by Steven Welch
Elise saw them then, people dressed in rags and chained to levers and wheels, and next to them, men with guns and whips. But they weren’t men. They were something more.
“Of course,” said Jules, “there are strange creatures aboard that hell ship. These are things that are not of our world.”
The men looked strong and thick. Their skin was white and black and there were tall fins that ran from their heads along their naked backs, like fish or lizards. The men weren’t human at all, they were something awful.
The flying sub motors whined then roared as Jules accelerated.
“We must go,” he said quietly.
They flew into the west, then, as quickly as the propellers would allow, into the setting sun.
The cabin was quiet, only the soft rhythm of the chopper blades could be heard. The rising winds of the coming night storm made the Aquaboggin shake, rise, and drop as it fought the currents and eddies in the sky.
Hemmi slept.
Elise stared out of the little window at her side. The desert of broken buildings and torn earth that had once been the great city of Paris passed below them. They were thousands of feet in the air and moving fast.
“Where are we going?”
Jules pointed vaguely into the distance.
“Into a world gone mad, little idiot.”
All that was left of Paris receded behind them.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
PRAETOR AGRUNCTUS
CHROMATOPHORES ARE THE tiny cells in the skin of some creatures that enable color change, texture shifting, and bizarre visual communication. Cuttlefish and other cephalopods are the masters and can flash every color of the rainbow in displays that would shame a chameleon.
A wide wall in the control room of thundering mountain of black metal known as The Razor was dressed in a sheet of skin, flesh that was rich with chromatophore and so much more vibrant and liquid than the crude glass and wire that humans called television.
The tiny organic cells were elegant, with every color and shade and tone, able to shift and change in the wink of a gnat’s eye. The skin wall communicated with plump insects the size of apples that flew about Paris, observing curious activity and scouting for valuables.
One of the flying spies had been circling the Hospital when a minor war had erupted above its roof.
Praetor Agrunctus sat in his control throne and watched the death of Scynda the Mirror and her Men of Many Eyes on the skin wall where it played out in real time, in life size, in all of its surprising suddenness.
A human flying a weapon over the city? Impossible.
The Shock Tide at the first moment of the invasion had been overwhelming and decisive. The ocean was drained without much fuss. The Earth defenses fell in hours and the world was cleared of meaningful resistance, allowing the fleet of Razors known as The Rolling Deep to begin work. This much Praetor Agrunctus knew for certain, otherwise he never would have been commissioned to do his work.
Now here was the strange man again, the one who had sent the signal to their forces in the first place, in a tiny flying vehicle, and this fool had killed one of their most valuable assets.
Agrunctus spit and the stuff hit the floor with a splashy thud. The phlegm wad sprouted legs and scuttled away into a dark corner of the control chamber.
The chamber was a black bubble of a room that sat atop the center of the mile wide Razor, the monolithic destruction engine that was consuming the 16th of Paris. From here the Praetor of a Razor could monitor the progress and track quotas. It was an important job and Agrunctus took it seriously. There were twelve Razors on planet Earth and that meant he was one of the twelve most important creatures on this world, a fact that he was quick to point out when he started to feel small. Why, without him and without his expertise in the demolition and extraction of detritus, where would they be? Somebody needed to sort through the garbage for gold.
Being the Commanding Praetor of a Razor was sedentary work. Agrunctus sat in the control throne, monitoring the work, at all times. His food was delivered by human slaves, his waste sucked through tubes in the seat of the throne, his vile amusements periodically stimulated through a series of skin screens and privacy funnels. This sedentary life meant, of course, that his dull mass flopped over the arms of the throne in fatty folds; his limbs so swollen and corpulent that it was difficult to tell where one leg ended and the other began. Agrunctus, like most of The Rolling Deep, was essentially humanoid in shape, but his head was like an overstuffed yellow rubbish bag atop a pile of greasy fat. He could move, but not much and not often. If you were in the control tower to smell him you would gag and run screaming at the stench.
“Human,” he said in a voice thick with phlegm, “come here.”
A skinny man dressed in rags moved out of the shadows and came to the throne. He was filthy and starved and he dropped to a knee before Agrunctus.
“Do something funny then watch the skin screen.”
The human flapped his arms and quacked like a duck. Agrunctus chuckled until yellow sputum coated his rubbery lips.
“Enough. Now, watch.”
The visuals on the skin screen reversed and then played out the massacre at the Hospital. The flying camera bug hovered as the submarine of Jules Valiance flew down and killed Scynda and the Men of Many Eyes. The visuals froze on the Aquaboggin as it began its flight to safety.
“Do you know that vessel?”
“No, Praetor,” said the frail man.
“Why should I believe you?”
The man’s face was lean and haunted. He pointed off into the corner of the control tower. A cage was hanging from the ceiling and in the cage were a small child and a woman, both half-clothed and starving.
Agrunctus smiled.
“Yes, your family. That’s why I should believe you, right?” The Praetor laughed again as if it was the funniest joke he knew, funnier even than a starving man mimicking a bird.
The man bowed his head as Praetor Agrunctus laughed.
“Well, no matter. Back to work.”
The frail man nodded and walked, head bowed, out of the control tower, down a tunnel, up a ladder, and back onto the broad, wide deck of The Razor.
The sandstorms were a full blow now and the cold, harsh winds whipped the man’s naked skin. He clutched his arms against himself to ward off the chill as best he could.
Lightning cascaded above and around while the spark-flies buzzed and ignited. The deck was calm amid the chaos, always a smooth ride as it plowed through earth, so the man made his way to one of the observation towers.
A guard, huge with black and white skin and fins like a shark, stood at the entrance to the small tower. He allowed the man into the little stairwell that led a few meters up to the top. There, the man joined another, and the two donned goggles and stared out through clouds of smoke and debris billowing up from The Razor’s countless rotating blades. It was hard to see at night during a sandstorm, but the goggles used a light, like night-vision, that helped to cut through the chaos so that the men could help the Praetor plot the most lucrative course through the city once known as Paris.
Praetor Agrunctus didn’t know where the richest troves of human-made technology might be found, but the humans certainly did, and it was their job to guide The Razor to the televisions, cars, refrigerators, toys, vacuums, computers, and electric toothbrushes.
There was a little control panel in front of the two men in the tower. They both knew the city, so they both punched a button and the same time and pointed off in the direction of The Galleries Lafayette.
The Razor, a mile wide bulldozer, turned to the east and made its way to the mall, grinding and sucking up our detritus as treasure while it went.
CHAPTER THIRTY
NIGHT FLIGHT
BRIGHT LIGHT THEN an immediate, loud bang.
Elise straightened and focused, her eyes gummy from sleep. The cabin of the Aquaboggin was dim and there was no light coming through the windows. She looked outside, into t
he night, and saw nothing but blackness. Then, another lightning strike, a frightening boom of thunder. Her eyes hurt from the flash. They were flying through the night storm and there was lightning all around them.
She unbuckled and made her way up front, the floor falling and rising below her feet, and strapped into the co-pilot seat next to Jules Valiance.
The large viewing window before them was black with streaks of white hot light erupting near and close.
The cabin was cool, but she saw sweat on Jules’s face.
He smiled.
“Ah yes. We fly in a tiny metal tube through a hurricane of lightning. Not an enviable position.”
“Will lightning hit this thing?”
“It is a possibility. One strike can kill us all. But look.” He pointed off to the left.
The moon. It was a sliver, just a slice of silver in the black, but it was there. And stars too, beautiful stars twinkling in the darkness.
“Mr. Moon and his stars. I have not seen them in ten years. The storms come every night and hide their beauty. Aren’t they wonderful?”
Elise smiled. She loved the moon. Her Dad used to tell her stories about the moon and the stars, silly funny stories where anything was possible.
“I flew up, over the sandstorm, otherwise the winds and the sand would have destroyed us. The storm is so tall I feared that we would never get out of her grip. At an altitude of ten thousand feet, it was as if we entered a new world. The sand pounding the ship went silent, and we were here, in this wonderful place where there’s a moon and there are stars and there is peace.”
A bolt of lightning struck.
“And deadly lightning, of course. There’s that. But look at the sky.”
Elise did, she looked out into a night that might have been a night from ten years before, when the world was right and none of this had ever happened.
“So, little idiot, if we are to die, then we die with a view of our world as it should be.”
“That’s cool and all but I’d rather not die.”
“Point well taken.”
Elise watched the lightning strikes, strange tentacles of white light appearing and then disappearing all around them, lighting the red mass of sandstorm below them, so bright that it hurt her eyes. The bolts were coming from above, from a thin haze of dust high above their ship, and reaching down into the storm, everywhere and unpredictable. It was only a matter of time until they were hit.
“A strange tableau, is it not? But of course, you are correct. It would be folly to die tonight because we were taking in the view,” he said. He looked back and included Hemmi in the conversation.
“So, to your left under the seat you will find a little paper bag in which to deposit your vomit. Please remove the bag and hold it near your mouth. Do you children like the roller coast rides?”
Hemmi’s eyes were closed. He didn’t answer and if he had he would not have known what to say as he’d never heard the word rollercoaster in his life.
Elise grabbed the little bag and held it to her chest.
“I hate rollercoasters,” said Elise.
“I love them. We shall call this rollercoaster, “The Escape From the Lightning of Painful Death.” Hold on.”
Jules pushed on the little wheel in his hands and began to emit a piercing scream, something that he had learned from Bedouin tribes of the Wadi Rum, but of course, Elise did not know this, nor would she have cared at that moment, because the nose of the Aquaboggin dropped into a completely vertical position below them and they plummeted.
Her stomach went up to her forehead and her food bar shot out of her throat and into the bag like a circus performer out of a cannon.
The engines were at full throttle, the propellers rotated into the proper pitch to send them into a spinning descent. The lightning lit sandstorm ceiling below them approached through the forward glass, closer and closer, until they were in it.
That’s when things got really bad. They were at full throttle drop and when they hit the sandstorm and punctured the ceiling it felt as if a giant hand had swatted the Aquaboggin. The powerful wind and lashing sand slammed them and the sub went from straight vertical to an upside down position, flying, dropping, spinning so wildly that Elise didn’t know which way was up.
Jules fought the controls and stabilized her, bringing her back into the steep descent. The noise of the engines and the sandstorm was deafening, but Elise thought she heard him scream “Sand might clog her engines!” right before sand clogged her engines.
The cabin went dark. The power was out. Hemmi screamed. The sub was no longer flying, she was dropping.
Jules was jabbing at the controls and pulling at the wheel but nothing was happening.
He cursed and wrenched at a yellow handle near his seat.
There was a loud pop, and the sub seemed to slam into a wall of air. Elise was pushed so hard into her seat belt that she thought it would snap, and her eyes felt like they were going to shoot out of her head. Then, they began to descend again, slowly this time, still shuddering and dipping but in much more control.
“Parachutes,” Jules said.
The sub’s conical nose raised up and they were back into a more or less normal position, but she still twisted with the winds as they caught the chutes.
“Not out of the woods yet, girl. If you were in prayer, I would continue,” he said.
Soft amber emergency lights illuminated the cabin. Elise saw that Hemmi was sitting with his mouth wide open, vomit on his lips, eyes wide with terror.
Jules pulled another handle in the cockpit and there was a sharp hissing sound, like steam escaping, that lasted for several seconds.
“Canisters of gas in the engines,” he said as he started trying once more to bring the sub to life, “designed to fight fire and to dislodge seaweed or tiny fish from the impellers. Perhaps they can clean out this infernal sand.”
Elise couldn’t see out of her window, couldn’t tell whether or not they were close to the ground, or a mountain, or a building.
A barking cough, then a straining of rotors. The lights in the cabin began to flicker.
Jules cursed and struck the control panel with his hand.
Another cough and the engines fired up. Jules pulled down on the throttle and cut the parachutes. They were flying again, but almost blind, the forward beams of light not enough to cut more than a dozen yards ahead through the storm.
“I will land now,” Jules said, “and we can hope that God’s lottery sets us down next to a pleasant cafe with pretty waitresses and acceptable wine.”
The altimeter on the sub was practically worthless in the storm. Jules didn’t trust the readings. The descent was so bumpy that the nose of the ship kept dropping and falling, making it impossible to track the horizon for objects, for the ground.
A thump, a slide, and they were no longer bouncing through the storm. The cabin leaned to the right and everything was still.
They had landed, and they were alive.
Elise looked out of the window. Just blackness and lashing sand.
Jules dimmed the cabin lights and brought up the ship’s side beams.
Light spilled out on either side of her, from a half dozen high beam light projectors designed to cut through the blackness of the deepest realms of the ocean, but useless in the sandstorm.
He killed the lights, then the engines and all but emergency power, opening vents for air.
“Hours until sun up,” he said.
He tended to their injuries. He smeared some cold glop on the cut on Elise’s forehead that was supposed to seal it and heal it, in his words. Hemmi’s ankle was swollen so Jules wrapped it in gauze and gave him a couple of pills for the pain.
“This is called bourbon. An anesthetic of sorts, but with an American attitude.”
Hemmi took a shot of dark brown liquor, gagged, coughed, and sat back into his seat, eyes closed.
“That was awful,” he said, the first words he’d spoken since Paris.
Jules shrugged and took a swig.
Elise looked through a tiny glass pane into the cold chamber where Charlie was lying. His feelers and legs moved slowly, so he was alive, but the color of his shell wasn’t the dark, rich red. It was gray in spots and pale. Jules had sealed the wound in his shell with some paste that was supposed to work on people but they had no idea if it would help a giant land crab with a hole in its chest.
Charlie was dying, she was sure of it, and he was her only friend in the world.
She sat in the co-pilot seat next to Jules for an hour or more during the storm. They talked.
“Where do you think we are?”
“Brittany. The coast. Or, what was the coast when there was an ocean.”
“How did you find me, you know, at the Hospital?”
“The watch that I gave you to use. It has a geo-tracking device. And a corkscrew, but you are too young for such things.”
“What was that thing that was in Paris, that bulldozer? There were people on it, like slaves, and those other things that weren’t people. What were they?”
“I suspect that it was as you say, a bulldozer. Who is driving and why, a mystery.”
“I met some people in Paris, nice people. Two men named Robert and Renny. I think that the bulldozer was going in the direction of their little apartment. I hope not, but I think it was. I think they must be dead, too.”
Elise was quiet for a moment. She thought about the two nice men and their little place, the plastic flowers and the marks on the wall of the days since the end of the world. It made her sad, so she started talking again.
“I think those things killed the kids in The Hospital. I think Hemmi saw it. I don’t think he’s doing so well.”
“I suspect that you are correct,” Jules said.
“Is there a toilet in this thing?”
Jules pointed aft.
“The little yellow door to the port side. Do not open the red door on the right. You will flood the cabin with radiation and we will all die, withering away like salted slugs.”
