Fiasco Heights

by Zack Archer

  “Okay, yeah, we’ve got a deal. But we have to shake on it.”

  “Shake?”

  “Hands,” I replied, nodding. “We shake hands, press the flesh. It’s a custom back on Earth.”

  He considered this and stepped toward me. The anger I’d been feeling as a result of the day’s events spread through me like a virus, my body filled with animalistic rage, and then, without thinking, I did the unthinkable.

  I headbutted the Harbinger as hard as I could.

  68

  I felt a meaty crunch as I flattened the dictator’s nose, listening to cartilage shatter as blood flowed and the impact sent me reeling.

  There were several seconds of terrible silence and then the Harbinger howled like an animal being led to the slaughter, stumbling around, throwing punches, bludgeoning anything he came into contact with.

  The door to the room opened and in came the one-eared man, Dez, and a cadre of the snakelike creatures, the Stemwinders, along with an assortment of other humanoid guards. Realizing my feats, my abilities, were of no use given the Harbinger’s energy-stifling veil, I decided to go old-school on the Harbinger’s goons.

  I slugged Dez in the stomach and cantered, throwing punches at the Stemwinders. I hit one of them in the face and it was like striking a brick wall. My breath went tight as the other monsters body-slammed me.

  I had a crushing headache from head-butting the Harbinger as the Stemwinders pinned me to the ground. A voice sounded in my ear: “You’ll do it,” the voice whispered. “You’ll do whatever I ask of you once you’ve been…reformatted.”

  I looked up and the Harbinger was peering down at me, a loop of bright red blood dangling from his pulped nose. “Take him away,” he ordered.

  Dez came for me and I kicked my boot, connecting with his balls. He howled in agony while the Stemwinders pulled me to my feet. They wrenched my hands behind my back and somebody jammed a hard object in the middle of my back, forcing me back down to the ground.

  Having nothing to lose, I screamed until my lungs burned.

  I yammered and cursed and shouted all of the horrible things that the Harbinger had done, hoping that somebody, anybody, might hear and come to help. One of the creatures inserted its fingers in my mouth to stifle me and I bit down on them.

  A ball gag was stuffed in my mouth and I looked up to see the Harbinger kneeling in front of me.

  His front had vanished.

  The façade of professionalism and propriety that he’d worn earlier had melted away and in its place was raw hatred. His eyes were like two candles in a mine and the blood running from his broken nose streaked his face and dripped between his beautiful white teeth.

  He didn’t bother to blot the blood from his face. Instead, he pulled back a fist and I closed my eyes, expecting him to let me have it, but nothing happened. My eyes flipped open and I saw that he was shaking his head.

  “You’re not worth it,” he said. “You’re just a gnat, Quincy, a collection of fucking atoms. We will squeeze you dry and fill you full of ourselves. Soon enough you’ll do whatever I want you to do. When that’s over, I’ll snack on your soul while incinerating the children and everyone else you care about. And when I grow bored with doing that, I’ll reduce the Earth to ashes. Just because I fucking can.”

  He signaled to Dez. “Take him down to the re-education room.”

  Dez punched me in the gut as the Stemwinders bound my hands behind my back and roughly dragged me from the room.

  They manhandled me across a hallway that ended near the spine of the building. Then they dragged me into a loop with a rugged finish, what I reckoned was a kind of freight elevator that serviced the rear of the Harbinger’s keep.

  I was dropped roughly to the ground and looked up to see Dez aiming a palm-sized pistol with a glowing green barrel at me. His lips curled up in a sneer. “You disrespected me in front of the man, motherfucker.”

  He rammed the barrel of the pistol into my chest.

  Even with my protective singlet, the blow stung.

  I tried to curse and spit in his face, but the ball gag made that impossible.

  The loop shot sideways across the back of the structure and finally stopped. The doors opened to reveal a semi-darkened corridor with twelve-foot ceilings and a hovering wave sled with a smaller serpent goon behind the controls. Dez deposited me in the back of the sled before sitting across from me, pistol still in hand.

  I tried to say something to him, but the ball gag was still in my mouth. Dez reached over and wrenched it free.

  “It ain’t easy breathing with one of those, is it?”

  “Well, you would know.”

  Dez shook his head and ran a finger down the barrel of the pistol. “I told the man we should’ve put you down as soon as we brung you in, but no, he said we needed you.”

  “You do.”

  “You’re disposable,” Dez hissed.

  “What about you?” I asked as the wave sled jolted off, gliding down the corridor.

  “What about me?”

  “Everyone here is supposed to have a feat, aren’t they?”

  Dez considered this. “Just so happens that I’ve got one.”

  “Sweating and smelling like shit aren’t feats, Dez.”

  He grinned darkly. “Being able to help other people reach their pain thresholds.”

  “That’s a pretty shitty feat,” I replied.

  “I’m thinking we’re going to have to take a good long while with you, Quincy.”

  I swallowed hard. “I’m pretty sure I can’t be killed.”

  Dez smiled. “Well, we’re gonna see about that, aren’t we?”

  The wave sled stopped several minutes later, and I was led at gunpoint down a stairwell and across several walkways.

  We stopped before a green door guarded by two well-armed security toughs who threw it open to reveal a short flight of stairs that dropped to a sunken room. There was a metal chair bolted to the floor in the middle of the room.

  Long straps dangled from the chair.

  Metal gutters were visible in a circular pattern around the chair.

  I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a room like that but this much I can tell you: straps + metal chair + metal gutters = not good.

  “I think we’re in the wrong room,” I said.

  I tried to exit and Dez shoved me down the flight of stairs.

  I stumbled forward and collapsed on the ground before the chair. I crabbed back to see Dez moving with menacing purpose toward me. He’d been handed a rather large knife by one of the guns and was running the blade back and forth across his thigh.

  “I don’t know how it is back on Earth, but you’ve never experienced true freedom until you stalk, kill, and eat something.”

  “You should put that on a b-bumper s-sticker,” I said, my teeth chattering.

  “You ever reached an alpha state?”

  “Not since yesterday,” I quipped.

  A zombified look filled Dez’s eyes. It appeared as if he was staring right through me. “There comes a point when you’ve done things, when you’ve reached the point that your mind is no longer telling your body what its limits are. When that happens, when you enter that state, I swear you are capable of anything.”

  We traded a long, terrifying look.

  “You’re not going to do it,” I said, gulping.

  “Do what?” Dez asked.

  “Stab me. I saw a documentary on soldiers once and it said stabbing someone is too close, too personal, which is why people don’t do it anymore.”

  Dez paused. “Is that right?”

  I nodded, trying like hell to buy myself some time. I remembered a podcast I’d watched on a military channel. It was the only thing that came to mind. “Did you know that the one continuous thread that has woven itself across the fabric of humanity is the depersonalization of war? Think about it. A thousand years ago you had to kill a man mostly with your bare hands. Now you can hit a button and kill millions.”

&n
bsp; Dez sneered. “So, what are you saying?”

  “So, I’m saying this isn’t the Dark Ages and you’re not going to use that knife.”

  In one swift movement, Dez plunged the blade into my thigh.

  I didn’t react.

  I guess I was so hopped up on adrenaline that I didn’t feel the cold blading sliding into my flesh.

  Dez was shocked that I hadn’t screamed and he withdrew the blade. My singlet was so tight that it staunched the flow of blood even though a little ribbon of red ran down my leg.

  “When did it happen?” I asked him.

  “When did what happen?”

  “When did you lose your humanity?”

  He grinned. “I’m not exactly human, am I?”

  “Well, you and your boss sure are a hundred percent asshole.”

  He smiled and held the knife up. “Where are Atlas Jackson and the others?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Okay, so that’s it then. It is what it is.”

  I nodded and then Dez punched me in the face.

  69

  When I woke up, my thigh ached and I was in the back of a wave sled coming to a stop at the end of the corridor.

  Dez grabbed and pulled me off, and I staggered because of my leg wound. He dragged me forward, flanked by the serpent goons, frog-marching me toward a silver door.

  The distant sound of screams and shouts echoed.

  We stopped a few feet away from the door.

  “Can I choose to see what’s behind another door?” I croaked.

  Dez slammed me into the door.

  “People are going to figure out what you’ve done. They’re going to realize you and the others murdered Greylock.”

  “And?”

  “And they’ll rise. They’ll fight back against the Harbinger.”

  Dez chuckled. “You ain’t from around here, so let me tell you how it is. The average attention span of the sheep in this city is basically the same as a goldfish back on your planet. Fifteen seconds, give or take. They can only focus on one or two things at a time, usually big-ticket items, real concerns such as whether there’s gonna be more free food or water for their godsdamned sex showers. Plus, now we got us a group of traitors who are threatening all of that.”

  “You mean…me?”

  Dez laughed. “You’re the bogeyman now, asshole. When we’re finished the people out there are gonna think you killed Greylock.”

  “But that’s a lie.”

  Dez pursed his lips. “Alternative facts. The only thing that really matters is that we needed an enemy. The order around here can’t be sustained by violence alone. We need us some true believers. Every society needs a bad guy, something horrible to happen so they can band together to prevent it from happening again, and that bad guy is you and your friends.”

  “What does it get you?”

  “The ability to do almost anything. People don’t want to be free anymore, they want to be safe. And that’s what the Harbinger is gonna give ‘em. Safety from traitors like you and Aurora. And while people are focusing on that threat, we’ll be taking over the whole fucking planet. If you tell me where your family is, I’ll be sure to make them my slaves when we eventually make our way to Earth. I promise to go easy on the one that birthed you.”

  Dez cackled and grabbed my arm, waving his palm at a scanner at the top of the silver door, which hissed open.

  A whistle of escaping air greeted me along with a frigid breeze.

  I stepped several paces inside, stopping on a ledge, and that’s when I saw her.

  Aurora.

  Yep, there she was.

  Encased in a hovering glass box.

  70

  Aurora sat in the box, hands similarly bound behind her back, in a room that looked roughly the size of an indoor sporting arena. There was easily a hundred feet from floor to ceiling, and the walls, which resembled the cells in a honeycomb, spewed torrents of air or gas (I couldn’t tell which), which kept hundreds of the glass boxes aloft.

  Aside from Aurora, there were other figures imprisoned in the boxes, mostly humanoids, but a few alien creatures as well.

  The boxes made a faint whirring sound as they slowly rotated up and around as if being slotted by an invisible hand into the world’s largest 3-D puzzle.

  “What is this place?”

  “A place where we’ll help you to become depatterned,” Dez answered. “A prison and a room where we use pain to help reorder your thoughts.”

  Dez stomped on a red button on the floor. A sudden blast of wind rocketed another empty glass box up. The box hovered in front of me, kept aloft by the powerful, constant jet of air billowing up from the ground. A door opened on the front of the box and Dez shoved me into it and slammed the door closed, locking it in place.

  I reached out and touched the walls of the box which felt like they were made of cold gel. There were nearly imperceptible holes in the walls which allowed air inside. My hands were still bound behind my back, so I was unable to try conjuring up a plasma ball to try and escape.

  “We’ll be back for you in a while!” Dez shouted, waving, before returning through the silver door which slammed shut.

  I turned back, realizing I was in deep shit. The only thing that was keeping me alive was that the Harbinger needed me to assist him with the trap bottle. Once he figured out a way to break me and harness my abilities, my usefulness would be over.

  I torqued my body around so that I could face Aurora who was just on the other side of a bald woman who was crouching in another of the glass boxes.

  “Funny meeting you here!”

  She glared daggers at me.

  “I want you to know that I’m not going to hold this against you!” I continued. “Especially after we had that little moment back down in the Empty Quarter!”

  Aurora didn’t respond, and the bald lady babbled in some unknown language as I shifted my weight to get a better view of Aurora.

  I was shocked to find that I could alter the position of the glass box by merely heaving my bulk sideways.

  I did this again and again, and then I threw myself forward until I was only eight or ten feet away from Aurora.

  Aurora’s face was welted, and her clothes were torn. It looked like the Harbinger and his goons had slapped her around before bringing her up here.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  She pinned me with a nasty look. “Isn’t it obvious?”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Do I look like I’m okay?”

  “You’re still alive.”

  “For the moment.”

  “You shouldn’t have left us down there, Aurora.”

  “I shouldn’t have done lots of things,” she snapped. “I should never have brought you to this place.”

  “Then you would never have reached the Light Breaker.”

  “Which is in the hands of the Harbinger now, you fool!”

  “Whose fault is that?”

  Aurora was so pissed that her lip quivered. “Don’t talk to me again.”

  “I can’t agree to that, because we need each other if we want to get out of here.”

  “The only way out of here is on a stretcher after the Harbinger comes for us.”

  “He can’t hurt us yet. He can’t do a damn thing with the trap bottle unless I help him, which means we’ve still got some leverage and a chance.”

  “Are you that stupid, Quincy?”

  “You’d be surprised how stupid I am.”

  “They’ll force you to do his bidding. And when they’re done with you, they’ll make it as if you never even existed.”

  “That’s certainly one way to look at the situation, Miss Sunshine. I tend to like to look at the brighter side of things.”

  “There isn’t a brighter side.”

  “Bullshit. It’s like that old song says, as long you’re grooving, you’ve still got a chance.”

  I shifted my weight and studied the room, taking in the sights and sounds. Some
of the other inmates were laughing and pointing at me. They’d overheard my conversation with Aurora and were asking if I could save them. I would’ve flipped them a middle finger, but my hands were still tied behind my back. Speaking of which, I worked my sweaty hands and fingers, tugging, trying to separate my bindings, which still wouldn’t budge.

  “Don’t bother. I’ve already tried. All of us have. The loops around your wrist are likely slicked with Akash. Very difficult to break.”

  “More good news,” I replied without looking up.

  “You should’ve escaped when you had the chance,” she muttered.

  I did look up at this. “They’re my friends, Aurora. Atlas and the others. I’m not the kind of person who leaves others behind.”

  “There are no more friends,” she replied, a sad expression stamped on her face. “Just…enemies and allies.”

  “What does that make me?”

  She didn’t respond. Her head sunk and she looked very small and insignificant inside the glass box.

  Seconds ticked by, then twenty or thirty minutes.

  I listened to the roar of the air and the murmurs and grunts of the other prisoners. The cube stayed in perpetual motion which gave me a constant headache.

  I sat very still, plotting, trying to devise a way out of it.

  I kicked at the cube, but the pliable clear material it was made from never completely gave way. It was like trying to boot your way through a box made of taffy.

  “It’s no use, Quincy!” Aurora shouted.

  “I’m not listening to you!”

  “You’re just tiring yourself out!”

  “It’s a new form of Crossfit!”

  This silenced her and I continued to hoof at the cube. The interior reeked of ammonia and the walls were soon lacquered with condensation from my efforts.

  I repeatedly punted the bottom and sides of the box which made the other inmates hoot and holler, and then I kicked some more until my legs ached and blood oozed from my thigh wound.

  Easing my head back, I began to contemplate how long it would be until Dez and the others came for me. How long it would be until I was marched down into the interior of the Harbinger’s keep and made to do something terrible so that the villain could destroy the Caul and take over the planet. Minutes? Hours?