms. Watkins, had served as New Lancaster's mediator between the Amish and English for the last three centuries and always respected our customs, as demonstrated by the plain gray dress she wore. The other English, though, didn't share her regard. The man behind Ms. Watkins wore a blue militia uniform, a definite slap at our nonviolent beliefs, while the teenage girl beside him was naked except for a swirl of colors obscuring her private parts. She gazed around the farm and smiled when she spotted me.

  “What do you think they want, Sam?” Sol asked as he stared at the naked girl. I shook my head, even though I had a good idea. A new comet had shone in the sky for the last few weeks, growing massively larger with each passing day. My father and I had discussed its looming impact several times. Now, as the English approached my father, I knew our concerns about the comet had come true. I handed the horse reins to Sol and walked over to join the conversation.

  “Ms. Watkins,” my father said, shaking her hand.

  “Bishop Yoder,” Ms. Watkins said. Then, turning to me, “This can't be Samuel? Last time I saw him he was just a little boy.”

  “Sam hasn't been a boy for almost five years,” my father said without a trace of pride, just like any proper Amish man. “In fact, he will turn twenty-one next month.”

  “Ah, rumspringa,” the naked girl said, rudely stepping between my father and Ms. Watkins. “I assume you'll be baptized on your 21st birthday?”

  “I hope to be,” I said, annoyed at an outsider asking such a personal question. In addition, these English surely knew exactly who I was. Their pretense of ignorance was merely another of their endless, convoluted games, although it would be rude to say that.

  “Well, I hope you'll reconsider. After all, there's more to life than working a left-behind farm.” The girl dimmed the colors flowing across her chest, allowing everyone a full view of her bare breasts. “It's not too late, you know. You can still seek forgiveness for any deadly sin that comes your way.”

  My father coughed awkwardly. Even Ms. Watkins blushed a solid, scarlet red, testimony to the modest personality proxy she'd downloaded before coming here. The militia man, of course, didn't respond and stared stone-faced at everyone.

  “Rumspringa isn't a time to simply run around and sin,” I said. “It's when one ‘puts away the things of a child' and becomes an adult. Nothing more. Nothing less. And I'm well aware of what life has to offer.” As I said that, I readjusted my straw hat, feeling the skull socket I would give anything to remove.

  My father nodded to my words, indicating I had spoken a solid truth, then waved for Ms. Watkins and the others to follow him into the house. I wanted to follow but, glancing back at Sol, I saw he'd somehow tangled the horse reins in the baling combine's gears. By the time I reached him one of the horses had kicked the baler, damaging the main driveshaft.

  I groaned. It would take all night to undo the reins and repair the driveshaft. Wanting to join my father inside, I glanced over at Sol, who was backing the horses up to give the reins more slack. Luckily for me, when the English created antique machines for us with their nanoforges, they included the same repair gollums as on their own equipment. With Sol distracted by the horses, I reached my mind through my socket and accessed the baler's gollum. The driveshaft's metal flowed and reworked itself until the reins lay free in my hand and the driveshaft looked as good as new.

  As Sol and I led the horses back to the barn, he glanced once at the baler. But he didn't say a word as we unharnessed the horses and washed them down for the night.

  * * *

  By the time we finished, the sun had set and the new comet glowed brightly across the sky. I led Sol into the house, where my mother intercepted my brother at the doorway.

  “The men are on the back porch,” she said as she led Sol the other way, to my brother's obvious disappointment. “There's chicken and mashed potatoes on the table, but it'll keep.”

  I nodded and headed for the back porch, fighting down a combination of pride at being considered a man and nervousness at why the English were here. The pride worried me the most – right after violence, our worst sin was hochmut. Before stepping onto the porch, I took a deep breath and calmed myself until I felt humble before God and life and the world.

  “Sam,” Ms. Watkins said. “Glad you could join us. Please, have a seat.”

  Ms. Watkins sat in a wicker chair, while several elders from nearby farms sat on a bench beside my father. I walked toward my father, irritated at Ms. Watkins offering me a seat in my father's house. Beside her sat the militia man, while the teenage girl leaned on the porch railing with her body colorings flowing to the slight breeze. As I passed the English, my socket buzzed slightly and I wondered what they were discussing among themselves. As if knowing my thoughts, the teenage girl smiled a most wicked smile and slid her tongue along the top of her red lips.

  “We have been discussing a mutual problem,” my father said, stroking his beard in irritation at the girl's behavior. “The comet will impact near here next week.”

  “How far?” I asked.

  The militia officer, whose name holo read Captain Stryder, looked over. “Just over 500 kilometers from this settlement. As I told your father, there will be some modest damage at that distance – windows blown out, that type of thing – but your community should survive. Still, we need to do a temporary resettlement to be safe.”

  “Why are we just being notified?” I asked.

  Captain Stryder didn't even blink. “Until yesterday, we didn't need to. A massive outventing changed the comet's course. Otherwise it would have impacted well away from here.”

  I nodded. New Lancaster was an Earth-size planet, but lacked sufficient quantities of water, with little standing liquid and only modest underground reservoirs. Since settlement began four centuries ago, periodic comet impacts had been used to terraform the still mostly deserted planet.

  Captain Stryder looked at me with the calm, reassuring gaze generated by his militia leadership proxy. But despite Stryder's attempt to put me at ease, I didn't trust him. I also recalled his name from somewhere. But short of accessing my socket, I couldn't figure out what I'd once known about him.

  “There really is no choice,” Stryder said. “We'll move everyone to a safe holding location, then move you back af
ter impact.”

  Assuming nothing goes wrong, I thought, filling in the unspoken words.

  My father opened his mouth to respond, but before he could say anything the teenage girl jumped up from the porch railing. “This is ridiculous,” she said in agitation. “Why are we even discussing this?”

  My socket again buzzed as, I assume, Ms. Watkins and Captain Stryder told the girl to shut up.

  “No,” she shouted. “These people depend on us for trips across the universe and machines and everything else, but they still don't want anything to do with us. Why do we bring them to each new world and baby sit them? I'd say it was nostalgia, but who even understands that emotion anymore.”

  In the faint glow of the gas lantern, Ms. Watkins blushed while the elders looked away. My father, though, kept a steady face. “I don't believe you've been properly introduced,” he said. “This is Emma Beiler. She is an expert.” He paused. “On the Amish.”

  “I see,” I said, struggling to find a suitable response. “How does one become an expert at such a young age?”

  Emma snorted. “Watch your manners, boy. I'm 641 years old come September. Born on old Earth herself.”

  I was quite familiar with life extension, having witnessed it up close among the rich and powerful in New Lancaster's main city. A millennium ago, our Amish order decided that life extensions were not part of our ordnung, or rules of living. While there was nothing sinful about preserving one's life, extending it indefinitely was extremely expensive, more so to revert to a vastly younger age. This expense would have caused dissension in the community. In fact, I had no doubt that Emma's teenage body was an attempt to create jealousy among her much older-looking colleagues. I shook my head in sympathy. While I refused to judge Emma, the fact that she'd lived so long and understood so little of life saddened me.

  “As I was telling our guests before you arrived,” my father said, “we will send someone to their ship to examine the data on the comet impact. Once that's done, we will discuss this among the entire congregation.”