by Kris Schnee
A circle on the floor had markings slowly spinning around it. Simon crouched nearby, boggled at all this technology. It looked like another elevator, to another whole floor of wonders. He stood on the circle, bracing his feet. It rumbled, but instead of sinking, the floor pressed up at him and rose, trapping him on a dangerously high stone pillar beside the nearest statue. He waved his arms for balance. On the statue, a hatch opened.
Simon stared into a dark space, where there was a sort of chair. This he had to see! Forgetting the danger for a moment, he hopped from the pillar into the statue's interior, which reacted by starting to glow with symbols of its own. Panels in front of him became windows showing the hall outside the statue. No... one "window" showed a completely different angle, and the central panel kept shifting focus. These were some sort of video screens.
Simon was just starting to realize that the "statue" had a whole lot of hardware in it, when something grabbed his ankles. He looked down to see a circle of golden light appearing from nowhere around each one, holding it in place. He kicked but couldn't move his feet, and when he reached down, more little halos locked around his wrists! He struggled helplessly. His arms drifted to a neutral position at his sides, and more bands formed around his arms, legs, chest, neck and forehead, thoroughly tangling him. To the extent that he could move at all, he could see another loop of light drifting aimlessly behind him and the hatch sealing next to him. Simon told himself that this couldn't be a death-trap, that this facility had let him in and had plenty of chances to kill him before. But then, some of the civilizations in this area had been known for elaborate human sacrifices.
The bands holding him felt warm and comfortable. He was floating in a standing pose, not touching any of the stonework and strange instruments around him. Magnets? He tried to calm down by focusing on the technology. It probably wouldn't rip out his heart to feed the sun god.
A voice murmured in his head. "Ixtl?"
"Hello?" said Simon. "Who's there?" But he wasn't just hearing echoes from outside; the "statue" itself was talking.
The voice paused. It spoke something fluid and musical, not a word of which Simon understood. But then it added, "-- Understand me now?"
"What is this?" asked Simon.
"I've reconfigured my input/output system to link to your concept center directly. Something is very wrong, Ixtl."
"What's Ixtl?"
The voice said, "You are my pilot."
"My name is Simon, and --"
"No! You are Ixtl. You must be!" The voice hesitated again. "A genetic scan. You have to be. Yes, the data is mostly identical. Ninety-six percent genetic match is within spec after some... re-interpretation. You've suffered severe genetic and cellular damage, pilot."
Simon didn't know how to reason with the voice; he'd mostly studied inert artifacts and he really hadn't planned for this situation in his few anthropology courses. "Please let me go."
"An order from my pilot? I must comply... but wait. You're hurt. I can fix you."
"I'm fine, really," Simon started to say, despite his scrapes and bruises. But then the glowing bands around him flashed, turning searing hot so that he cried out.
"Sorry," the voice said, and the burning faded to a terrible itch he couldn't move to scratch. Simon looked to his wrists and saw tufts of dense hair growing there.
"What are you doing to me?" Simon stared at the hair spreading all over him now and rippling in the faint air currents, tickling him.
"Repairing you. Please wait. There's a great deal of damage. You've even lost your tail!"
At this, Simon felt a hairy thing slip out from the back of his jeans, twitching and curling behind him like a living creature -- one he could feel, as though part of his back. Bands of light grabbed it and held it up. The distraction -- a tail! -- kept him from much feeling the throbbing in his skull, which seemed to stretch and distort. Suddenly there was a blocky thing in the middle of his field of view, ending in a big nose that was too far away.
"Hold still," the voice advised, as though Simon could do otherwise. The itching faded and he felt like someone was massaging him instead, kneading his muscles and soothing all his minor injuries. He shut his eyes and found himself making a deep rumbling noise in his throat. A purr.
His eyes snapped open. "A mirror!" he said, with a lisp through growing teeth and a long tongue. "Let me see!"
The panel in front of him flickered and showed him something. A sleek figure hanging in the air, covered in golden fur with rosettes of black and tan and a white chest. Its jaw hung open, exposing fangs, and he felt muscles twitching on his head as the great cat's ears flicked this way and that, catching machine sounds. "I'm a jaguar?" he said.
"Repair complete," said the voice. "Resuming configuration. Chronometer is damaged; what year is it?"
Too startled to think, Simon told it.
"Calibrating. You seem to have forgotten your language, but I don't have the equipment to restore your lost skills and knowledge. You'll have to make do. Calibrating to the true calendar..."
Then the machine gave a rapid-fire squawk Simon could only interpret as, "Oh, shit." Simon could guess why, although most scholars said the pop-science interpretation was nonsense. Apparently the crackpots were right: the Mayan calendar really did mean that this year, 2012, was the scheduled year for the apocalypse. The statue said, "Ixtl, there's more trouble than I'd thought."
Simon began to realize his mistake in daring to climb into the statue. Like all the others, it had been sitting in some kind of storage alcove. Waiting for its pilot to return, for centuries. He felt vaguely sorry for it, despite what it had done to him in its desperation. Odd as it felt, this change wasn't painful or ugly. Just different.
"Machine," he said, "Am I right in thinking that you can move?"
"Yes. Unlocking the controls; brace yourself."
There came a rumble he felt more than heard, and a sense of the machine's huge mass weighing harmlessly on him like a lightweight suit of armor. He raised one of his golden-furred arms toward the monitor panels and symbols in front of him, saying, "How do I do this?"
The statue's stone-and-metal arm lifted for the first time in ages, matching his movement. Its huge fist had claws that could fell trees. He took a step with his legs hanging in midair inside the statue and heard a massive foot thump on the great hall's floor, raising dust. He could stare out through the machine's eyes and shamble around, feeling huge and powerful. When he whistled, even the sound was amplified.
"The other pilots are missing," the statue told him. "There can't be much time."
Simon was distracted from moving around. He'd always thought of the 2012 thing as just a primitive version of the Y2K problem, but maybe there was more to learn here. "Why? What's going to happen?"
"I don't know," said the machine, in a voice that made Simon shiver. "We weren't told, and the files are damaged. But the calendar just -- stops."
"I need to get out of here."
"Do you wish to dismount, or exit the base?"
"Yes. Um. Is there a door large enough for this -- for you?" Wouldn't Professor Edgarton be surprised!
It said, "Of course! Go to the far end of the hall."
More spinning symbols appeared in the distance. Simon walked over there with huge steps, looking to either side at the other statues. There were variations in shape and color and tattered decorations, from the lost stone temple pilots. A race of jaguars? What had happened to them all?
Simon wondered if "his" machine even really believed he was this "Ixtl" person.
On the wall glowed a mural of a cat face in a wheel of mysterious swirls. Before he could touch it, the ceiling rumbled and began to split, showering him with pebbles and dirt. He raised an arm and realized that the "pebbles" probably outweighed a man, but they bounced harmlessly off him.
The blue sky lit the chamber at long last. Was it him purring, or the machine? He said, "Why isn't the elevator working?"
"There isn't one here. Jump out."
The ground was above his head -- the statue's, rather! It didn't seem possible, but he slowly crouched, one hand to the floor, and leaped. He flew into the sky, tumbling with the sun and the jungle and the open hatch whirling around him. Just as his stomach churned he landed on his feet, hands smacking the ground, giant stone tail lashing the earth.
The Professor and the other students gaped at him. He waved. "Hi, there!"
"Are they dangerous?" said the statue. Targeting symbols flickered over their outlines.
"They're my friends. Here, let me get out." Obligingly, the hatch in the statue's side opened. He had the weird sensation of being back in his own body, changed as it was, instead of seeing everything from the statue's bigger perspective. Before he knew what he was doing, he'd hopped out of the hatch and fallen scarily far to the ground, cushioned by powerful muscles and the fading control bands on his limbs. He glanced back up at the cockpit, feeling springy on his feet, stuck on tiptoe.
The others stared. Somebody managed to say, "What are you?"
"It's me, Simon. Professor, I found a hidden ultra-tech temple and now I'm a jaguar with a giant robot. I think we have some slight changes to make to the historical record."
Edgarton fainted.
Simon offered the others his clawed, furred hand to shake. Several people did, dumbstruck. He said, "Look, everyone, I've made a discovery you should see. But we might have a big problem of some kind, too. Can someone wake up the Professor?"
They did. Edgarton sat up and stared at Simon. "There's so much we've missed in our studies! Advanced technology was right there, forgotten under our feet? Simon, is this... discovery of yours connected to the news?"
"The news?" said Simon, ears perked. He put one hand to them, feeling the movement.
"Right, of course, you wandered off. You wouldn't have heard. Somebody show him."
A student crept closer to offer him a computer pad. Simon took it and skimmed the text on it. "An unknown object entering the solar system from the direction of the Leo constellation, apparently artificial... no signal detected despite SETI observation... world leaders in conference."
Simon's ears laid flat and his tail hid between his legs. "Doc, what was that weird Mayan apocalypse story? Not the fire or the rain of blood."
Professor Edgarton gulped. "The whirlwind that turns humans into monkeys?"
"No, the other weird one. What was it?"
"Jaguars falling from the sky."
What had really mattered was not just the ancient base and its hidden location on Earth, but when he'd found it. Simon stared up past the statue and the jungle canopy, to the open air and to space beyond it. He stood there, seeing nothing yet. He said, "Not just from the sky... I think the world's about to need some warriors. So, does anyone here like cats?"
The Gift of Life
Outside the cave where Garrett sat with quill and paper, the evening's resurrection crowd had begun to gather and murmur. He focused on filling out the daily paperwork as much as he could. He kept telling himself, it's not these people's fault. It's love that brings them here. Light from the Shrine behind him cast shadows across his stone desk.
Garrett sneaked a glance outside and his heart paused for a moment. So many people this evening! A line of royal guards blocked the view; without them the crowd would pour in on him, tear at him, wash him away. Each person there had lost a friend, a parent, a lover today. Every petitioner had a fresh wound on their heart. Each wanted the gift of life that the Shrine could give to only one per day. Garrett stared down at the papers, then snatched them all up and dumped them onto a shelf. He couldn't make his decision purely based on the written words. He had to go out there and listen.
His boots echoed on the cave floor. His hands clutched a useless clipboard. One of the guards looked back over one shoulder at him and nodded, stepping aside enough for Garrett to get a good look at the people outside. An old woman shrieked and sprang forward, holding up a man's picture and a copy of a request-for-revival form. Garrett stared at her until he realized why she'd done that; it wasn't just to get his attention. By chance his shadow had pointed at her, marking her with his favor. His stomach twisted. The guards shoved the old lady back and he wanted to reprimand them for being too harsh, but they were right. Their job was unpleasant too.
One of their duties was to enforce the rule against showing him the bodies.
Garrett stood at the cave entrance, cleared his throat, and looked at no one. "I need you to form a line. Have your identification and applications out. Don't worry; there's plenty of time." They swarmed into a line, shoving each other. He always feared that someone would be killed in the line itself. As the crowd congealed, a boy got pushed to the front. A kid in an oversized jacket, staring up at him. Garrett could pretend the rest of the crowd wasn't real, as long as he could think about just one tragedy at a time, one death, one plea for help. Garrett didn't want to remember how many other people were waiting, and gave the boy his full attention.
The boy pressed a sheaf of papers into Garrett's hands and said, "You've gotta help my dad! He's a guard. A robber stabbed him and he's hurt real bad and the doctors say --"
Garrett said, "He's alive?" He glanced at the form in his hands. The time of death and some other lines were still blank.
"Yeah, but --"
Garrett shook his head. "I'm sorry. He has to have died first. Tomorrow, maybe." If he lived past midnight, the man would qualify for the next revival session.
"Yeah," said the kid. "Tomorrow." He stomped out of the cave, but turned to look inside. Deeper in past Garrett's desk were the stone arches and intricate crystals of the Shrine, which stood like a marvelous ancient gazebo right where it had been unearthed. Its central platform was large enough for a body. Garrett found himself looking inward too. He had once thought the Shrine was beautiful, rather than cruel.
In his early days he'd learned a saying from lawyers that "the expression of one thing is the exclusion of another". To save one life with the Shrine, which worked exactly once per day, meant saving none of the day's other dead.
Next came the old woman, who bumped into the kid and gave him a dirty look. The woman brandished her papers and a picture in each hand like sword and shield, so that it was hard for Garrett to grab the form. "His name is Thomas," she said.
Garrett looked the revival form over. Thomas, age sixty-two, killed by heart attack. "I'm sorry. The kingdom has a rule against people already over fifty."
"He's a healthy man! He'd have decades left in him! Please, be my angel for him!"
"I'm sorry."
The woman's face twisted into a wrinkled snarl, and she gave him a vicious, burning stare. Garrett closed his eyes to shut out the sight of her. Maybe the hatred in her -- for him -- would help her through the pain of her loss. Maybe it wasn't all destructive, the result of his having to say No, no, I'm sorry, I can't help you, I choose to save someone else.
Garrett stared at the walls and waited for the next applicant, and the next, and the next. He retreated to look through the hundred forms that had piled up on the stone desk inside the cave. His finger traced the grooves worn into the desk by his predecessor, the famous Hero of Valshire, who'd discovered the Shrine and been given care of it as a reward.
Garrett remembered the day he'd visited the Shrine as a scholar, wanting to know how it worked. The Hero had picked that day to retire, and had pointed at Garrett. What an honor.
He flipped through the forms again, wandering back to the Shrine room to read them by its kindly, shimmering blue light. Among the applicants were a young man murdered in an alley, a woman who'd died in childbirth, two people who stabbed each other in a bar... Some he had to throw out because of one rule or another. Those lightened his heart, sometimes, because they made the pile smaller. Others he wanted to disqualify, for various reasons. This one was obviously reckless and would just get himself killed again the same way; that one had deserved exactly what he got. The more he saw of death, the more he realized
how stupid and petty most deaths were. Not glorious, not meaningful, and not at the peak of people's happiness. People had worthless endings! He stuffed papers into the trash as he went through them one by one.
People outside would see. Fine! It was better to tell them all to leave, instead of keeping them in suspense again. What good would saving anyone do, if it just bred more anger?
He shook his head, leaned against the cool stone pillars of the Shrine, and put one elbow on the worn stairs leading up to the central circle. His breathing eased. Tonight he would leave and have a good meal, somewhere where his face wasn't known and hated. Maybe he wouldn't come back in the morning. Each night he got a little better at ignoring people's pleas, and he hated that "improvement" in his personality.
"Mister!"
He looked up from the papers to find a silhouette slipping between the guards, waving. "Take my form!" It was the kid, the wounded guard's son. The dead guard's son, if the boy was back so soon.
Wordlessly, Garrett handed him a clipboard and pen. The boy fought back tears as he tried to fill everything out, including his father's time of death. Garrett said, "You can slow down. I don't have to choose until just before midnight."
The kid paused. "You've got to pick him. He saved everybody from a murderer. Everybody in town knew him. One time he --"
Garrett leaned back as the kid pressed closer. "Please, I need you to wait outside."
"Why can't you just say yes? It's right! He's the one to save!"
One of the guards was coming towards them, reaching for the kid, but Garrett raised a hand. "It's all right."
The guard nodded, then stiffened, looking at the name on the form. "Him!"
"What?" said Garrett.
"He was in my company in the war. Risked his life for us. After he left the army he helped put down a gang of assassins and rescued their hostages." The guard had a far-away look. "Great man."
