Author: Ian

Kutor was unlike the rest of his tribe, and he knew it. They knew it. They feared him. To be fair they feared everything. Fear is a healthy mindset when competing with the elements and saber-toothed tigers. With Kutor, the fear was existential. They didn’t know what that meant. No one would define that kind of dread for thousands of years. That didn’t stop them from feeling it. They were morons. Being more politically correct, which is also an idea that wouldn’t take hold for generations, but a concept Kutor was sensitive to anyway, they hadn’t evolved past their primitive state. They weren’t so stupid that they didn’t recognize Kutor’s brilliance and the comfort he could bring them, so he was tolerated if not totally embraced.

Usually, a feeling that profound drove the tribe to act in less than familial ways by killing the person responsible. Their survival was so intertwined with Kutor’s existence, they dared not act against him. He was indispensable. They didn’t know what that meant either, but they knew it all the same. So did Kutor.

Often Kutor was heard talking to himself and drawing strange runes in the dirt trying to solve an enigmatic puzzle. And though his creations added to the welfare of his people, they avoided him. He didn’t fault them for it. They were simple people just beginning to grasp their place in the cosmos. Evolution, the biological force Kutor discovered that drives everything, was a harsh master and one that couldn’t be denied.  He imagined what it must have been like for that first person to see beyond their own existence into sentience. For Kutor, he saw the contrast when he was two years old able to count past the fingers on his hand. But it made him alone. Part of them yet removed. Protected, but not connected.

He swung the door of his cave open and met the sun with a deep cleansing breath. One of his last. He held a steaming mug of brown liquid that the members of his tribe had come to understand as “morning drink.” Rich and fragrant, it had the properties of a stimulant and a laxative. Kutor sipped his drink as some of his more eager tribe folk passed by.

“Ug. Kutor.” One said in greeting.

“Good morning, Thok.” Kutor replied and waved.

It wasn’t just the way he spoke that set Kutor apart. He kept no fur on his head or face. When asked, Kutor replied, “It’s easier to maintain like this. You should try it. It helps me think.” Which made his brothers and sisters bang their fists into their heads in confusion.

All his calculations scribbled in chalk in his cave showed the same thing. He kept it secret. No reason to alarm everyone. It would be over soon enough anyway. Kutor thought about letting them in on it, but decided, through a series of mathematical equations, that it wouldn’t do any good. He was the only one who understood, who had the ability to understand. He predicted what they’d say. “We make big spear for stop giant sky rock!” “We run to cave on other side of flowing water.” There was nothing he could say to get them to come to terms with the end.

Kutor walked the perimeter of the village as he did every morning feeling the reverence from his kinsmen in the form of lowered heads and grunts of greeting. He could have explained it all. The world would go on. They wouldn’t get it. It was like talking to a tree. He may as well have told them light exhibits properties of both a particle and a wave.

He passed by one hairy man who was knelt over a pile of sticks trying hard to get a fire started. “Good morning, Krug.”

“Ug, Kutor.”

“Having a little trouble today?” Kutor smiled and sipped from his cup. Krug had a cup of his own filled with milk next to him. He made it himself with Kutor’s instruction, but it wasn’t as nice. It worked though.

“Fire not come. Me not know why.” Krug scratched his hairy head and rubbed his ridged brow. He sighed. “It cold morning.”

Kutor pulled a small stone from his animal skin tunic. He had sewn little pouches on the insides of his clothes. No one else had figured out how to do that yet. He separated the stone into two parts and banged the top on the bottom. An exposed bundle of mammoth hair sizzled with flame and Kutor held the fire to Krug’s bundle of sticks. Kutor chuckled to himself as Krug reverted to a less evolved state by running in a circle, screaming and flinging dirt in all directions as the bundle of sticks ignited.

“You’re welcome.” Kutor closed his small rock and put it back in his pocket. That’s what he called it: a pocket.

The tribe was flourishing. Kutor’s inventions, like the wheel and plumbing, made everyone’s lives easier and the world a little less harsh. He sighed. Hopefully his plan would work, and not everything would be lost.

He made his way out of the village and to his project. There was a clearing large enough a short walk into the woods where they would go and have rituals. Not exactly a holy site or anything. Religion was just emerging. But the ground was soft and the excavators he invented were able to dig deep and quickly. His explosives did the work on the bedrock.

The discoveries he made, the fossils, the geologic events, were fascinating. Kutor logged them on stone and set them aside to be preserved. He didn’t have the time to study them the way he wanted, but someone would…someday.

The crew was hard at work. They followed Kutor’s instructions to the letter. He gave them each such a specific task and clear instructions it was impossible not to. Scaffolding surrounded a pit thirty lengths of Kutor’s arm span wide. Counterweights on long beams were operated by his people. They raised them up and down pulling massive baskets full of soil and rocks from the hole. Activity was buzzing with grunts and high-pitched screams.

“Ug, Kutor.” Naka, a young woman holding a large bone club said. She was bigger than most of the villagers and had an air of command. Kutor installed her as the overseer of the project mostly because of her size and ferocity. It’s what his people accepted. Truth through intimidation. Malarky for the most part, but Kutor resigned to use his people’s antediluvian notions to his advantage. Naka also had a strange knack for cunning. Her eyes didn’t glaze over when Kutor explained what they were going to do. She was one of the few that could see beyond herself.

“Good morning, Naka. Where are we?” He sipped his drink while surveying the project. Naka scratched her ridged brow and seemed unable to answer. She looked down and around searching for a literal response. Kutor chuckled at his forewoman and rephrased.

     “Apologies.” He cleared his throat. “How is the project going today.”

     Naka smiled, a big blunt-toothed grin. “Go good. Almost ready for big box.” She pointed her giant hairy knuckled finger at a massive metal cube dangling by a series of intricately woven ropes. It was nearly as wide as the hole it hovered above and bigger than any of the homes in the village. Getting enough metal out of the ground was the first thing he had to convince his people to do. Then building a smelter. Then casting.

     “This make us never die?” Naka interrupted Kutor’s inspection. It was an honest question. One that deserved an honest answer. Kutor convinced the tribe to go all in with his project because he told them their lives would be preserved forever. True. But rather than explain what that meant, Kutor allowed them to believe personal immortality was the result of their hard work. He smiled at Naka. His choice of leader for his project was a good one. She didn’t take things at face value. She had questions. She needed clarification. Unlike the rest of the proto people, She was skeptical. Like him.

     Kutor looked at his massive undertaking, the largest of any ever, before he answered. The teakwood structures holding ropes and pulleys, the ramps of people waiting to put a part of themselves in the metal vault and sighed hoping this wasn’t truly the end. He cleared his throat to hide the sob that escaped his lips, and Naka tilted her head at him like the wolves Kutor domesticated when they didn’t understand. “Once we fill the giant box and bury it, we will live in the future.”

     “Fuu…tuurrr?” Naka rumbled and banged her fist against her head as was customary with her people when they were thinking.

     Kutor smiled. “In the time after now.”

     “All time is time after now.” Naka said. And Kutor raised his trimmed eyebrows at Naka’s delivery of an abstract idea, impressed.

The queue of knuckle walking near apes wound up the scaffolding, each person holding something personal to put inside the vault. “You must put something of you inside for the magic to work.” Kutor explained when he brought the idea to his village. Again, true, but also not. Charg, the oldest member of the village at thirty-two, put his walking stick inside the receptacle. Zurg, the Chief’s daughter followed placing a small piece of leather with a print of her mother’s hand. That part of the assignment, to Kutor’s surprise, they all understood.

Kutor already put etchings of his favorite equations and discoveries on the walls of the vault: Three symbols, the first two separated by a small cross and the third by two small horizontal lines, all three accented with a smaller symbol next to a triangle. A double twisting vinelike scrawling with four different symbols attached on the inside, and the image of a circle on fire falling from the sky onto their world with the world destroyed. There were many more. That was his contribution.

He stayed there supervising his work watching his people leave their offerings. When night came, Kutor activated the lights he invented that didn’t require fire. They were brighter than the twinkling dots in the dark sky. One light up there used to be nothing but a twinkle too, but it had grown over the past few weeks. It would be on them soon. Working nonstop was the only way to get everything done before…before it was all over.

Kutor watched as Naka held her bone club to her protruding forehead and put it in the vault. He smiled at her and she smiled back. She used her powerful amrs to saunter up to Kutor. She grabbed his hand, a little too hard. Kutor winced and tried to pull away. “Naka will lay with you.”

Kutor gasped. “What?” he managed to cough out half in surprise half in disbelief. He’d never been with a woman. His projects and studies always kept him too busy.

“Naka will lay with you.” She said. “This only chance?” She tilted her head again. The big woman waved her heavily muscled arms at everything. “All gone soon?”

Kutor yanked his hand away stumbling back. He darted his head around to see if anyone else had heard. He looked back at Naka who gave him a sad grin and pulled her stringy brown hair out of her face.

“How can you possibly know that?” Kutor whispered in response holding his palms down asking Naka to speak softly. She didn’t.

“Me not as,” She tapped her head. “As Kutor. But me not like tree. Me bury father. Me bury mother. Everyone bury dead. Now we bury whole tribe.” Kutor’s mouth hung open. Within his little world was someone who, while maybe she wasn’t on his level intellectually, she was perceptive. She saw. “Me not like tree.” Naka repeated.

Kutor looked into her eyes which were not dim and struggling to understand. They were clear and the color of dark honey, and she got it. He took her hand. “There’s nothing I can do to stop it.”

“No.” Naka said. She wasn’t asking a question.

She led him back to her cave and stoked a pile of embers into a fire. The cave shined with flickering flames. Kutor’s eyes went wide. Strewn in her home were the failures of Kutor’s ideas. Equations on stones that were crossed out. Little inventions that he could never get to work properly.

“You kept all this? Why?” Kutor asked. Naka didn’t answer. She wrapped her big hand around his head and led him to a pile of soft animal skins.

Morning came and they both stared at the ceiling spent from a night of lovemaking. Kutor puffed on a rolled tube of a plant he’d cultivated. The smell was rich and deep. He passed it to Naka who took a puff as well. Kutor reveled in the light headedness brought on by the burning dried flowers. He always felt as if he was above the ground when he smoked it.

“How long?” Naka said having difficulty speaking as she held in the smoke before exhaling like Kutor instructed.

“Ten days.” He said and he blew a gout of pungent smoke into the air.
     She took the smoldering tube and inhaled. “Still time.” Kutor turned to her and mimicked her confusion from earlier with a tilt of his head. “For put this in balt.” She motioned to her cave and all Kutor’s near misses.

“Vault.” He corrected and rubbed her shoulder. “No. None of this goes in. I don’t want to be remembered for the things I did wrong.”

Naka pursed her lips in thought. “But things wrong make thing that work. You see what wrong. You fix. Maybe in Fuutuurr,” Naka forced out the word. “Someone else see your wrongs and they fix?”

If Kutor could have kicked himself, he would have. Naka had insight. She was smart, for them. He’d been so alone with no one to talk to, no one to get him. And here she was right under his nose the whole time. He wiped his eyes. He only had a little more than a week left with her.  

With a furry hand she clumsily wiped his wet face dry. “We lay together more. Then we put all inside Vvvaaalt.” She pushed it out while she pointed at the items in her house that she saved. Kutor nodded as Naka climbed on top of him.

“Wait.” He said and with great effort pressed his hands on her chest to hold her back. “Why did you save all this, and why did you take so long to be with me?” He started to tear up again lamenting the lost time he could have had with a partner.

“Me took all because…” Naka looked away and her face turned red. “Me like you. You different. Special.” She kissed him and he felt the warmth of her mouth and tasted the smoke on her tongue. “Me not tell you because, you know,” she pulled a strand of hair behind her ear. “Me shy.”

Kutor smiled. The biggest and most powerful person of their large tribe admitted to being nervous about expressing her feelings. She truly was special. “You could have say something too!” She poked Kutor in the chest and they both grunted in laughter reverting to guttural speech.

For the next few days living forever was as simple as living together. They watched their people struggle making the simplest of tools and picking bugs off each other’s backs. They kept the project going being front and center when the vault dropped into the hole and was buried. They sat staring at the night sky as their doom that started as a twinkle ages ago grew into the extinction it was.

“If we had baby, what name it?” Naka asked as the fiery death got closer.

“It doesn’t matter.” Kutor said watching the comet streak across the sky.

Naka gave out an angry snort and grabbed Kutor’s chin. He expected her to jerk his face to hers, but she was gentle and pulled him close. She wrapped her massive arms around him. “Then why we do this? Why we save village in VVValt?”

Kutor opened his mouth to speak. Naka swatted him playfully, if a little roughly, on the head to indicate she didn’t want to hear an answer. “It matter.” She said. “You matter.”

Kutor reached up and cupped Naka’s wide face in his hands. He pressed his forehead to hers. There was a tremendous boom from far away and a great trembling of the ground. Incessant shrieks and howls from his people were drowned out by a rising groan from the firmament itself.
     “I like the name Clark.” Kutor said.

Naka smiled and wiped tears from Kutor’s face then from her own. “Me like too.”

     It was earlier than usual when Zach woke up. The sun was just starting to light edges of the sky. He peeked at his clock. 5:51am. The smell of bacon, coffee, and fried potatoes acted as his alarm. His mom had probably been up all night getting ready. It was a big day. The day of the draft. They went all out every year. It was like Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, and the 4^th of July all rolled into one in the Martinez house. But today was different. Today, Zach would be drafted.

     He got out of bed and immediately took a shower. It was the only chance he would get to be alone all day. With all the fuss his mom made, and all the guests coming over, Zach relished the solitude. He sat under the hot water thinking about his father. Was it weird to feel guilty that he couldn’t be there to watch his son follow in his footsteps? The counselor told him that all his feelings about his dad’s death were valid. She said that everyone grieves in their own way. But that was years ago. Would he ever get over it? Did he want to? He squeezed body wash onto a washcloth and scrubbed himself hard.

     It was a jeans and t-shirt kind of day even though his mom would ask him why he couldn’t wear something nicer. He glanced at his phone that was already buzzing with too many text messages to count. He promised he would only use his phone to talk to potential teams. No texting or surfing while the draft was going on. Anyone he would normally keep in touch with was either already at the house or would be soon.

Zach walked downstairs to the sound of conversation coming from the kitchen. His mom was sitting at the table across from Cassandra. Despite his mother being up all night, and it was clear that she had been judging from the pile of dirty dishes in the sink and the amount of food in the refrigerator when he went for a glass of milk, she was energetic and bright eyed without a hint of fatigue.
     “Good morning.” She said with an excited lilt. Not one strand of her black hair was out of place.

“Morning.” He said as he got a plate from the cupboard.
     “Uh uh.” His sister said wagging her finger. “Get a paper plate.” And pointed at the mountain of pots and pans in the sink. “Don’t saddle others with more work.” Zach gave the girl a mocking sneer, which the girl returned, and complied putting the plate back.

He piled a paper plate with bacon, eggs, home fries and two pieces of toast, and walked around the table kissing his mother on the cheek when he passed. He reached up and thumped the girl on the ear. She swore and smacked his butt before he sat down. Her knees were pulled up with her combat boots resting on the seat with her rear. She held a cup of black coffee in one hand resting on her knee as she reached for a comically large pile of multicolored conchas on the plate in front of her.

“Everyone will be here soon.” His mother said. “The camera crew is coming at 9:00. I told the guests to be here before that.”
     “Camera crew?” Zach and Cassandra said in unison. His tone was confused. Her’s was excited.

“Yes. Camera crew.” His mom repeated. “So, you have plenty of time to put something on a little nicer. It’s not every day you get drafted.”
     “Internet says you’re almost a lock to go number one. Dad would be freaking out right now.” Cassandra said stuffing her mouth with a pastry. It was always easier for Cassandra to talk about their father than Zach. The resentment he felt for others when they talked about him welled up in him and he pushed it back down. It wasn’t fair that he should think he knew Dad best. He cursed himself for being so weak as to think ill of his sister. “Earth to Zach!” Cassandra said throwing a piece of bacon at him which earned an icy look from their mom. She mouthed “Sorry” to her mother and picked it up from the table popping it into her mouth. “I said Miami has the first pick. The beach, sunshine, shopping.” She ticked on her fingers as she named all the best things she’d read about the city and gasped abruptly. “Cuban foooooooood.” She whispered with a glint in her eye.

“That’d be fine.” Zach said buttering his toast. Phillip Martinez was the seventh overall pick in his draft. When they watched it as a family he would shout, unsolicited, “Top Ten, Dog!!!” which usually got him a hit in the head with a throw pillow from one of the kids. “I don’t care where I go. Every team needs help.” Zach caught his mother looking at him in a way he’d never seen. They had money, prestige a beautiful home. Zach Martinez was the talk of the nation. So, why did his mother look at him with pity?

“What about you?” He said to his teenage sister. “Mom says you’re second in your class right now. I’m surprised Dr. Horowitz let you off for the day.”
     Cassandra grimaced. “I have to make it up, you know?”
     “I’m glad you’re here. And you’re right. Dad would be all over this.” He said and downed the rest of his milk.

Mom stood from the table and motioned for Cassandra to help her with setting up the other room. Cassandra dropped her last strip of bacon on the plate and stood. She walked around and hugged Zach around the neck. “I’m proud of you, jerkoff.”
     “Thanks, turd.” Zach wrapped his arm around Cassandra’s head and squeezed.

They spent the rest of the morning reminiscing about past Draft Days. Cassandra brought up the time Dad threw a whole bowl of queso dip at the TV when New York traded their first-round pick for a veteran on his last legs. Mom remembered the year when Zach guessed every first-round draft pick correctly. “All 30 teams.” She pinched his cheek.
     “The Guardians used to call Dad all the time for his advice.” Zach said. He shifted his voice to a lower tone mimicking his father. “Dammit, Nina! We can’t overthink this! Draft the best goddamned kid on the board.” They all laughed, and though Zach missed his dad, he cherished the memories.
     “I miss him, too.” Mom said as if reading his mind.

     They continued to busy themselves around the house until their guests arrived. Extended family, close friends and well-wishers gathered in the living room as the morning quiet turned into a veritable soiree. The TV was loud showing all the different prospects for the year’s draft class including Zachary Martinez. Everyone cheered when they showed his face on the screen.
     Zach spent most of his time before the actual draft chitchatting with people he hadn’t seen or heard from in a while but were still big parts of his life. His cousin Bertie who was in the league for a couple of years but left due to injury. His dad’s former, and now Zach’s, agent Sydney Straussheim who made sure all Dad’s affairs were in order. It was cozy and warm. And Zach thought of his father again and how much he would have enjoyed this.

     The coverage started and he sat on the couch between his mom and Cassandra. Everyone in the room knew how important draft day was to the Martinez family, and no one wanted to be rude by interrupting what was sure to be one of the greatest days in their history.

“Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the 2025 NSHL Draft. I’m Oliver Duke. Well, the time for speculation and guess work will come to an end today as we find out who goes where. And there’s no lack of talent in this class is there, JK?” He turned to his left addressing a man in his late sixties that Zach had seen at every draft since he could remember. He may as well have been another family member for as many times as Zach watched him.

“That’s right, Oliver.” The scrawl under his bust on television said Jackson Knight-Draft Expert. “This is one of the best classes we’ve seen in a long time. Strength, speed, intelligence, guts. These young men and women have got it all. I’m excited to see what’s to come.”
     “Joining us fresh from her retirement is the third and final member of our panel today. We are lucky to have you with us, a lock for the Hall of Fame, Nina Piccone.”

“Thanks, Oliver.” A smartly dressed woman in a blue suit sat to the left of Jackson. The house applauded when they showed her face. It was hard to recognize her without her uniform on. Zach would have to get used to it. She said the same thing, more or less, that her fellow panelist said…glad to be here, looking forward to it, blah blah blah.
     “So, who do you think will be selected first? JK, you’ve been pretty vocal about your first-round predictions.” Oliver said.
     “Yeah.” He fake chuckled. “And I’m not changing now. I gotta think Miami, in need of some serious muscle, will go with Zach Martinez out of the Texas Academy.” The whoop went up among the guests, and Zach waved his arms to shush them. “He’s got everything they need.” The commentator said. A video of Zach performing various feats during his academy training and final exams accompanied by lame electronic rock music. “He’s got massive strength and was the fastest cadet at the combine. He’s unusually adept at thinking on his feet. Highly intelligent. He knows how to stay healthy. And let’s face it, He’s got an unmatched pedigree.” The screen went back to the panelists and Nina shuffled her notes.
     “That’s probably one of the biggest if not the biggest story of this draft: Zach Martinez following in his father’s footsteps.” Oliver said. “Nina, you were a teammate of four time Hero of the Year Phillip Martinez. Is there anything in Zach that you saw in him?”
     Nina smiled broadly at her companions. In her time with the NSHL, Nina learned a few things about public perception and how to use it to her advantage. Images of Zach’s father was on the screen performing some of the same feats they had just shown Zach doing. The similarity was uncanny. “There is no replacing Phillip Martinez. I for one am looking forward to watching Zach become his own man out from under his father’s shadow. He’s got the talent. All he needs is the right mentor. As far as going first, Miami has made their interest known, so we’ll see.” Zach was glued to the screen when he felt an arm wrap around his muscular shoulders. He looked at his mom, and she was smiling. She gave him a squeeze and he smiled back.  

The panel went on with their analyzing of the first few picks and possible moves each team would make. He was half listening half theorizing his own picks when his phone buzzed. He looked at the screen. Dr. Lisa Horowitz. She was the head of the Texas Academy and Zach’s and Cassandra’s former and current trainer, respectively. She didn’t do anything without deliberate intention. She either needed information from him or had information for him. This was not a social call.

He answered with a customary greeting. “Hello Mr. Martinez.” Dr. Horowitz’s distinctive low husky voice said. “I am sorry to disturb you. I will be brief. Miami will not be selecting you.” Zach sunk in the couch dumbstruck. He watched the time on the screen. The countdown for the first pick was at four minutes and going down. “Mr. Martinez? Are you there?”
     “Yes. I’m here.” He said shaking his head back to a more lucid state. “I just don’t understand. How do you know this?”
     She sighed over the phone and spoke as if she was mildly insulted. “I have done the calculations. You have a better chance of being abruptly jettisoned into space than Miami picking you first overall.” She paused. “I thought you knew me better than to question my formulas.”

“Yes Ma’am.” Zach said, “It just took me off guard.”
     “I won’t keep you. It is not the outcome you expected, but I think you will be pleasantly surprised.” She paused again. “I never knew your father personally. But he was a great man.” Zach said nothing. “More than that, he was his own man. See that you are as well. Good luck Mr. Martinez. I look forward to following your career. Please say hello to your family for me.”
     “I will. Thanks Dr. Horowitz.” The line went dead. Mom and Cassandra asked what she wanted. Zach was about to answer when the clock on TV counted down to zero, and the announcers said the draft would begin. The camera panned to a stage with a podium. The NSHL logo was painted on the front. There was a rambunctious but otherwise well-behaved crowd of people cheering as the commissioner of the league walked to the podium with a piece of paper in hand. Every team was represented by the fans in attendance. Their insignias and color clashed with each other as chants rose for their chosen teams.

The banner on the screen said Milo Broadstreet-NSHL Commissioner. He was dressed in a finely tailored silk suit that showed off his physique. He was older now, but his days with the league were apparent. Cousin Bertie said he looked like he could still be active. “I’d like to welcome you to the 2025 Draft of the National Superheroes League. With the first pick…”

“Here it comes.” Cassandra said in a sing song way. The room was quiet. Zach was holding his sister’s and mother’s hands.

“…The Miami Angels trade to the Dallas Guardians for their first pick this year, and Adrian Polk aka Neverman. The Dallas Guardians are on the clock.” A five-minute timer came on the screen. And the panel started yammering at each other about how unexpected this was. They detailed why each of them thought Miami had done such a thing. Nina sited how young the team was, and adding a wily veteran like Neverman was a smart direction. The clock ticked down and the commissioner returned to the podium.
     “With the first pick of the 2025 draft, The Dallas Guardians select Zachary Martinez aka Prodigy, Texas Academy.” The crowd went nuts, but the people in the house couldn’t tell. They were too busy jumping up and down and screaming. Cassandra was standing on the couch flexing like a bodybuilder yelling “Yeah!” in a low voice every time she changed poses. Mom was hugging Zach and laugh-crying.

“How cool is it that Phillip Martinez’s legacy as Paragon will be carried on by his son on his, and your former team, Nina?” Oliver said.
     “Words can’t describe how great and poetic this is. If Zach is half the hero his dad was, he’ll be the best in the league.” She answered. More images of Zach came on the screen. He was lifting a truck and throwing it. They clocked his mile time. He couldn’t fly like his father, but they had to get a special clock that measured millionths of a second when he ran. They showed an unofficial video that went viral a few months ago of a classmate slamming him in the head with a twenty-pound sledgehammer. Zach didn’t even blink when the hammer shattered.

His phone rang again. This time the screen said Guardians HQ. He shushed everyone and answered. He had a short conversation with the team manager and Captain, Louverture Williams: a hero Zach knew very well as Crucible. Zach thanked him for the opportunity and guaranteed he would not let the team down. He hung up and went back to his guests who nearly mobbed him with hugs and high fives.

He gave an interview to the camera crew who had, up to that point, remained like flies on the wall. But an exclusive with the first-round draft pick was a scoop they couldn’t let slip away. Zach’s agent trained him how to answer questions. He was gracious without being overly thankful. When they asked him why he chose the code name Prodigy, Zach explained it’s what his father used to call him.

The day went on and they enjoyed the draft much as they had in the past. Cheering when one of their guesses were correct. Receiving friendly insults when they were wrong. Zach argued with his friends over why someone should or shouldn’t be drafted by whichever team for whatever reason. He and Cassandra took turns making fun of the various inane comments analysts inevitably make.

They went through all seven rounds of the draft, and Zach paid particular attention to those who would be on his rookie team. The day wound down and everyone went home leaving nothing but their sincerity for Zach’s success. Sydney was the last to leave giving him instructions not to answer the phone until tomorrow morning and not to go anywhere.

The remaining Martinez’s started cleaning up with the TV on in the background. Sydney was right. Zach’s phone never stopped ringing until he turned it off. After everything was put away and all the dishes were done, they sat down again at the kitchen table. Mom got out a bottle of wine and three glasses. “Don’t call the league on me.” She said to Cassandra who was too young to drink. Zach and Cassandra laughed as they sloughed off the weight of the day. Cassandra drank her wine suspiciously fast, her mother noticed with a raised eyebrow. The girl stood up, gave her mother a hug and thanked her for everything.

“Give me a ride back to the academy tomorrow?” She said to her brother. “It’ll give me bragging rights if I’m seen with the wunderkind rookie.”

“One, I don’t have a car. Two, can’t you fly?” Zach said.
     “C’mon!” Cassandra whined.
     “Ok ok. I’ll see you in the morning.” He said in mock surrender.

“Thanks!” She squealed and gave him a huge hug around the neck. She whispered in his ear, “You deserve this.” He patted her arm, and she went upstairs.
     Zach sat at the table with his mother for a long time. She was having trouble looking at him. Zach noticed.
     “What’s wrong, Mom? You’ve been looking at me weird all day.” He said.

“It’s nothing, just…” She paused and sniffed, “You look so much like him.”

“Everyone keeps saying that.” He said. The sadness welled up again, and he squashed it down.
     “Did you know your father didn’t want you to be a hero?” She said. Zach tilted his head. “It’s true.” His mother continued. “He didn’t want either of you to have powers. He knew you would feel the heaviness of responsibility. You just can’t help it.” Zach looked down at the tabletop. His mother reached over and picked up his head by the chin to meet his eyes. “But he was so proud when your powers manifested. He was happy that it brought you and your sister closer. He used to say that even if we were gone, you two would be a family.”
     Zach gave her a small smile, and it went away. The reality of what was about to happen to him wasn’t in the future anymore. “Mom. No bullshit.” His mother sat back in her chair slightly uncomfortable with the vulgarity from her boy, but ready to hear what he had to say. “How am I supposed to live up to the GOAT? Hall of Famer. Four-time Hero of the Year. Adored by the world. What am I supposed to do?”
     She laughed. Not at Zach, but at the question. “I was wondering when you were going to ask. I thought you’d come to me after your first year at the academy.” She wiped her hands on a dish towel and poured another glass of wine. “Son,” She took a swig. “The answer is easy: You don’t.”
     “I don’t try to live up to dad’s legacy?” Zach asked like his mother was crazy.
     “That’s right. If you’re worried about being as good as someone else, you’ll never be as good as you can be. Don’t be like him. Be like you.” She drained her glass and wiped her mouth. “Feel free to use that when the press asks you the same question. I’m going to bed. Good night.” She paused again, “Prodigy.” She smiled and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

He watched his mother climb the stairs and the light to the upstairs hall clicked off. Zach went to the living room and sat in front of the TV that was still on with the late night pontificators analyzing the day’s events. The “B-team” his dad called them. Another image of his father came on the screen side by side with a picture of him. They were both smiling, and Zach heard his mother’s voice saying his father’s thoughts. Be like you.

“I will, Dad. I promise.” They really did look alike.

The smell from his cooking, or what approximated as cooking to Mars now, was vaguely one of caramelized meat, toasted bread, and charred vegetable matter as if pulled from a bucket of preserving liquid. In the past it would have been enough to make him retch right there on the flattop. He stirred a pot on the corner of his cooking surface that contained an equally gray liquid with unidentifiable chunks floating in it. He called it soup, but it wasn’t. He called what he flipped burgers, but they weren’t.

He kept a stack of towels next to him for the purpose of keeping his counter wiped down and dry. The trickle from the soaring buildings was constant. The streets were shrouded in darkness by the towers. Unless you were on the roofs, you almost never saw the light from the sky. Only food technicians were allowed up there. That’s where the sun was. That’s where the food grew. Everyone else dealt with the slow steady drip of wastewater and toxic byproducts that ran down the sides of the towers in rivulets of slime. Cleanliness wasn’t a priority.

Mars kept his head down and cooked to the rhythm of the chanting protestors and the buttons and bells of the register older than the two men working the food stand put together. “Another double.” Rene’ barked as he took a customer’s money. The register fit with the theme of their stall, The Old Fashioned.

“Double.” Mars answered.

The food protests across the street were proud, righteous and utterly insufferable. On the one hand, they had a point about food sovereignty and that the people should be able to farm for themselves and research new food sources independently from the government. On the other hand, they crowded the streets blocking potential customers. They were right of course, but being right didn’t pay Mars’ rent. If he knew nothing else, it was this: money was money. It didn’t matter where it came from.

The activists weren’t unruly, but that didn’t stop Food Ministry Enforcement from lining the sidewalks with officers armed to the teeth. Homemade cardboard signs with slogans like “No Soil, No Soul” and “Food Independence Now!” clogged Mars’ eyeline as he scanned the crowd. He flipped the gray government issue nutrient squares on the flattop grill in time to the chants from the protesters. “Your plate our prison! Your plate, our prison!”

“That’s Marcel Clement!” The woman at the counter who ordered the double said to Rene’. He smiled and nodded while she ogled the former celebrity. Mars pretended to ignore her.

He glanced up and saw his poster on the wall covered in thin layer of grease. He was decked out in a crisp white chef coat of ancient Egyptian cotton. Cotton was an extinct crop except for the ultra-wealthy, but Mars loved the way he looked in that jacket. Too bad he had to give it back when they fired him. He was holding a whisk in front of him like a magic wand. The caption under his picture said “The Gastromancer”. Everyone said he was a wizard with food. Gastromancer was the name the producers gave him, and Rene’ thought Mars’ cred would stir up business. Reputations, even bad ones, generated interest.

The FME officers moved in as the chanting died down and a woman stood on a makeshift dais. She was dressed like a newsboy from the early 20^th century complete with fingerless gloves, tweed overcoat, and a wedge cap. An electronic chirp cut the still air as she raised a bullhorn to her mouth.

“Food is not a privilege!” Her augmented voice crackled over the people as they cheered in agreement. “We want the right to nourish ourselves. We want the right of self-sustenance. No more sterile seeds. No more sterile seeds!” And the crowd joined her in chanting “No more sterile seeds!” The unease from the FME officers was as palpable as the thick humid air between the packed buildings. They began unhitching weapons and moving in, forcing the protestors tighter and limiting their escape.

The woman speaking held up her hands and the crowd started to quiet down. She was a performer. That’s one of the reasons Mars liked her. “They won’t give us anything.” She barked through the horn. “We have to take it. Food, real food, is our birthright, and we will not let greedy corporations control what we eat anymore. The time for action is now. We call on the government to enact the Personal Farming Act allowing private citizens access to fertile food sources: Dairy goats. Egg laying chickens, reproducing and perennial fruits and vegetables. What do we want?” She yelled out to the crowd.

“REAL FOOD!” they answered.

“When do we want it?”

“NOW!”

You’d have to be a fool not to be able to sense the oncoming conflict. Tension was thicker than the muck that covered the walls of the skyscrapers blocking the sun as the protestors realized they were being corralled by police. That’s why it was easy for Mars to see the well-dressed woman flanked by two of the largest men he’d ever seen standing nearby. She was wearing what people in the entertainment industry called a power suit tailored specifically for her. She was trim in a wiry athletic way with her hair cut close to her scalp dyed unnaturally white which contrasted her ebony skin.

She stood a few feet from The Old Fashioned watching the inevitable confrontation with detached interest. Her attention seemed to be more focused on Mars and his burger flipping. The large men on either side of her scanned the area like watchtowers. He thought she was an FME agent or politician of some kind and almost dismissed her until he saw the pin on her lapel: a silver skull wearing a chef’s toque with crossed knives under it. It couldn’t be. They were a myth. He’d heard about them, but no one thought they were a real thing. What could they possibly want in this part of the city? They wouldn’t have come for the food, that’s for sure. She smiled at Mars, revealing gleaming perfect white teeth and strode away with her bodyguards in tow.

“Looks like Lila’s in trouble again.” Rene’ said bringing Mars back to their squalid hovel of a food stand and the girl they both knew across the street defying the powers that be.

“What else is new?” Mars said. He turned back to look at the strange woman, but she, whoever she was, was gone. Lila, leading the protest, was still ranting about fair trade food and personal decisions whipping her followers into a frenzy. It was irresponsible to be so flippant knowing what the FME was capable of, but even worse, she was driving away all of Mars’ business.

Most of the activists had their attention on Lila as she enumerated the things that would fix the current state of food in the country: Classes on gardening and food preservation and preparation starting in kindergarten, weekly allowances and tax breaks for purchasing organic produce, abolition of SUSTAIN bars. Some on the outskirts of the crowd turned their attention to the FME agents challenging them with curses and epithets. “Fascists!” “Nazis!” “Defund the FME!” “Release the seeds!” “Gluttons!”

The officers unholstered their pistols and activated their nano-glass shields, but they did not engage, choosing to stand ready.

Mars looked at his former sous chef turned partner and nodded. They reached up to pull the gate closed over their open window when a loud bang rang out. The whole street flinched. Mars couldn’t tell from where. It might have been a shot from an overzealous FME officer. It could have been a car backfiring. Maybe it was a dropped pot from one of the other vendors on the street. There was half a chance they’d all imagined it in a collective delusion as an expected catalyst for the inevitable fight. A fraction of a fraction of a second hung where everything was still.

Chaos.

The officers opened fire. Rubber bullets, but that didn’t stop the protestors from dropping to the slime covered pavement with broken bones, lacerations, unconscious, or worse. The people lunged at the police slamming their signs and bodies against the filament thin transparent shields. They were able to push through with sheer numbers, but the police resorted to beating them as they fled with electrified batons.

Mars and Rene’ hit the floor as soon as the bullets flew. The tiny missiles ricochetted against the back wall of their stand ripping through their various required license postings and destroying their service wares. They couldn’t see anything, but nothing stopped them from hearing the violent commands of the police and the screams from people falling from their brutality.

The food stall shook as something slammed into the front knocking over ingredients Mars used to approximate food. Monochrome edible morsels dotted the floor in the shape of onions, buns, beef, cheeses slices. Their color mirrored Mars’ mood inside the havoc around him: Gray.

There was another stronger collision with his stall and through the open window crashed a body that landed on the floor next to them with a groan. Mars watched Rene’ act without thinking by pulling the body close to the wall to stay guarded and hidden from the FME.

“Goddammit, Lila!” Rene’ said covering the woman’s head with his tattoed arms as a stack of plastic forks avalanched on top of her. “You always have to stir up some shit.”

The woman, Lila, took off her wedge cap and brushed off some of the muck it accumulated being on the street. She ran her hand through her straight black hair back over her head and put the hat back on with a huff. “No one listens unless you draw attention.” She said. Mars didn’t hear any regret in her voice.

After a half an hour of yelling, screaming, shooting, bludgeoning, arresting, and general mayhem in the name of order the FME took over, and what they would refer to as rioting ended. Rene’ surveyed the damage to the outside of the stall while Lila helped the two cooks clean up.

“Just like old times, huh?” She said as she stooped to pick up bits of SUSTAIN bars that had cracked when they hit the ground. She was careful to get every crumb. They could easily be reformed into patties. Or tomatoes. Or anything.

“It’s the least you can do. You started all this.” Mars said as he swept up plastic utensils.

“Give it a rest, Marcel.” Rene’ said prompting him to shut up. Using his proper name made Mars feel like a child. A decade earlier, Mars would have been the one doing the reprimanding.

“Don’t be too hard on him, Rene’. It’s not his fault he’s part of the problem. How the mighty have fallen, eh Chef?” She accented the last word with a hard F.

“You better keep your mouth shut about us hiding you.” Mars said. “You know what they’ll do if they find out.”

“I didn’t snitch on you then. What makes you think I would now?” Lila said. “You’re being paranoid.”

“Hey.” Mars pointed his finger in Lila’s face. “When everyone is out to get you, paranoia is just good thinking. Maybe remember that the next time you shoot your mouth off getting people hurt.”

Lila wrapped her hand around Mars’ index finger and lowered it. She wasn’t forceful or angry or mean. It was a soft reminder of what they were to each other long ago. “You can join us.” She smiled. “We need you.” Mars pulled his hand away and went back to sweeping. The smoothness of her skin lingered on his fingers as he gripped the broom handle.

Lila’s face dropped and she sighed. “At least take some literature. We’re organized now.” She fished out a sheaf of pamphlets from the inside of her vintage jacket and held one out to Mars.

“Lila, we got this. Why don’t you get out of here.” Rene’ said as he took the brochure. She gave a sad glance at Mars who turned his head from her. Lila gave Rene’ a hug and thanked him for his help. She leaned over the counter checking to see that the coast was clear. She didn’t bother opening the door, vaulting through the window and dashing away into the darkness. Rene pulled the garage door down behind her and secured it.

The two cooks continued getting their stall ready for service the next day. They worked well into the night, hardly speaking a word to each other. When the last of the spills were cleaned and the equipment put away they sat on overturned milk crates, that hadn’t carried milk since before either of them were born, covered in filth exhausted.

Rene’ opened a small cooler and pulled out two bottles of beer. Alcohol was still readily available. Centuries ago, the people fought for their right to consume alcohol and won. In true government fashion they flipped the script. Keeping the substance safe, cheap and legal meant keeping the populace servile. It was one of the few indulgences citizens were allowed.

“I’ll start the soup early tomorrow.” Mars said, lamenting over the spilled pot during the riot. He took a swig from the bottle.

“She’s doing the right thing.” Rene’ countered by ignoring Mars. “You could help.”

“I want to be able to afford new shoes.” Mars lifted his foot and showed the worn tread on the bottoms of his rubber clogs. He lowered his voice. “They took it all away. You were there.”

Rene nodded his head. “Yeah.” He leaned in and whispered. “Does that mean you give up?”

Mars shrugged. It was as much of an answer as he would give.

They drank their beer and rubbed their sleepy eyes for a few minutes before Rene reached behind the beer cooler and grabbed a small, wrapped cloth. He looked around the stall as if someone might be hiding then checked to make sure the garage door was shut and locked.

“I saw this and thought of you.” He handed the package to Mars.

“Dude. You can’t keep going to the black market. You’re gonna get caught.” Rene’ didn’t say anything. He took a sip from his bottle and stared at his ungrateful friend. Mars took the hint and the package. “Thanks.” He said.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” With that, Rene walked out of the tiny kitchen and into his quarters behind The Old Fashioned. Mars heard the door’s many locks engage before he stood, finished his beer and left the stall for home, stuffing the package in his coat pocket.

Mars stepped over the remnants of the protest signs strewn across the ground careful not to slip in the ever present poisonous runoff from the farms high on the skyscrapers above. It was late. No one was around except the homeless communities who begged for SUSTAIN bars. Synthetic Universal Sustenance Technology for Adaptive Individual Nutrition. They would have settled for a handful of crumbs they could shape into a ball.

It wasn’t a long walk home. Mars kept his head down. Rene’ told him he would use his former fame to generate business, but that didn’t mean Mars liked to be recognized. Every person that yelled “It’s the Gastromancer,” was a reminder he wasn’t that chef anymore…a reminder of what he’d done to lose everything.

It was dark. He read a story when he was a kid about how the streets used to be lined with tall lamps that lit up the walkways like day. Only the light from inside the buildings shone from the cracks in the bottoms of drawn curtains.

He lived in one of the biggest apartment buildings in the city. Over 100,000 people lived in his place. The bigger the building, the cheaper it was. Once upon a time, Mars had a loft in an old brick building with only 3 other tenants. He missed that place.

Rene’ left the show on his own. He decided that he didn’t want to be a part of a world where only the rich got to experience the joys of decent food. Mars wanted to affect a change from the inside. It seemed naïve now, but that’s hindsight for you.

He watched his feet as he approached his towering building and didn’t notice the two giant men blocking the entryway until he bumped into them. They were dressed in finely tailored suits of black with collarless white shirts underneath. Their clothes did nothing to hide their bulging muscles, and in the dimness of the dark streets where almost no natural light penetrated even during the day, they wore sunglasses hiding their eyes.

“Marcel Clement?” one of the monsters said. With their shades, Mars couldn’t tell if they were looking at him or into the middle distance.

Mars took a step back and pulled his hands out of his pockets. If he got into a scrap with the two behemoths, he’d get ripped to shreds, but he wouldn’t make it easy for them. Mars was tall, but he still had to look up at the pair. “Why? Who are you?” he said with more confidence than he felt.

One of the men, they were so similar they could have been twins right down to their shiny bald heads, put a meaty hand on Mars’ shoulder. “Right this way.” It felt like a fifty pound sack of flour landed on him. The man spun Mars to face a long car with fins like from the olden times. It hummed on the side of the street like a Christmas tree ornament. Shiny. Red. And like an ornament in the middle of August, utterly out of place in the semi-slum Mars called home.

The window in the back seat lowered revealing the strange woman with dark skin and almost buzz cut white hair. She held up a flask in greeting. She, like her car, was completely out of place but her beaming smile cut through the darkness like a knife carves a cake.

“Hello, Chef.” She said. Her accent was vaguely French. “Can I buy you a drink?”

Mars dug his foot into the pavement to bolt. As if sensing his apprehension, the big man squeezed his shoulder causing Mars to blink. The door opened and the woman stood to the side offering him a place to sit in the lavish interior of the car.

The car was striking but the woman made it look like the slum around it by comparison. She wore a dark blue suit with no shirt underneath. The lapels of her sleeveless jacket plunged in a deep V that didn’t connect until under her breasts. She showed no fear in the squalor of the city. It could have been the massive bodyguards that gave her confidence, but Mars suspected she would have acted the same anywhere. That level of poise can’t be faked.

The pin on her lapel shined as brightly as the woman’s smile, and Mars knew in that second of looking into the beautiful woman’s eyes that this, the group of which she apparently was a part, was not an urban myth. “Please, have a seat.” She gestured inside.

“What do you…” Mars started and felt the forceful urge to move brought about by the big man’s hand pushing him. He was like a child being pushed by a parent, unable to break free.

Having no choice, Mars stepped into the car. The woman followed and shut the door. She sat with her back to the front seat facing the rear window and Mars. The interior of the car reminded Mars of an old concert hall where operas were performed complete with dark velveteen upholstery and mahogany trim. The woman tapped on the opaque window separating the front and back and the car took off. Mars opened his mouth to object but stopped when the woman raised her eyebrows as if waiting to accept his challenge.

“Bourbon?” She held out the flask to him.

“Who are you and why am I here?” Mars replied. The woman pulled back her flask and took a sip impervious to Mars’ rudeness.

She casually screwed the top of her flask back on and tucked it into the inside pocket of her jacket revealing a little too much of her dark skin for Mars’ comfort. He fought to keep his eyes on her face. “My name is Dominique. I am the chairwoman of an exclusive club. A club whose members want very much to extend you an invitation to join.” She reached into a small cabinet set into the center console of her plush seat and pulled out a tin. She popped it open and took out a wrinkled violet (near black) piece of something half the size of a golf ball and popped it into her mouth. She closed her eyes and leaned back in the seat luxuriating in the flavors.

The smell drifted into Mars’ nose the way music from far away drifts closer getting louder and louder until you can hear every clear note and instrument. His mouth watered when he identified the smell, and he swallowed.

“Are those raisins?” Mars gaped at the silver tin resting nonchalantly on the empty seat next to Dominique.
     “Oh these?” She said waving her hand dismissively. “Sort of. We modified the grapes to make them bigger and with more fructose.”

Modified? Mars realized she meant genetically modified. Genetic alteration of food was reserved for the government. Commercial use of GMO foods was outlawed years ago. And he hadn’t seen a raisin in he couldn’t remember how long. Not to mention ones as big and plump as these.

Dominique took another and tore it apart rubbing the insides between her fingers. She put both halves in her mouth and sucked her fingers clean, never breaking eye contact with Mars. He shifted. In all the time Rene’ had procured items from the black market, nothing was like the treat Dominique enjoyed now.

“Would you like one?” Dominique picked up the tin and held it out to Mars. His hand shook as he plucked one of the dried fruit delicacies. The stickiness clung to his fingers as he raised the giant raisin to his mouth. As soon as the fruit touched his lips, the cloying euphoria made him involuntarily close his eyes. He chewed feeling the strings of sweetness get stuck in his teeth and he used his tongue to pull and scrape every microscopic piece that threatened to hide from his taste buds.

Dominque held out the tin and nodded her head encouraging Mars to take more. Mars raised his hand and was about to claw out as many raisins as he could hold but stopped. This was part of her plan. Ply him with exotic offerings to get him to lower his guard. He held up his palm using his meager store of willpower to refuse. “I’d like to know why I’m here.” Mars said sitting back his mouth watering at the thought of eating more of the sticky fruit.

Dominique’s beaming smile fell, and she put the cover on the tin and set it next to her. “You’re here because we want you. The Gastromancer. Marcel Clement. One of the best chef’s to ever wear a toque.”

Flattery was another attempt to influence him, but it was a little heavy handed. “Who is we?” He said straight faced.

Dominique’s smile returned and she sat back stretching her willowy arms across the back of her seat. “Aren’t you tired of hiding? Making reformed SUSTAIN bars into a mockery of what food is supposed to be? What could you do with an heirloom tomato? A real one?” Her eyes went wide with a touch of mania and glee. “What about grass fed beef? When was the last time you cooked grass fed beef?”

Mars’ head spun at the mention of actual ingredients, and judging from the raisin remains he tasted on his tongue, she wasn’t boasting. But Mars didn’t want to get drawn in without knowing more. “Look, I don’t know what the hell this is, but I’m not interested in any offer to get involved in the illicit food game. If you know who I am, then you know what I did.”

“Come off it, Mars.” She spoke like she’d known him for years. “Don’t pretend you don’t miss the kitchen. I’m giving you a chance to come back.”

“What chance?”

As if on cue the car stopped. The big bodyguards stood on either side of the back door and offered hands to Dominique. She got out stepping onto the sidewalk. They motioned for Mars to get out, but they did not help him.

“What’s with your boys?” Mars thumbed at the monstrous duo.

“Don’t mind them.” She patted one on the shoulder. “They’re bred to be protective.” The way she said it was so casual; Dominique may as well have been giving someone the time. But bred? Again, Mars was dumbstruck. The legends underestimated the club’s influence.

They were in a part of town where the sky poked through the tops of towering greenhouses. Structures with glass and clear plastic roofs were spread out over a larger area. The muck runoff wasn’t as thick here, but it never went away in the city. Dominique walked up to a matte black door under a broken awning. “You ready?”

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to be ready for.” Mars protested. He took a quarter of a step backward and bumped into one of the Goliath men accompanying Dominique.

“All will become clear shortly. I promise.” Her disarming smile illuminated the shadow under the tattered awning. Mars cursed himself for allowing Dominique’s charm to ease him.

 The second guard offered Dominique his meaty arm. She took it, and he opened the door to a dingy hallway. It smelled musty, like an unplugged refrigerator that hadn’t been opened in a long time. Mars curled his nose at the worn carpet and peeling wallpaper from a bygone era. “This is a supper club?” He said under his breath.

Dominique let out a tinkling laugh. Mars took in the hall and when he focused, he could see motion detectors and cameras embedded in the walls. There were also sensors on the baseboards near the floor, probably some kind of electronic tripwire. Mars swallowed and took a step forward before the large man behind him could insist on it.

Dominique tilted her head down the hall where another giant man in a black suit waited (triplets?). With every step closer to him Mars walked as if on rice paper. Like each footfall would release some taboo that would get him killed. The man at the door looked down at Mars and snarled. “He is an invited guest.” Dominique said with a smile. The man’s snarl didn’t go away. “He’s with me.” She said. For a split second Mars felt the weight of her authority protect him like a shield. The big man held Dominique’s gaze for a split second behind his dark shades and slowly lowered his head in deference. “They are very protective.” Dominique whispered to Mars.

A familiar hum invaded Mars’ ears before he shielded his eyes from the penetrating light from the door opening. He cleared his dry throat and followed Dominique inside. The feeling of softness from a century-old carpet under his rubber shoes was replaced with stiff rigidity. Mars looked down and saw the red textured tile commonly used in professional kitchens. He looked back up to see an immaculate fully operational kitchen. The ever present hum of vent hoods was like soothing music.

His eyes went wide with wonder and fear. An array of four steam jacketed kettles aligned the right wall. Each of them had thin wisps of fragrant vapor floating into the hood above. A trench drain ran the length of the kettles covered with a metal grate. On the opposite wall was a collection of different ovens: combi ovens (steamer/oven combinations) deck ovens, convection, wood fired hearth, you name it. In the center of the room were two rows. One was made up of prep tables with cooking supplies loaded on the shelves below. Hotel pans of every size from full to 1/9 were stacked neatly underneath. On the wire racks above hung whisks, spoons spatulas and any handheld culinary weapon imaginable. He tried to swallow, but nothing went down. He cleared his throat again and forced the little saliva he had to obey. Mars wasn’t prepared for how much he missed it.

The row on the other side held two six burner ranges, a fifteen gallon tilt skillet, a gas charbroiler, a flattop griddle, and a forty quart floor mixer at the end. A smile crept across his lips, unbidden.

A portly man wearing a bespoke silk suit burst through a set of silver doors across from them and approached Dominique smiling. His fat fingers were wrapped around the stem of a large wine glass a quarter full of a deep magenta beverage like tiny sausages. The buttons on his vest seemed about to launch off his rotund belly. A skull pin, identical to the one on Dominique’s jacket, rested on his chest. He took out a monocle from the inside pocket of his jacket and stuffed it into the fat folds of his right eye.

“Ah Dominique. Welcome back.” He bowed his head. Dominique stuck out her hand and the man kissed it in greeting.

“Marcel Clement, this is Armand Duval our resident scientist and sommelier. The man can pair wine with mud.” She motioned to the well-dressed plump man.

“Marcel—” The fat man started and stopped. “The Gastromancer? The Kitchen Wizard?” Armand looked gob smacked as he adjusted his monocle inspecting the newcomer. His round cheeks jiggled as a grin spread across his face. “It is a pleasure to meet you.” He stuck out his hand and Mars, out of habit more than anything else, grabbed it.

Armand’s hand was cold, damp, and loose. It reminded Mars of holding a fresh chicken breast. A universal drilled into his head from his father was never trust a man with a weak handshake, and Mars documented this revelation about the fat man for future reference.

“When Dominique said she had a surprise for us, I had no idea she was referring to you. Welcome.”

Mars rubbed his throat. Why he was so dry was beyond him, but he flicked his eyes to Armand’s wine glass and licked his lips desperate to moisten them.  

“We’d like you as a member of the Club, but we can’t just take you with an initiation.” Dominique said with the subtext of You understand, of course, unsaid.

“Cook something for us.” Armand said and stretched his plump arm out indicating the whole kitchen. “You have the run of the facility.”

Mars read a book once about children in a candy factory. And when they were given the chance, they bolted headlong into it indulging in all the delights. He almost did the same when he remembered the candy maker was a sadist and punished the children for not showing restraint. “Hang on.” Mars said, coughed, apologized, and continued. “You can’t abduct me, bring me here and force me to perform for you. I’m not a pet.”

Dominique pouted her bottom lip in disappointment. But the way she did it was exaggerated. Theatrical. Mocking. “Well, if that’s the way you feel, I guess we can’t keep you.” She waved to the door they came through now flanked by the guards from the car. “But if you leave now, you won’t get the antidote.”

Mars’ cleared his throat that now felt like it was made of sandpaper. Moisture was conspicuously absent from his mouth and any swallowing was accompanied by pain. “Antidote?” He managed to croak.

“Yes, silly.” Dominique said playfully. “For the poison in the raisins. I imagine you’ll get halfway home before you die…if you’re lucky.”

It was possible this was some elaborate prank made up for the amusement of people who still had time to watch reality TV. Another fallen celebrity made to look foolish for their entertainment. His desert like mouth suggested Dominique wasn’t playing a trick. But she wasn’t having the same reaction, so it’s possible…

As if guessing what Mars was thinking, Dominique pulled the flask from her jacket and took a swig. She raised it as if to say “cheers” with a coy smile before placing back. “Why did you think you’re so parched? A little concoction Armand came up with.”

Armand pulled a pocket watch from his vest and flipped it open. “You’ve got about an hour before the poison does its thing, so you should probably get to it.”
     “You have an opportunity here, Chef.” Dominique adopted a cloying tone that dripped with falseness. “Show us what you can do. Dazzle us!” She made a jazz hands gesture. “And you’re in.”

“Or I’m dead.”

Dominique shrugged. “C’est la vie.”

Armand offered a pudgy arm to the chairwoman, and they walked out into an opulent dining room through a pair of swinging aluminum doors on the other side of the kitchen.

He walked the length of the kettles peeking into them. Each one had a different colored fragrant liquid at the lowest simmering point possible. Beef. Chicken, Vegetable and Seafood stocks. The clarity and viscosity of each one let Mars know that whoever made them did their best but lacked the experience for detail.

Clearly, they hadn’t roasted the bones for the beef stock, and from the smell, they hadn’t caramelized the mirepoix. Just from looking at the collection of simmering broths, Mars could tell they started with warm water. Stock always needed cold water to start to extract enough collagen for a rich texture. No wonder they needed a chef. He could elevate their kitchen to a place they couldn’t imagine. He could…wait a second. Was Mars entertaining the idea of being part of a group that was going to kill him if his refused, or what’s worse didn’t “dazzle” them?

“You abduct me. Force me to come here, and now you’re threatening to kill me if I don’t show off for you?” Mars said facing the two monsters guarding the door. One of them reached over and opened it, indicating that Mars was free to leave. After a few seconds of Mars standing still, the man closed the door and went back to his immobile sentry duty.

Maybe he could make something people could smell and the FME could detect it in time to save him. The reality of his predicament hit him (but it could have been the poison), and he leaned on a table for support. A classically trained chef wanted Food Ministry Enforcement to save him from an ultra-wealthy clique that wanted nothing more than his professional services. But they were going to kill him if he didn’t do it. How did he get here? He answered his own question remembering his downfall, and what standing up and helping the less fortunate got him.

Mars turned on the cold water from the pot washing sink and cupped his hands under the flow. He gulped it down trying to quench his desiccated throat and winced. It felt like swallowing broken glass. According to Armand, Mars had an hour to save his own life. He entertained the idea of poisoning them right back. Maybe including the contents of a bathroom break as ingredients in his creation. He’d still be dead, and the chance to cook again, really cook with real food would be gone with The Gastromancer nothing more than a footnote if he was remembered at all.

They say people eat with their eyes, and Mars adopted the idea that if he made SUSTAIN bars look like cheeseburgers, maybe people would think they tasted like cheeseburgers. It wasn’t true. The people who said that never knew the difference between the smell of Hawaiian ginger and Brazilian ginger, never knew that searing didn’t “seal in juices”. Eating with the eyes was a marketing ploy that made laypeople feel like they have a say in how things work. Mars pounded his fist into the side of sink.

There were two options: Gamble that the poison wouldn’t kill him and do nothing. Or cook something that would save his life. Under the circumstances the choice was clear.

Whoever designed the kitchen knew what they were doing in theory, but didn’t have a lot of practical experience working in one. The prep tables were on the opposite side from where the coolers were. Nothing was on casters, so cleaning would be a pain. Knives were in a labeled drawer rather than on a magnetic strip or in a wooden block. Still, it was stocked with everything he needed. Saying it was a step up from where he currently worked was an insulting understatement. Mars grabbed an apron hanging on a hook, stuffed a towel into the strings and got to work.

The dry storage room was off to the side behind the kettles stocked with anything a cook might dream of. Everything was clearly marked on metro shelves. Spices in jars arranged alphabetically, seven different types of rice, olive oil, grapeseed oil, walnut oil, dried fruit, cans of roasted red peppers, tomatoes, artichokes. Mars would have been giddy if not for the persistent and increasing doom hovering over him that manifested in the form of a near debilitating dryness traveling through his insides.

Mars filled the prep table with the ingredients he needed. His aim was to make something simple. Something classic. A dish that was recognizable but not unique. He wanted them to see his skill and his knowledge of history. The whole point of this exercise was to save his life, but the only way to do that was to impress a group of people who were not easily impressed. Best to play their game without being one of them. Adroit but not pretentious.

The eggs were a little old, but not so bad that he couldn’t work with them. He didn’t find a pasta roller, but it wouldn’t be the first time he cut noodles with a knife. He felt the sweat bead on his forehead, and he wiped it away with the clean towel he kept in the apron tied around his waist fighting the urge to suck the moisture off and quench his growing thirst. Mars went to the sink and got a mouthful of water holding it there while he worked praying that it would help. It only managed to remind him of how much it didn’t. And when he swallowed it, Mars’ knees buckled from the pain of forcing it down.

He made a cater in the center of a mound of semolina and all-purpose flour, and filled it with eggs. Mars used a fork to pull from the sides mixing the dough directly on the stainless steel table. His hands shook, but he couldn’t tell if it was from nervousness or a reaction from the poison.

Satisfied with the mixture, Mars wrapped the dough in plastic. It would have to rest for at least half an hour before he could use it. Time he didn’t have. He minced a couple cloves of garlic, rubbing his fingers against his apron to combat the growing numbness that started to creep across his extremities.

He fried the garlic in butter over very low heat while he grated the parmesan and cut his fettucine. They weren’t the most accurate slices he’d ever made, but it would have to do. Poach the pasta in veg stock. No! It had too much broccoli in it. Chicken stock. More neutral. Just a few minutes. Timing was key. Mars gulped. His throat was closed. He drew in racking gasps of air. He clapped his hands to regain some feeling.

Mars tossed the pasta with the garlic, butter, and cheese until incorporated adding just a bit of the stock for smoothness. He dabbed a spoon in the pasta to taste his creation, but in his current state Mars didn’t trust his taste buds. He trusted his years of expertise though and felt confident enough to serve it. Maybe it was good enough to save his life, but if not how bad was death compared to his life the way it was? Mars was willing to take that bet.

With a pair of tongs, Mars twirled the pasta onto a large pasta plate, basically a glorified flat bowl making a beautiful spinnerette, and topped it with a tiny amount of cracked black pepper and chopped parsley. He wanted to be proud of what he made, but he was too busy concentrating on seeing straight so he could deliver either his salvation or his demise to his new would be clubmates.

The kitchen doors banged open, and Armand chuckled watching Mars drunk walk holding a plate in each hand. It was a scene out of a fairy tale. A large round table was set with a white tablecloth. Silverware sparkled under the soft light from a gold and crystal chandelier. The stemware was so clear, it seemed to sing. Beethoven’s 9^th Symphony, Ode to Joy, played over speakers in the ceiling. Mars blinked from the stimulation. He set the plates down in front of his diners where he thought they were sitting, but seeing double, he might have been mistaken.

Dominique applauded the food. Armand got out his monocle and studied it. “Fettucine Alfredo?”

Mars stood as straight backed as he could with the room tilting. “Yes.” He heard himself say, but it sounded like he was at the bottom of a well calling up for help.

“I don’t see any cream, or grilled chicken, or…well I don’t see anything, Chef.” Armand’s tone was accusatory, as if the presentation of handmade food was an entitlement, while the rest of the world missed out.

“Respectfully,” Mars voice cracked under the strain of vicious dehydration. “Alfredo, real Alfredo doesn’t have cream.” Dominique and Armand leaned back as if in shock. Mars continued. If ever there was a time to defend his culinary acumen, this was it. He struggled but managed to take a deep breath and force out clarity. “Traditionally, in the early 20th century, Alfredo was just parmesan, butter, and a little pasta water mixed with fettucine. The inventor made it for his wife when she was having trouble eating after giving birth. The dish got barbarized with cream, and shrimp, and all manner of supplements, when at its core, it was a simple dish for a sick wife.” He felt a rush of adrenaline being clear headed. It was short lived though as the poison brought him crashing down with trembling hands and dizziness.

“Not just a great cook, but a food historian extraordinaire, eh?” Armand said approvingly and picked up his fork. “What wine do you think would go best?” He said to Dominique.

“Oh stop teasing, Armand.” She scolded with her tinkling voice. “He’s about to collapse from anticipation.” They both laughed the laugh of the privileged and dug in.

Armand closed his eyes and chewed savoring every slow movement of his mouth. Dominique spun her fork and breathed the aroma of the dish deeply through her nose before she ate. After their introduction to the plate, the duo stabbed at their food. The forks clanked hard into the plates like they might break. They made growling noises and chewed with their mouths open. Mars felt as if he was watching what wolves or vampires might do to their victims. He felt bile rising from his stomach and he looked away from the scene, but he could still hear their tearing and grunting and chewing. He hoped the whole thing was a hallucination brought on by the poison. If he survived, that’s what he would tell himself.

The macabre noises stopped, and Mars looked back at the table to see Dominique and Armand dabbing at their lips with expert elegance. The ravenous sounds lost to the ether. “Well,” Armand sat back and patted his prodigious belly, his vest stretched to perverse tension. “That was sublime, Chef. Bravo.”

“Truly.” Dominique concurred with a chef’s kiss from her lips to her fingers.
     Mars had to squint to see them. His vision got blurrier by the second. He put his hand on the table to hold himself, but nothing could stop him from collapsing to his knees. He pulled the tablecloth down. Fine China, crystal and silver flat ware tumbled over him in a symphony of shatters and clangs. Mars thought he heard Armand laughing, but it was like from the other side of a wall.

Mars felt a hand under his head lift him and something pressed to his lips. “Drink.” A woman said. It sounded like his mother. He tried to call for her but he couldn’t speak. Cold liquid flowed into his mouth. It was bitter and soothing as it caressed his throat, pushing away the dryness that threatened his life. Each second went by with a new revelation. The feeling in his fingers returned. Mars felt a tiny burn on his thumb he hadn’t remembered getting. He licked his lips, and they stayed wet.

Mars sat up. In the time it took to slice an apple, His vision cleared and he saw Dominique standing over him putting a flask back in her inside pocket not bothering to be modest. She straightened her sleeveless suit and held out her hand to help Mars off the ground. Armand was clapping his hands. The effects of the poison were like they were never there. Mars, besides being exhausted, felt fine.

“A fine show. A fine show!” Armand said enthusiastically.

“Indeed.” Dominique said shaking Mars’ hand. “Welcome. There are a few tidbits we’ll need to go over, but I think it’s safe to say, you’re in.”

Mars stood dumbstruck unable move. He was on death’s porch and halfway through the door seconds ago. Now he was being celebrated by the same people that put him there. He hardly had thoughts let alone words.

“Thank you.” Mars couldn’t help it. The gratitude spilled out of his mouth. He would describe the feeling to those that asked as being grateful he was alive, but in that moment and with his own thoughts, Mars felt appreciated, validated for being talented. The guilt over the small exchange stayed with him until he died years later. It was like a slap in the face to all the people he tried to help by breaking the rules. He sounded like them when they thanked him for handing out food he wasn’t authorized to distribute. He sounded needy, Desperate for recognition. He’d never hated himself more.

There was a brief conversation with Mars two new Club members on what he could expect in the future. Support in procuring products, a new residence, access to the bodyguards, unlimited use of their kitchen if it served the Club’s purposes. His days of reforming processed SUSTAIN bars into a semblance of meals were over, they assured him.

Mars didn’t say much. He shook hands with them and was gracious about the opportunity to showcase his skills, he told them. He hadn’t needed to be diplomatic for a long time, but it came back to him with the same ease as his culinary prowess.

“There’s a lot to go over, and you have the entire membership to meet, but for now I bet you’re tired. We can go through this tomorrow. They’ll be dying to meet you.” Dominique said as they walked through the kitchen. One of the gaurds, it was impossible to tell them apart, went into the dining room to clean up. Mars went to apologize for making the mess and Dominique stopped him. “We don’t apologize to the help.”

Mars grabbed his coat and walked outside. As brutal and unexpected as the ordeal he went through was, being out in the regular world seemed worse, and Mars understood why people, people who could afford it, did everything they could to avoid it. It never felt as horrible as it did in the seconds between leaving the kitchen and getting in the car.

Dominique gave Mars a hug and held out something for him to take. “Congrats, Chef. You earned this.” It was the Last Supper Club pin she and Armand wore on their lapels. He took it staring at the shininess in the darkness of a dirty city. She opened the car door for him and bid good night. Mars said nothing the entire ride staring at the symbol of his new membership. He didn’t even look out the window. There was nothing to see. Nothing he wanted to see.

The car stopped at his building and the giant got out and opened the rear door. Mars got out and looked at his home that was so high he couldn’t see the top from the sidewalk. The guard shut the door and Mars looked back at him. “Congratulations.” The giant said with a softer voice than Mars would have expected from such a massive person. Mars nodded, and he couldn’t be sure, but he would have sworn he saw sadness through the dark sunglasses. The man got into the car without another word leaving Mars on the slime covered pavement alone.

He got off the elevator on the 102^nd floor and made the long walk to his door. The familiar smells of body odor, burning plastic and chemicals pierced his nostrils and he lifted the collar of his shirt over his nose and mouth. It didn’t help.

He used his keycard to open the door to his one room home. It was barely bigger than a closet, but it was better than the street or a prison cell, and it was all he could afford until a few minutes ago. Mars pulled his blinds springing for the blackout kind so no one could see in. 102 stories up, but he still wouldn’t take any chances. He rolled up towels and stuffed them in the cracks of the window and under the door. No one would be able to smell anything with the stench from the hall, but again, no chances.

He set the package from Rene on the table and unwrapped it. Mars smiled as big as when he got his television contract. The sharp aroma of dill and vinegar hit him. He opened the wrapping completely to reveal a big pickle and two brown eggs. Mars leaned in and smelled the plump green vegetable. He let out a soft “Ahhhhh.” And clapped his hand over his mouth. He couldn’t help himself. It just smelled so good after the stink of what his life had become.

Underneath the package was a pamphlet. The same one Rene’ took from Lila. It read “Join the Resistance. Join The Green Table”. There were testimonies from intellectuals and other minor celebrities touting the importance of being part of a movement that included food independence as part of human rights. Mars didn’t bother reading it. He threw the Last Supper Club pin next to it. Mars half expected the items to start fighting, but they just sat there as representatives of two parts of his life that were at the same time gone and inescapable.

He pulled a large chest from under his bed and deftly started unlocking the mechanisms that kept it secure. Mars took one last look around the room making certain he was alone and opened it. The lid pulled back revealing several attached shelves that expanded when it was fully extended. Small bottles and jars of different colors clinked softly. Mars put his hands over the collection as if to silence it. He turned on some music. Dave Brubeck. Most people didn’t know who that was, but it soothed him. It made him in the mood to cook.

He selected a few bottles from his case and a couple of small boxes labeled “breadcrumbs” and “flour” along with a rolled up leather satchel. Most people didn’t have kitchens in their homes. There wasn’t any need for them. Only the wealthy could afford that kind of opulence. Some people swore SUSTAIN bars tasted better when heated, but that was bullshit. It was like eating solid air. No flavor, no texture. There was only weight. All function, no form. Mars wished it were true. He wished that heating them released oils, or tannins, or caramelized the sugars, but it was just a dream. Soulless food for a soulless existence.

Mars took out his burner from under the counter and set it up. From his case he grabbed a stainless steel pot. He could have sold it and paid his rent for half the year. The thought never occurred to him. He got out four bowls and laid three in a line. filling the first with flour and the third one with breadcrumbs. He cracked an egg and opened it, plopping the contents into the second bowl relishing the sound. Mars couldn’t remember the last time he heard that. At least, he couldn’t remember the last time he enjoyed hearing it. Cracking the eggs for the pasta was different. That wasn’t on his terms.

He put the last egg in the remaining bowl and with a wire whisk from his case, Mars whipped the egg until it was a homogenous sunbeam yellow. With his array of bottled ingredients, he added a couple of drops of lemon juice, a sprinkling of pink Himalayan salt (some of the last of it in the world), black pepper, garlic powder, and the tiniest bit of Dijon mustard outlawed a hundred years ago. He started to whisk the mixture in time with “Three to Get Ready” playing in the background.

As he worked the concoction into a foam, Mars drizzled extra virgin olive oil into it. It took some time, but the mixture formed into a pale yellow mayonnaise. Mars tasted it with a spoon and snapped his fingers. “And that’s it.” He whispered to himself.

Setting his creation aside, Mars unrolled his leather satchel and ran his hands over the handles of the hand forged blades that were the lifeblood of his former profession. Knives weren’t only tools to a real cook. They were symbols, totems of their station. Marks of status and adversities defeated. Knives were to cooks what swords were to samurai long ago. He picked up his eight-inch chef knife and pulled it across his diamond steel sharpener. The schwing schwing sound accenting the 20^th century jazz playing in his room.

He sliced the pickle into coins, taking his time to be exacting about thickness and smoothness of the cuts. There was a time he would have prepped that pickle in less than a second, but he savored the feeling of the initial resistance to the blade and the soft giving when he pushed it through. Mars got to use his knives so rarely, he wanted the ritual to last. It wasn’t like the kitchen he was just in. This wasn’t coercion. This was therapeutic.

Mars dropped the slices into the flour and seasoned the mix with salt and black pepper. After each slice was coated, Mars submerged them in the egg. Then he dusted them with breadcrumbs. He filled his stainless steel pot with an inch of oil, and when it was hot he fried the breaded pickle slices. Mars made sure all his towels were in place, so the heavenly scent didn’t seep out and alert the authorities of his crimes.

Once the pickles were the goldenest of browns, Mars scooped them out and delicately padded each crispy piece dry with a paper towel. He turned off the fire under the pot and arranged the pickles on a plate with a ramekin of homemade aioli. Mars sat on his bed and breathed in the toasted and briny smells of his concoction. He picked a slice and dipped it into his sauce. Closing his eyes he took a bite. It’s a common understanding that flavors and aromas bring memories. Unlike the reminder of the gray world the SUSTAIN bars brought, Mars’ mind was flooded with images of when he was at the culinary academy, the top of his class, the next big thing. And he remembered the idealism of wanting to change perceptions of what food should be. He closed his eyes as he chewed and savored and reminisced stuck between a time he would never have back and a future he didn’t want. Somehow, they were the same thing.

Dr. Murgatroyd told him before he killed himself, “The world would be better off if I was never born,” like some kind of modern-day George Bailey. Finch expected better of his mentor. It was trite and cliché, but he understood the old man. Finch felt sort of the same way. If Finch was gone the world wouldn’t be any different, but he would be much better off if he wasn’t around.

He originally got the idea sitting at his bus stop. Finch had an entertaining view of the alley cats across the street. They were well taken care of, rather, they took care of themselves and each other. Animal behavior was not his wheelhouse, but Finch used his years as a scientist to study their habits. They were damn near organized rationing food so none of the dozen or so strays went hungry. They defended each other against interlopers like dogs and other challengers to their little fiefdom. In the weeks of observations, Finch saw only one confrontation between the two biggest cats: A close coated charcoal grey female and a shaggy orange and white striped male with hair on his cheeks that stuck out to the sides like a cartoon character. Nothing got physical. They snarled and hissed at each other for a few seconds and then went their separate ways. Finch thought they looked like a couple of scientists bickering over some detail of banal minutiae.

They had shelter under the parking garage, food from the dumpster in the alley behind the restaurants, and safety in numbers. That’s where Finch would go.

He pushed his shopping cart through the aisles with slow deliberate speed leaning to make it move rather than using force to propel it. Finch had to concentrate on going straight. His muscles only obeyed half the time on a good day. The basket held and assortment of sandwich fixins and munchies. All his favorites that he couldn’t eat anymore under strict doctor’s orders. Pastrami, Havarti, sweet peppers, olives, ripe heirloom tomatoes, Jewish rye. Finch shuffled through the store working hard not to bend his knees or ankles. Every movement in his joint reminded him of how far gone he was. Pain. He was always in pain now. That would change.

Finch crossed his twisted fingers and held his shallow breath as he used his credit card to pay. He smiled and exhaled when the screen on the card reader said APPROVED. And if it hadn’t, so what. He didn’t want to skip his last meal, but he would have.

“Have a nice day.” The cashier said. Finch almost called the young man an asshole. Couldn’t he see Finch had no nice days? He strained to lift his groceries and walked out.

He ambled his way to the bench outside the parking lot taking frequent breaks. No one offered to help him. They side eyed him with pity. The children didn’t though. They stared enthralled by the spectacle of the crippled man until they were yanked along by their parents and admonished for daring to use their eyes to look at something.

He’d miss his research. He had no idea his last job would be his last job. Finch was ok with that. They knew nothing about what it meant to be truly cutting edge, what it meant to break barriers. “It goes against nature.” They said. “You’re insane.” They said. “Playing God”. They said. In principle, his discovery wasn’t any different than using peanut DNA to give zucchini a longer shelf life. Finch’s work had something that made the Board of Directors nervous: imagination. His only mistake was expecting them to be as visionary as he was. He was offering a solution to food insecurity and disease prevention. All they wanted was a cash cow. Seconds after his expletive laced tirade at the board, Finch was literally thrown out the front doors. Creativity and ambition led Finch straight into the arms of mad science and unemployment. Maybe he should have put that on his tax forms as a little joke to himself. “Mad Scientist.”

The bus ride home sometimes gave him enough time to recover. Not today. He leaned on the fence surrounding the perimeter of his property and reached in his coat pocket for his keys. The distance from the stop made his vision blurry and his legs ache. As recently as a week ago, a minute was all it took to recover. The week before that he was hardly winded. Now he could barely see straight for how exhausted he was from a quarter mile walk. It would be over soon.

The sun was just starting to set, but his house, which Finch used to maintain with the fastidiousness of someone that would make an obsessive compulsive jealous before he got sick, was dark and the yard was overgrown with brown weeds. He sighed at the sight of the oil stain in the driveway. He sold his car long ago. He missed driving.

A man stood on the porch of his house. An official looking man holding a leather satchel. The kind of man his mother used to call “a bad news man.” He wore a brown overcoat and a matching brown fedora. He handed Finch a manilla envelope which he took. “You’ve been served.” He said, tipped his hat, and walked away.

He tucked the envelope under his arm as an afterthought and held his keys in both hands aiming for the keyhole and missing. Aiming and missing. His hands vibrated like guitar strings. It wouldn’t be long before Finch didn’t have to worry about keys anymore, or hands. Finally, gathering the will to keep from shaking, Finch was able to get the door open. He picked up the bags containing ingredients for his last meal and walked inside.

All the lights were out. Finch dropped the keys on the sideboard in the foyer, and they slid off a pile of unopened letters with words like “Please Remit” and “Final Notice” onto the floor with a clatter. On instinct, he went to pick them up. Paused, and waved his quivering hand dismissively. He chuckled with a mirthless snort. It didn’t matter.

 Finch opened the envelope under his arm full knowing what it was. His most recent ex-wife’s name was above his own with a small ‘v’ separating them. You are hearby notified that you are required to appear before the court… Finch stopped reading. He threw the pages on the floor next to his keys. Finch flipped through his mail one final time. Maybe a card or something. The letters were from his ex-wives’ lawyers seeking alimony payments and debt collectors. He smiled, this time with real pleasure. They’d never see another dime.

He held onto the wall as he made his way into the kitchen, half to keep his ailing body from collapsing, half because his eyes hadn’t adjusted to the dimness of the house. The refrigerator, oven, dishwasher, the coffee maker were gone, sold weeks ago to help keep his human life going a little longer. Finch set the bag down on the counter and got out all the ingredients for a funny pages sized sandwich. The last people food he would ever eat. Opening packages of meat was a chore. Spreading mayonnaise without tearing through the bread took more mental strength than all the time spent on his research. Tomato slices were ragged and crushed after he was done cutting them. He tried to prepare for when his brain stopped communicating with his body, but losing motor skills didn’t follow the theory of training muscle memory.

He ate the sandwich in the dark staring at the wall. The only power in the house was reserved for the lab. He chomped and chewed with purpose, with conviction, getting through this last ritual. His appetite, like his ability to control his limbs, was not what it once was, but he ate all of it with no remnants. He washed the plate and the utensils and tilted his head at the drying rack where they sat, reminded of when he used to help his mother dry the dishes after dinner when he was a boy. Is it weird to miss washing dishes? He shook his head clearing it. Now wasn’t the time to get distracted. Finch was at his end.

He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and started his slow ambling descent to the lab in the basement. The light made him squint when he opened the door trudging down the stairs. Taking. Careful. Singular. Steps. So. He. Would. Not. Slip.

He patted himself on his deformed back for having the insight to expand his lab several years ago. It cost more than the house. Money well spent anyway. He leaned on the banister after the exertion of traversing the stairs. His schematics for his theriomorphosis machine festooned the room like decoupage. Tanks filled with vivisected animal parts simmered in the corner in blue liquid. A chamber straight out of a Jules Verne novel sat across from the tanks with tools on the floor in front of it and too many wires to count connected to computer monitors.

Finch was not an overly creative man despite the brilliance of his discovery. He decided he would follow in Murgatroyd’s footsteps and burn himself. The incendiary device and trigger were set under the bubbling tanks and was ready to go. Easy to operate with the push of a pedal. All mechanical. No power needed. If he missed something, or if his creations malfunctioned, Finch was resigned to it. Better than wasting away in a county hospital bed he couldn’t afford trapped in his mind for the remainder of his short life.

He flexed his hands trying and failing to relieve the cramping in his stiff fingers and readjusted the hoses on the back of his machine. All he had to do was hang on a little longer and he’d be free from debt. Free from disease. Free from pain. Free from the confines that made up and removed humanity. That’s what gave him the strength to keep going.

He stripped naked and deliberately avoided looking at his reflection in the glass tanks. The curved glass warped his appearance, but he was plenty warped as it was. He turned to his chamber, reclining at a sixty-degree angle, and opened the lid. A soft puff of steam escaped the cold inside and a cloud of condensation floated into the basement ceiling. Finch’s hands shook. It could equally have been a combination of fear and his neurodegenerative disorder.

He pressed a series of buttons on a computer keyboard and a timer appeared on the monitor. Finch moved, as fast as his crippled body would allow, into the tube that would be the end of life as he knew it. He barely got in before the actuators began humming and the door started to press shut. Memories of a life he hated flooded him as the tiny coffinesque chamber got dark. He thought of his wives (he checked himself), ex-wives, and how beautiful they looked on their wedding days. For the life of him, Finch couldn’t remember which dress belonged to which ex. He swallowed whatever guilt he might have had for mixing them up and replaced it with an eagerness to move on.

The door sealed shut with a sucking sound and he was in total blackness. Sensory deprivation until the ice needles of cold crawled over his fingers. The sensation elated him, feeling something other than tormenting soreness was a relief. But the frigidness slithered its way across his body over his feet and legs over his genitals. Finch tried to make his hands cover himself, but the chamber was like a casket. He was dying. All he could do was blink his eyes as the freezing hand of death wormed up his hips and over his stomach.

Finch twitched inside the can holding him fast banging his head weakly against the lid. He thrashed his head again, and again it was no more than a tap. The creeping chill reached his chest, and he brought in a bracing intake of air That froze his lungs and heart. His thrashing stopped, and what started as uncomfortable cold shifted to agony. Each atom that made up the density of his flesh was under attack. It penetrated his pores into his essence. Dr. Finch’s very identity was being scrubbed. It was like sandpaper smoothing his soul. He tried to scream, and the cold forced everything down. He held there for a microsecond in stasis. His mouth open in a silent cry of pain, his tongue drying from the hoarfrost air.

Not once during the process did he regret his decision, and he faded into a blackness that made the blackness in the transformation chamber jealous.

Finch had no idea how long he was out. At least days. Maybe a week. Rearranging DNA from one species to another isn’t as easy as the movies make it seem. It takes time. When he came to, he ate a pile of food he left for himself and got to the task of living his new life. He didn’t need a cup of coffee. He didn’t need a morning ritual. Triggering the incendiary chemicals went off without a hitch. Finch was a little nervous he wouldn’t make it out in time, but that was a needless worry. He jumped out an open window before the fire even started, a feat he would have had trouble with even before he was sick. It was as simple as blinking now.

He sat outside across the street watching his house burn. His home of over twenty years went up like flash paper. By the time the fire department got there, only a scorched skeleton remained. Finch smiled. It worked. They wouldn’t find a body, but the remnants of his life were there and the “goodbye cruel world” message on his social media pages would (more or less) put the issue to bed. When a sick man, behind on his bills, who’d just been ordered to court for non-payment of alimony leaves a suicide note, then his house goes up in flames, that tells anyone all they need to know.

He expected to need more time to adjust when he woke up, but again, that wasn’t the case. Just as his models predicted, the pain was gone, and his intellect was completely intact. His body responded like Finch always had it. He was a new man. Sort of.

The soreness and disobedience his body had over the past year were gone. In their place were loose joints, toned muscles and senses that allowed him to smell emotions and taste nearby food in the air with his tongue and see in the dark. All benefits he knew he would get, but finally experiencing it made him strut down the sidewalk.

A few people looked at him, but not like before. Not with pity for a decrepit broken man. They gave a passing glance and a quick smile if anything. One man had to pull his boy away who wanted to pet Finch. He would have let him, too. He’d only felt the clinical groping of doctors for the past twelve months. A scratch behind the ears would have been nice.

He prepared, through research of course, for his new form. Finch delighted in the fact that his findings proved correct. The problems of his previous life were so far away as to be alien. The world was lighter, simpler. Food, sex, warmth, companionship. That’s as far as his instincts took him now. Finch was sure there’d be challenges, but be real, what challenges does an animal who sleeps eighteen hours a day have?

He walked the familiar city streets making his way to the destination he studied so earnestly. His observations said the others would accept him, but until he was there, he wouldn’t know. If they didn’t, Finch would gather himself and move on to another place. Maybe he could find a boy like the one the man on the street wouldn’t let touch him and become a beloved family companion. He chuckled and a high pitch “mew” came out. He chuckled again, giddy with his new voice.

Black looked good on him. It always did. That’s why he chose it. Also, the idea of the devout scientist being part of the most superstitious cliché in the world was the kind of joke his ex-wives would never appreciate.

His feet made no sound. His breathing was silent too. Finch swished his tail back and forth, the feline equivalent of skipping as he approached the collection of alley cats stationed at the familiar spot between the parking garage and the restaurants.

The bushy orange fellow spotted him from the sidewalk and stood as if on sentry duty. He made a motion with his head that called over his cadre. Finch kept his tail up his ears forward and slow-blinked as he padded to the group to show them he wasn’t a threat. He would immediately be the smartest if accepted and he didn’t want to give any indication of a challenge.

“Reow.” He said. Translation: Hi. Nice to meet you.

“Meow-eow.” The big bushy orange one said back. Translation: Weatherford? Is that you?

Finch flicked his tail and scurried back like someone dropped a frying pan on the floor. The only people that called him by his first name were his ex-wives, who he hadn’t spoken to in years, his mother who was dead, and his mentor Dr. Herman R. Murgatroyd.

The shaggy cat took a few tentative steps toward him slow-blinking and tilting his head to the right. The cat version of putting one’s hands up asking for calm. “Take it easy Doctor. I know this seems odd.” The series of purrs and mews translated as clear as glass in Finch’s new ears.

“Odd?” Finch choked out. “Dr. Murgatroyd?” He started panting and hacking up hairballs he hadn’t swallowed yet, dry heaving at the panic in his new form.

“Consciousness transfer.” He said. “You know my work on AI and applying it to animals. Well,” He sat back on his hindquarters and puffed out his fluffy white chest. “It worked.”

“Hello Dr. Finch.” Another meow came from his rear. It was the charcoal grey female he witnessed having an argument with (he could not believe it) his former mentor.

“You remember Dr. Salahuddin, from the BIO International Convention? Her work on cloning and it’s applications?” Murgatroyd said.

“Of..of course.” Finch replied, barely able to stand.

“We know it’s a lot to take in.” Salahuddin said as she lifted her hind leg and licked herself without shame or embarrassment.

“A lot to take in!?” Finch hissed. “I went to your funeral. I cried on the couch next to your daughter who wouldn’t lift he face from her phone.”

Murgatroyd sidled up next to Finch and rubbed against him. If they were still human, he would have put his arm around Finch’s shoulder. “I was at my wits end, Weatherford. I had gambling debts. They were going to kill me. So, I did what anyone in my position would do. I embezzled from the University. I stole my children’s trust funds. The world would be better off without me. So, I used my research to leave.”

“I killed my husband.” Salahuddin said sitting up like royalty. “He was an abusive prick. I’d rather spend my life on the streets than in prison.”

The other cats joined them and told similar stories, and Finch, hearing from all these brilliant minds started to relax even though his change ended up being mildly anticlimactic. They talked about their various methods of metamorphosis for hours debating the details of the most incredible scientific breakthroughs imaginable. They showed Finch where the best morsels of leftover food were, and he ate his fill. Food, rotten and spoiled, never tasted so good. And they spent hours preening and grooming each other in the most communal and accepting group he’d ever been privileged to be a part of. Life was not just good. It was better than it had ever been.

As the weeks went by, Finch started a relationship with several of the female cats. Salahuddin never had children of her own. She explained how horrible that would have been for them considering who her husband was. Finch never had children either. He didn’t know how to be a father, but he didn’t need to know. Male cats didn’t have prominent roles as supportive fathers. Procreation without responsibility. Sex without attachment. It was paradise.

He positioned himself at the mouth of the alley. Being his first time on lookout duty he wouldn’t let them down. It was a big responsibility. The opening was the only way in or out of the small alleyway. Finch had to watch for threats in the form of dogs, animal control, and other city hazards.

The turtle shell colored cat wasn’t trying to hide when it walked around the corner and crossed the street making a beeline to Finch. He alerted his companions that someone was coming. The motley collection of the most brilliant minds on Earth gathered behind Finch in a show of strength and solidarity.

The black and brown mottled cat raised its tail, set its ears forward and slowly walked toward them blinking its eyes slower than Finch had ever seen from a cat. It meant no harm. Besides, what can one cat do against him and his crew.

Finch meowed expecting a normal cat response.
     The visitor sat in front of them and licked its paws and rubbed it over his head. “Are you Dr. Weatherford Finch?” It said in what might have been a familiar way. Not a voice, but the cadence of the cat’s words gave Finch a mad case of déjà vu.

Finch tried to swallow but got stuck at the realization of who this cat was. He couldn’t stop himself from nodding in the affirmative.

The cat nodded back and slowly turned around, lifted its tail, and sprayed urine all over Finch. The cats behind him hissed and arched their back scurrying to safety or a defensive position.

Finch smelled the air and his stomach dropped. He could taste the legal jargon floating in the form of piss vapor. He could smell the calculated attack of jurisprudence dripping off the ends of his whiskers. It couldn’t be. How did they find him? How could they possibly know…

The multicolored cat dipped its head in gratitude as if it was wearing a brown fedora. “You’ve been served.” It said and quietly pranced away leaving Finch rolling on the pavement trying desperately to rid himself of a life he apparently couldn’t escape.

Miles used to push away the urge to swat the tiny camera drones out the air like mosquitos. He hardly noticed them now. Sometimes they’d get so close he thought the viewers could smell him on particularly ripe days. His year on the streets was almost up. He was about to get his big payoff.

The doors to the studio had a sign hanging over it. Welcome Homeless: the name of the show he was competing in. There had only been three other people to make it the full year. Some participants never had a goal of making it that far. They were content with the $100,000 prize after 60 days. Miles wanted it all.

It was like a carnival outside. Fans wearing t-shirts with a picture of Miles were roped to the sides of the parking lot. It was an image from a year ago when he was clean shaven and a good twenty-five pounds heavier. Now his hair was stringy, and he sported a full matted beard on his sunken face. A year older with a lifetime of fatigue.

“There he is!” One woman screamed with excitement. A swell of bodies pushed into the fences holding them back, and they cheered. Police guarding the barricade unholstered tasers and pulled out retractable batons. Miles flinched and almost ran. That’s what he was used to doing. They chanted his name and begged him for an autograph. He tried not to look. Some of the people he recognized, but he couldn’t remember from where. They might have been co-workers. They might have been family. They might have been someone he mugged. He couldn’t say. You only kept the memories you needed when survival was the issue.

The producers warned him that if he made it this far. he’d be a celebrity. The show did a great job of using AI and editing to mask where he was for the year he was “sheltered deprived”. That’s what they called it. Part of the game was completing the year without letting anyone know you were in it. In the early days, people scoured the internet for clues where contestants were with promises to help with food, clothes, etc. But after the network began digitally obscuring surroundings coupled with promises of the most heinous legal action for interference, it was enough to keep the public at bay.

A well-dressed page stood under the sign and smiled as he got out of the way and opened the door. Miles peered inside checking for threats. Seeing none, he stepped in. He flinched again when the door shut. It wasn’t loud. But noises didn’t have to be loud to represent a danger. He learned that the hard way.

“Miles!” A young woman in a beautifully crafted suit stuck her hand out. Her heels clacked on the tiled floor. Her welcoming smile had the opposite effect on him. He stepped back and collided with the door. “Congratulations on making it this far. I’m one of the producers.” She took his hand a shook it. Miles pulled it away. “We’re so excited you’re here.”

She didn’t shy away from his smell or appearance. That’s how he knew she didn’t really mean what she said. The only people that forced themselves to treat him the same as everyone else wanted something. Like those missionaries that will give you food if you sit through a sermon, or another street person who can share something with you but only if you do something for them. First rule Miles learned on the street: if they don’t avoid you, they want something. That’s why most homeless look the way they do. The tattered clothes and the stink aren’t because of mental illness or poverty (though it can be). It’s mainly to keep the normals away. The remaining people, the ones that want something, are super easy to spot. It’s easier to protect yourself that way. Then again, if you end up taking what they offer in exchange for what they ask, what’s the difference?

“Come in.” She said. “Can I get you anything?” She motioned to Miles to step away from the door, and he had to internally pinch himself as a reminder why he was there.

The first thing that crossed his mind was to ask for money. I just need three dollars for bus fair to see my mother in the hospital. OR, I’m not a bad guy or nothing, I just need some money for gas and I lost my wallet. Coming up with sob stories for money was kind of a specialty of his now. He didn’t have to ask for money anymore. He was about to be rich.

“When do I get my money?” Miles said in his cigarette smoke voice. He wasn’t a smoker before the show or a drug user. A year is an interesting amount of time. It goes by so quickly, but it’s filled with so many changes. Miles had done too many things while living on the street to be the same man. He wasn’t proud of any of it. He sucked his first dick for money three weeks in. The prospect of $100 million dollars made it easier to swallow.

“Right this way.” The smiling producer led Miles further into the studio. The winding corridors were packed with rooms of cubicles and a few private offices. Miles couldn’t exactly remember the last time he was in a place like this without being asked, or forced, to leave.

People in shiny new suits with scrubbed faces and soap perfumed skin waved as he passed. “Hello, Miles.” He kept his head down. No one offered congratulations. No one commented on how different his life would be. It was like they didn’t care. Miles guessed that made sense. He didn’t care about them either.

“We’ll get you into make up and have them freshen you up a little.” She explained that they wouldn’t make too many alterations to his appearance. The impact of his entire ordeal was lessened if he looked clean on camera. “We want the viewers to know how difficult it was for you. They need to know how much you’ve sacrificed.” Her words were spot on, but Miles had become a savant in reading intentions. Her shoulders were sideways. Her eyes flitted and avoided his. She spoke like she said this a thousand times. She was too clean, too rehearsed for anything she said to be sincere.

The woman led him to a small room with a swivel barber’s chair in the center. It was so bright Miles put his arm up to shade his eyes. A plump young woman turned to face the pair when they entered. Her cute grin plummeted into a look of complete disgust. Miles gave her an appreciative half-smile back. In contrast to the producer, the make-up lady’s reaction was 100% from the heart. Miles knew he could trust her.

“This is Miles Kellerman. He just completed a full year on the streets. I need you to clean him up a bit, but not too much. You know the drill.” She turned to Miles. “Ginger will bring you to the stage when she’s done. Congratulations again.” She squeezed his hand and click clacked on the tile out of the make-up room.

Miles sat in the chair and watched Ginger put on a pair of latex gloves. The kind you wear when you wash dishes. Neither spoke. He saw her eyes water as she moved a comb through his greasy ragged hair. She stopped every so often to cough or step away and take a few deep breaths.

Miles took the chance to close his eyes and relax. Unplugging from the onslaught of persistent nervous paranoia was rare and fleeting, so he took advantage of it whenever it came around. It hadn’t set in yet. The notion that his ordeal was all over. That his life was about to change. He promised the first thing he would do was get a hotel room in one of the fancy places that had the best leftovers in their dumpster. He’d order some champagne and buy some heroin, the expensive kind, and take a warm bubble bath masturbating with the door locked in his posh hotel room until the sun came up. Then he would keep all the promises he made to the people that helped him.

It’s hard to have the energy to care about anything out there by yourself, but just like in regular life, you find your people. Contrary to what the show runners promoted Welcome Homeless as, no one survives alone. The old lady, Harriet, that lived behind the gas station taught him about the pizza scam. “Call a pizza joint and order like six or seven weird pizzas: onion and anchovy, pineapple and black olive…order it for pick up. They can’t do nothin’ with that food, so they throw it away after a few hours. Then you go to the trash and eat like a teenager.” It worked. He wasn’t supposed to, but he let her in on his plan to win the money and he told her he’d give her part of the payoff. The Korean guy at the donut shop that spoke almost no English, but gave Miles a fresh cruller and coffee for sweeping the walkway. He told that guy too. They were others that let in on his secret that gave him something, and Miles used it all to keep going. The homeless are a selfish group. They have to be to stay alive. But Miles wasn’t so far gone into his own bullshit that he didn’t recognize who made it possible for him to be where he was. On the brink of wealth and superstardom, he wouldn’t leave his people behind. He was without shame and impervious to criticism, but he wasn’t without honor. It was the least he could do.

Ginger preened Miles as best she could while leaning her head as far away from Miles as she could. She whipped off the bib around his neck. “All done. This way.” She practically ran from the room and took a series of deep breaths like she had been underwater.

He followed her as the sounds from the stage got louder. All he had to do was suffer through this last part of the show. Recount his ordeals, relive the horrible momnets, shed some tears, say “thank you”, reiterate how bad the streets are and collect the bankroll that would set him, and anyone else he wanted, up forever. He wiped his hands on his dirty jacket to dry them.

Ginger opened the door to the stage and bade miles go inside. The crowd was listening to a warm-up comedian talk about how difficult the ordeal of homelessness was. His voice was soft and sympathetic and totally lacking any knowledge of what it was really like. The make-up artist, having completed her task, turned her head as Miles passed through the entryway and left without a word holding her hand over her nose and mouth. It may have been rude, but at least it was honest. Miles appreciated that.

A man wearing a headset walked to Miles, smiled and led him to a spot just off camera marked with a taped X on the floor. He told him to wait here until the cue to come out on stage. He followed up with a few tidbits and tips. “Look at the host, not the camera. Speak clearly. You’ll be great.” Then he started shouting instructions to other stage workers as he darted away.

It was a small audience of a little over a hundred people. They were grinning and bouncing in their seats at the anticipation of being part of a live television broadcast. Miles thought of himself in one of those seats soon enough. High on anything, everything, he could get his hands on. Clean. Well fed. The whole thing was a dream come true. A dream he’d changed himself to have. He put his body, his mental faculties, and his life on the line for the promise of riches. He deserved the money. It wasn’t that much different from being a pro athlete. Though, they usually had a bigger crowd.

The house lights dimmed, and the APPLAUSE sign blinked like a strobe. The people responded with a swell of whoops and clapping. Another sign lowered from above made out of stylized garbage, hypodermic needles, cigarette butts, and oily rags that said WELCOME HOMELESS. “Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)” by Jay Z played through studio speakers drowning out the adoring spectators. Miles fought the instinct to put his hood over his head and walk away. Attention was not a bum’s friend. The promise of money kept him strong.

 The announcer blasted out the speaker even louder. “And now the host of Welcome Homeless; Sonrisa Hayes!” Her cheeks were pulled back in huge grin. The spotlight shone on the stage and the host stretched out her arms like she wanted to give the audience a heartfelt hug. When she was done shaking hands and kissing babies She addressed the cameras.

“Hello and thank you for being with us on Welcome Homeless. We have a very special show today.” She walked casually in a circle never unsquaring her shoulders to the cameras. “A year ago, Miles Kellerman took on the Welcome Homeless challenge to live as person residence deprived.” A picture of Miles graced the studio monitors. Square jawed. Shiny black hair. Gleaming white teeth. Broad shoulders. Bright eyes absent of a drop of alcohol or drugs. A different man.

They recapped his year in a montage playing “I Will Remember You” by Sarah Mclachlan. A video of him stealing food from a hot dog vendor in slow motion. The audience made a sympathetic groan. A still photo of Miles pooping in an alley. The audience laughed. Another video of Miles beating an old man for his shoes. The audience gave nods of understanding.

When the montage was finished, Sonrisa got back to controlling the crowd. “That’s something isn’t it?” The crowd wiped tears and agreed. “At Welcome Homeless, our contestants do what they have to do…” She paused, letting the somberness fill the studio. Then she broke it with an enthusiastic voice, “…To win 100 million dollars!” Flashing multicolored lights glittered around her. The crowd went bananas. She opened her mouth wide in mock surprise and waved her hands like she was Grand Marshall in a Thanksgiving Day parade.

“Enough stalling! Let’s get him out here: Miles Kellerman!” The spotlight shined just beyond Where Miles stood. Somehow the message from his brain didn’t reach his legs telling him to walk. He stood clutching his jacket like a life preserver. The stagehand that gave him instruction gave him a nudge with his arm, and Miles stumbled into the light.

Sonrisa was smiling and miming pulling a rope to get him to walk. The crowd was at a fever pitch chanting his name and cheering. He shuffled his feet forward through force of will until he stood next to the host. They could not have been more different. Miles in his garbage clothes that were either too big, in the case of his jacket, or too small in the case of his pants, and Sonrisa Hayes in a resplendent silver sequence suit complete with matching tie. His face was jaundiced and scarred. Hers was rosy and clean.

Miles was fixed on the audience, but all he saw was a sea of head and shoulder shapes due to the spotlight in his eyes. They murmured and giggled as he scanned the crowd. There was a collective laugh from the crowd and he felt a gripping hand tighten on his shoulder. He turned his head startled.

“I said ‘Is this your first time on TV?’” Sonrisa was smiling but her mouth looked more sinister up close threatening if Miles didn’t say the right thing, she might eat him. Miles felt her fingers dig further into his shoulder even through his thick jacket.

He cleared his throat and stammered. “Y…yes. Never been on TV.” Miles turned his head to the audience again, and Sonrisa’s hand clawed him harder, and he recalled the stagehand’s instruction to talk to her.

“Tell us a little about being homeless, Miles. We saw the videos and watched you for the past year, but what was it like?” She released his shoulder and put her hand on his bicep squeezing him closer to her like a parent does an unruly child.

“It…I can’t…” He stammered.

“Was it hard?” She led him.

He paused remembering one incident where he punched a young girl for her lunchbox. “Yeah.” He lowered his head in shame.

“You probably did things you’re not proud of.” Sonrisa mimed sucking something and the crowd howled with laughter. “Just joking.” She said when Miles looked at her with wet eyes. When he looked down again, she shook her head at the audience which uncorked another gout of laughter.

Miles pulled his arm back and Sonrisa grabbed him so hard he yelped. She held on to the soft flesh from the back of his arm.

“You got a lot of help from others in your…” She made a show of searching for the right word. “Predicament. Didn’t you?”

Miles opened his mouth when Sonrisa’s clenched hand told him to answer the question. The “or else” was implicit. “Yes.” He said in a meek voice. Just play the game. Do what they tell you, and get out of here with your money, he told himself.

“I’ve heard it’s almost impossible to survive without help. Is that true.”

This time, Miles didn’t need any prompting. “Yes. You can’t make it alone.”

Sonrisa’s eyes narrowed. Something the streets taught him was that people will tell you who they are if you give them enough rope to hang themselves. Miles’ face dropped as he realized he said something she was waiting for him to say. Caught, like a rat in a trap.

“Well, I’ve got good news and bad news.” She cleared her throat in a fake attempt to sound condoling. The crowd fell for it leaning in. Miles wasn’t fooled for a second. “The good news is you made it. A year as one of the overlooked.” She turned to the crowd and from the blinking sign prompting them, they shouted “Welcome Homeless!” They cheered for a few seconds and Sonrisa held up her hands asking for quiet. “Unfortunately, revealing yourself as a contestant on the show in a violation of the rules you agreed with when you signed your contract.” She finally released his arm, but the clutching feeling engulfed his entire body though nothing had him.

The host took a couple steps away. “I’m afraid you’ve forfeited your winnings. Seeking assistance isn’t a blatant violation of the rules, but offering a bribe to those who do while alerting them to your involvement with the show is. Too bad, Miles.”

A giant “AWWWWWWW!” of condolence oozed from the crowd. Miles looked around more confused than his first day in the city. He was like a cat with thirty laser pointers flickering around him. His mind cracked and he held his hands to his head trying to keep it together.

He screamed. It wasn’t very loud. His throat was nearly destroyed from all the chemicals and smoke and exposure. He fell to his knees and lost control of his bowels and bladder. Sonrisa backed away a little more with a “Whoa!” And a smile.

“Let’s give him a round of applause for being a great contestant.” The crowd clapped. “We have some nice parting gifts for you. Thanks for playing Miles.” She looked at the camera and said “We’ll be right back.”

“We’re clear.” The stagehand said

“Get that dirty mother fucker off my set and clean the floor.” Sonrisa barked. Miles had pulled his hood over his head. He heard but didn’t register the host continuing to snap at stage workers as she walked away from the shivering thing that was her most recent contestant.

Miles heard voices around him, but it was muffled like Charlie Brown adults. He squeezed his head tighter with every syllable. Hands grasped his jacket and he felt himself being dragged across the floor.

The door opened and Miles flew threw the threshold and landed in a heap outside where he originally came in. A small bag with the Welcome Homeless logo hit him in the head. He slowly sat up and wiped the tears from his eyes. Through the blur of his confusion he watched workers dismantling the fence that held the outside onlookers back. The lot was empty now.

A shadow crossed over Miles accompanied by a voice. “Hey, Buddy.” Miles looked up and saw a police officer with a taser in his hand. His other hand was on his pistol. “This is private property. You gotta go.” Miles didn’t say anything. He got up and walked away as best he could with a pair of pant full of feces and urine.

He walked to an alley and squatted behind a dumpster. He cleaned himself with torn plastic from trash bags. They were best for wiping off shit because you could get it all off without getting any on your fingers. He looked in the bag and saw a $25 gift card to Moon Child Coffee, the main sponsor of the show, and a brand new Welcome Homeless t-shirt. He put the shirt on over his dirty one and shoved the gift card in his pocket wondering if he could make up a story and exchange it for cash.

Every year Wynk entered Fugue Fest, and every year ended the same way: Sorry Wynk. Better luck next year. Two centuries of schooling in Northwood University for Bards, endless performances for fops and dandies, Gold knows how many hours spent perfecting his craft and the best he ever got was a participation award. They laughed at him when he walked up to the registration booth. He expected it. They’d never seen anything like him from here to the Land of Nod, but after today, they’d never forget.

Wynk had his lute on his workstation refining it yet again for a less than marginal improvement of his sound when he discovered his true calling. It was how he was trained. His lead instructor, Schneebly, drilled it into his head. Never stop tinkering. Never stop chasing perfection. It’s the only way to be a better musician. He scrolled through his seeing glass for a technique that might help him gain any advantage when the distorted fuzz of a power chord made him blink. Loud. Angry. Raw.

The sounds were from another world. One he wasn’t familiar with. There was no magic there, at least not that he recognized. No monsters or fey. No blood pacts of mystic circles. But somehow the people figured out how to harness the power of their world to make horseless carriages and devices that washed their clothes. They also discovered ways to make different sounds. Music that as far as Wynk understood wasn’t possible. The more he heard the more he wanted to hear. Their clothes and mannerisms were in keeping with the themes of what they played. He listened to everything. And he loved it all. Art wasn’t removed from feeling there. It was deep and holistic and damned if it didn’t look fun.

He cast a few alteration spells on his lute to mimic the sound. And he added some strings. It took several tries, but Wynk was finally able to approximate the grungy noise that came from what the other world called a guitar. His heart leapt into his neck as he abandoned his delicate training for unique irreverence from the strange people of another world. Up to then, his career, his life, was about doing what everyone else did. Playing the same songs. Compulsory tunes that audiences expected. The differences between the players were so minute that only the most scholarly of minstrels would notice. When he heard the sounds and saw the skalds from a far-off place, Wynk knew he was ready to cause a stir.

He smoothed his dorsal fin of green hair (they called it a mohawk in the other place) and slammed his registration papers on the counter. “Oi.” He said with the accent of the bards he watched. He spent days practicing their words and mannerisms until natural. “Ain’t got all day, bruv.”

The pixie behind the counter fluttered over picked up the parchment and did a literal double take. “Are um…” the pixie hovered about nervously. “Are you sure you’re in the right place?” He asked.

“Come off it, geezer. Make your mark and let’s go, innit?”

The pixie looked Wynk up and down shrugged and stamped the approval. “It’s not a costume contest.” He muttered, eyeing the safety pins stuck through his ears and the heavy combat boots.

The queue of creatures waiting to complete their own registration for competition laughed at the pixie’s dig. A group of elves holding Feywood pan flutes inlayed with silver ivy looked down their pointed noses at him as Wynk walked by. “What does the A with the circle around on your jacket stand for?” One said in her holier than everyone voice. “Aberrant?” And her troupe laughed the laugh of the privileged.

“No.” Wynk said turning his head and speaking out of the side of his neck. “Anarchy.” Their laugh dwindled to uncomfortable chuckles as they realized he wasn’t joking.

     He pushed past his peers backstage to await his turn. Every one of them gave off airs of cultured affluence. They represented the most educated performers in the land, yet they lacked the thing that Wynk didn’t know he was looking for until he found it: uniqueness. They were conformists. Going along with what they were convinced was the way things were done. In the other world, Wynk’s people, his new people, called them Posers. He liked it. They were posing as artists. It took him more than three hundred years, but he figured out that real artists aren’t afraid to take a chance. Three hundred years of being just like everyone else only to find out that perfection wasn’t the goal. Perfection was the enemy. Originality. Risk. Insolence in the face of the status quo. Those were the qualities he sought now. It would kill him or make him, just like it did to the people of the other world.

     One by one the players went on and off the stage performing the same songs as they’d done for a millennium. Wynk suspected that if he went back in time and listened to the bards of old, they’d sound the same as the ones today. That’s how far his fellow artists were willing to go: as far as doing the same thing because they were too scared to fail doing something different.

     A satyr string quartet came off the stage after playing The Dirge of the Dragon (it was the fifth time it had been played so far), saw Wynk, and lifted their noses as if something smelled bad. They gave him a look like “Top that!” and Wynk thought to himself that they set the bar too low to be a challenge. The audience showed their marginal appreciation with obligatory and emotionless applause.

     “Bollocks.” Wynk said at the spectacle.

     The Orpheus Memorial Theater was packed with creatures who could afford to be there. People who weren’t there for the music itself. They were there to be seen as the enlightened few. They’d come from all five kingdoms. Only the citizens from The Outlands weren’t invited. Apparently, they didn’t know how to enjoy “real” music. Elves, centaurs, all manner of fairy-folk and sentient woodland beast made up the crowd. For them music was like a server in a tavern. Part of the atmosphere. When it does its job right, no one even knows it’s there.

     The Outlands was the place where the undesirable fey lived. Respectable fey never ventured there. Wynk never had, that’s for sure. He was always told it was a savage bestial land without laws. A place where the strong literally ate the weak. A land where music and art didn’t exist, at least not in a form that anyone he knew would recognize.

     A Brownie walked to the front of the stage. He was dressed in a jacket and shirt with so many multicolored ruffles shooting from his collar and wrists, he looked like he was half flower. A megaphone was attached to his shoulders as he read from a scroll.

     “Lords. Ladies. Thanes, Dukes, Baronesses and Archfey. Please welcome our next performer,” He paused and cleared his throat while glancing to the side of the stage and seeing Wynk ready to come on. “Ahem…yes. Please welcome…Wynk Pebblekey.”

     The crowd murmured to each other, hardly acknowledging they were even addressed. Wynk swallowed and wiped his hands on his jacket. He said a few magic words over his lute, and a prayer to Gold that he was doing the right thing, but in his heart, right or wrong, he was doing it. This was his final shot. If it didn’t work, he vowed, he was done. Forever.

     He took the stage and the casual mutter from the audience died. A lone audible gasp from a young sprite sitting close to the front split the silence. Wynk adjusted his lute and plucked it making sure it was tuned, but not too much. He heard one of the greatest musicians from the other world say, “Only cowboys stay in tune anyway.” Wynk didn’t know what a cowboy was, but he knew he wasn’t one.

     The wrought iron chandelier, complete with magical candles, illuminated the entire hall. Wynk felt his bile rise at the sight of thousands of spectators. It was the same amount as last year and the years before. How is it he only just noticed the overwhelming number? Because now, he mused to himself, it mattered.

     Without thinking, lest he contemplate himself into inaction, he strummed a single chord. It was like a shockwave from an explosion over the audience. They yelled in unison a sharp scream of surprise. As the volume made them lean back and blink in near pain.

     “Are you ready to rock!” Wynk asked. And strummed again. A dryad fainted into the arms of an anthropomorphic frog. A group of boggins made for the exit. The onlookers were speaking to each other wondering if this was a joke, but they couldn’t hear anything over the roar of Wynk’s amplified instrument.

     He started with a series of simple powerful chords driving, grinding, abrasive sounds that approximated what the audience knew to be a song, but having no resemblance beyond that. After his intro he started the lyrics:

          In the grove where fairies play,

          We danced the waltz, but gone astray

          No more arias or songs divine.

          Tear the sheet music. Cross the line.

     The look of horror on the gathered face of the audience was like standing on the edge of a knife. His schooling, his entire reason for existence abandoned, and the sense of satisfaction he got seeing all the sellouts clutch lace at his invading sounds made him want to play louder and faster and meaner. So, he did.

          Dance on maestros’ graves of old,

          Their lives were stiff and lame and cold

          Sonatas inside magic runes?

          Give me a demon screeching tune!

          Smash the pipes and break the strings,

          No more soft and pleasant things.

          Betray the past and take a chunk,

          Be the new: Rebel Punk!

     Wynk played and bellowed his message at the top of his lungs over and over “Rebel Punk! Rebel Punk!”, his lifetime of practice and schooling told him it wasn’t singing. His heart told him to never stop. He felt the pain in his fingers pressing the strings harder than he ever had, forcing his beautifully crafted instrument to a place it had never been. And he felt it respond like it wanted to go further.

     Wynk looked over the crowd and saw most of them covering their ears. those that weren’t had their hands cupped around their mouths yelling “BOOOO!” Various fairies flitted to the windows and banged on the glass to be freed from the auditory torture. A nelwyn wizard cast a spell erecting a bubble around himself as protection against the noise infiltrating the hall, but even he still had his fingers stuck in his pointed ears.

     Wynk felt something wet and solid hit him in the chest. He didn’t stop playing but he saw a splattered tomato slough off his body and land on his boots.

          Leave your traditionality,

          Live your life, wild and free.

          If you thought my music stunk,

          Weel, Fuck you too. I’m Rebel Punk.

     At that, the vegetables flew at will along with the most horrible epithets Wynk was ever subject to with a few rocks and metal tankards thrown in. He dipped and dodged the missiles while still trying as hard as he could to play until the stage went totally silent. Wynk tried to scream out the last verse but there was nothing. He strummed his lute only to hear eerie emptiness.

     Wynk backed away from the crowd. Some were advancing onto the stage. Some were cheering in the silence. And some were still shouting and throwing food that landed on the floor in quiet plops. He spotted the MC brownie gesturing an incantation. Wynk was adept enough with magic to know a muting spell when he saw one. He suspected it would come. Though he thought it might come sooner.
     A large lump of nearly formless clay stomped onto the stage and picked Wynk up escorting him off. The crowd erupted in approval. Wynk imagined it would have been very loud if not for the brownie’s spell, but still not as loud as his music. He smirked, content with that knowledge.

     He was dropped at the rear door of the concert hall. He could hear the MC apologizing to the crowd for the “horrifying noise from our most recent participant.” The pixie organizer fluttered up to him flanked by three more semi man shaped lumps of earth.

     The tirade that issued from his tiny lips was like music to Wynk’s ears confirming that the crowd and everyone else there was thoroughly engaged. “Who the Gold do you think you are disrupting our festival? I’ll see that you’ll never play another note the rest of your miserable life. What does Fuck mean? I’m writing to the guild and requesting your membership be revoked! Get out! And never come back!”

     With that, one clay creature opened the rear door, and the rest threw Wynk out. He landed hard on a pile trash in the alley. “You don’t deserve that instrument!” The pixie yelled in his tiny voice one last time as Wynk’s modified lute came flying and hit him on the head with a melodic bonk.

     The back door slammed, and Wynk was alone. He stood up and brushed himself off as best he could. His white t-shirt was stained to the point there would be no cleaning it. There was a new tear in his pants. He reached up and touched his head where the lute hit him, and his hand came away wet red. The worst day of his life as a classical upstanding musician. For a punk rocker, it was a normal day. The Sex Pistols would be proud.

     He looked around the alley. There was nothing with him but garbage and solitude. That’s what he’d earned from his lifelong dream to touch people with his music.

He found a dingy rag from the trash heap he fell on and started cleaning his lute. It was older than him. His grandmother gave it to him when he enrolled in Northwood. “It’s a demanding place.” She told him. “You need an instrument that can handle it.”

     He remembered the day like it just happened, and he ran his fingers over the fretboard feeling it as familiar to him as his own skin. It was worth a fortune. He could sell it and live off the money for years. The idea made him sick to his stomach. Wynk felt a tear seep from his eye. He sighed and plucked a little song he’d known since he was a child. It wasn’t a classical song or one of the hard charging punk tunes from the other world. It was just a popular gnome lullaby. He didn’t sing. Just the notes. A farewell to his life as a bard. If it was to be his last song, he wanted to hear his lute play it without the accompaniment of lyrics.

     He stared at the bane and liberation of his life. The instrument that trapped and freed him all at the same time. Maybe someone would come along and pick it up if he left it atop the pile of garbage. Maybe it would end up as firewood for a group of homeless monsters. Maybe he should smash it right now and end all the wondering.

A failure. That’s what he’d been. And he tried. He tried so hard, but it wasn’t meant to be. He took a deep breath and raised it over his head wiping his eyes.

“Hey! Don’t smash that.” A growly voice said from under another pile of garbage several yards away. Wynk stepped back and held his guitar like a sword. In the back of his head, he remembered an image of another one of his favorite players named Richards swinging his own guitar like a club at someone that rushed the stage.

     From under the pile of trash crawled a trio of goblins. That was strange enough. Outland residents weren’t welcome in the city. They were tolerated when they had to get supplies or come for trading, but they weren’t treated like part of the kingdom. That’s probably why they were hanging out in a dirty alley. Couldn’t get service at an inn.

“How ‘bout if I smash it on your nuts!?” Wynk said holding the guitar high so he could reach where he wanted. He was surprised to hear he hadn’t abandoned his punk affect.

     They towered above Wynk and looked down on him over their wide flat noses. “Did you just perform?” One of them asked. There was a hole where his right eye should have been. He smiled showing rows of jagged yellow teeth.

     “So? What of it?”

     “Was that you?” Another goblin said scratching his ear. It looked like part of it was bitten off. “Rebel Punk? Are you him?”

     “That has got to be one of the craziest performances I’ve ever heard!” The third said smiling. Drool dripped off his lips and he ran his forked tongue around the edge of his mouth making a sucking sound.

     “Yeah.” His friend with the jagged ear said. “I don’t know what Fuck means, but I liked it. Where did you learn to play like that?”

     One-eye added. “When’s your next gig? They would love you in The Outlands.” He snapped his green scaly fingers. “You know what? My sister is throwing a party tonight to celebrate killing her husband. You should come and perform!”

     “We’d pay you.” The drooling goblin said jangling a purse of coins. Wynk agreed and left with the trio for the Outlands.

     There were about a hundred people, goblins, at the party. He played all the hits from his favorite other dimensional bands: The Clash, Fear, Black Flag, The Dead Kennedys, and The Ramones. And he played the song that made him get kicked out of Fugue Fest. The goblins danced and cheered and hoisted him up on their shoulders “Rebel Punk. Rebel Punk.” They chanted.

     An ogre walking by the goblin party asked the host who was making such wonderful and relatable music. He introduced himself to Wynk and asked him to play another gig, paid of course. It went like that for weeks. Another horrible beast heard him and offered a job. Rebel Punk became a minor celebrity among the monsters of The Outland. Wynk’s connection with his formal training was all but forgotten.

***

     The opening acts were done, and the crowd roared. “You ready?” Wynk’s manager said. He was a greasy little weasel of a redcap, but he was ruthless. Wynk appreciated that. “You’ve never done a show this big.”

     “Are they ready, you mean?” Wynk said and ran his hand over his mohawk. His manager smirked.

     “All you foul disgusting beasts out there. The time has come.” The MC, a naked minotaur said to the collection of at least one hundred thousand ghouls, ghasts, demons, and every other unmentionable creature in The Outlands. A roar so vicious rose in made the stage quake. “Here he is! Denizens of the dark, I give you…Rebel Punk!” His magically exaggerated voice boomed over the crowd as Wynk walked out.

     He made a face of pure defiance as he raised his hand above his head, guitar pick in hand. He didn’t wait for the crowd to die down, riding the wave of their energy. “Are you ready to rock?” He screamed and strummed a chord.      The crowd screamed, “Yes!” And chanted his name “Rebel Punk! Rebel Punk!”

Hart gripped the arms of the Captain’s chair as they dropped out of lightspeed. The planet was on the viewscreen on a sheet of blackness peppered with stars, big and plump and ready to be juiced like an overripe nectarine. The Conglomeration vessel hovered over it in position to activate its seismic disruptor. The beam would penetrate the crust of the planet causing earthquakes strong enough to shatter the world. Then the ship would go in and harvest the raw materials. Genius in its simplicity and equally insidious.

He had seen it a hundred times. Rather, the countless copies of him had seen it before and he shared that experience through collective unconsciousness, even if it wasn’t him doing the first hand watching. But he wouldn’t let it happen again. Never again.

“Hail them.” The captain ordered.

“Aye, Captain.” The man at the communications station said who could have been Hart’s twin, though less muscular and without the commanding voice.

The communications officer, Ensign Hart, nodded to the captain that the channel was open. “Conglomeration Ship. This is Captain Hart of the Marauder. I’m ordering you to power down your disruptor and vacate this system. I’m giving you this one opportunity to save yourself. I suggest you take it.” He paused for effect. “This planet is under my protection.”

Captain Hart gave the signal to the gunner to power up and target the ship. The man saluted and did as he was ordered. He was a carbon copy of the captain down to the hair on his knuckles with the added benefit of better reflexes that aided in weapons operations. It was as if he was made to be a tactical officer. In truth, he was.

The Conglomeration cruiser was heavily armed, but it was big and bulky, less maneuverable than the Marauder which was built to defend the vessels Captain Hart now threatened. He knew their patterns. That’s what he was engineered for. Traveling the trade routes and targeting the massive planet-harvesting ships was the easy part. The difficulty came in the mutiny. Finding like-minded men to aid him was the challenge. After all, every single soul of the Conglomeration was the same person. But he found them, and they were eager to put their skills to good use when he told them of the plan to steal their ship.

The enemy hung in the blackness of space over its quarry like the sword of Damocles. A minute went by before it answered Captain Hart’s hail with a thick beam of red energy streaking toward the planet. The people on the surface had no weapons to speak of. No defense shields. No way to fight back. That’s why the Conglomeration was here. Easy pickings.

Either they didn’t care or weren’t intimidated by the ultimatum. Good, Captain Hart thought to himself. “Fire all weapons!” He shouted at the gunner. “Stop that disruptor!”

Green flashes of energy pulsed away from the Marauder’s guns slamming into the bloated mining ship. The red beam drilling into the core of the planet flickered twice then ended. The massive vessel turned away from the onslaught, slow and deliberate like a walrus on land, severing its attack on the surface as silent explosions burst on its metallic skin.

Fissures appeared on the planet below the two ships like cracks in an eggshell. The crew of Harts imagined the screams from the millions of people at the sudden shaking of their world having no knowledge of who, what or why it was happening. They were too late.

The speakers on the bridge crackled to life receiving a message from the burning ship. “Mayday! Mayday! The is Hart Conglomeration ship Vanderbilt.” If Captain Hart was bothered hearing an exact replica of his voice coming from the limping ship, he didn’t show it. “We are under attack by the pirate ship Marauder. Weapons, repulsor shields, and lightspeed drive are not functional. Request assistance immediately! I repeat, this is…”

“Shut that off!” The captain yelled. The message abruptly stopped. “Keep firing.” He said through gritted teeth.

“Sir.” His voice sounded from behind him near the communications array. It was his first officer. “The planet’s destruction is imminent. We’re within the blast zone. If we stay, we’ll be destroyed.”

Captain Hart walked to his mirror image and stood almost nose to nose. Chiseled chin. Wiry muscles. Close cut blonde hair. Every pore, every blemish was in the exact same place. There was no difference between the men other than where they stood. It was like they were machined in a shop. The captain snatched him by the collar. “I said keep firing. That’s an order!”

“They’re going to die anyway. They’re done. You heard them.” The first officer pleaded. “Their lightspeed drive is out. Shields are down.” Captain Hart’s simulacrum looked at all the identical faces that stared back at the arguing pair and lowered his voice. “We can’t withstand a planetary implosion. We need to get out of here.”

“Not before I’m sure they won’t do this again.” He barked back. Captain Hart growled like he didn’t want to say the next part but couldn’t stop himself. “I have to see with my own eyes.”

The men (there were two, but they were in all other ways the same person) stared at each other for a moment. Captain Hart’s eyes were watery on the verge of tears. He opened his mouth to say something and abruptly stopped, gasping for air.

There was a soft squelching sound and Captain Hart staggered back holding his chest, hands covered in blood. The last thing the captain saw was himself holding a blade. “I won’t let you endanger this crew.” The first officer said in the same commanding voice. The captain’s eyes rolled back, and he hit the floor of the bridge, dead.

“Corpman, get that body off the bridge. Helm, set a course to get us out of here.” The new Captain Hart said.

“Aye, Sir.” A chorus of the same voice answered in unison.

The lightspeed drive came online, and they sped away from the scene. The viewscreen stayed on as the renegade Harts from the absconded Marauder watched in horrible dismay. The planet folded in on itself instantly killing any culture, and philosophy, any life that it held. Then it burst out in a quiet disruption of multicolored atomized elements. Nothing was left but an expanding cloud of base chemical compounds.

The collective crew sat quietly, only the beeps and whirrs of computers breaking the monotony of silence.

“Steady as she goes.” Captain Hart said. He turned to his copy manning the weapons station. “You’re my new first officer.” Lieutenant Hart stood appreciatively and saluted. “You have the bridge.” Captain Hart whispered as he walked away.

Bulkhead doors whooshed open and closed as he strode down the hall to his quarters. He passed the duplicates he ordered to remove the old Captain Hart and paused to watch them jettison the body from the air lock. At lightspeed, it blinked from existence as soon as it left the ship.

Facsimiles of himself riddled the passages. Captain Hart passed a pair in medical uniforms discussing the best way to triage patients. They were thin, but they were still him. Heavily muscled security guards stood like sentries watching for anyone getting out of line. An engineer was working on repairing a valve that was damaged during a previous encounter. Different from Hart, but the same. Everywhere he looked, Hart saw himself. And he felt what they felt. He saw what they saw. Each copy was the same but treated with minor differences to maximize their individual potential. Not a hive mind, but hive experiences. Instinct.

Captain Hart made to his quarters, a room he’d never been in before, and punched the code to get in. For anyone else, the knowledge of passcodes that had never been used would be disconcerting. For Hart, it was just how his life worked. He walked in and immediately went to the sink to wash his bloody hands. Killing was not something he enjoyed, but he was good at it. Unlike his billion times billions of copies throughout the galaxy, Hart decided to use his talent for something other than raping the cosmos.

He dried his hands and face and saw a blinking light on his communications screen. He tapped the button and saw his face staring back at him. “Captain. Urgent message coming from an unknown location. It asked for you.”

“Me?” the captain said.

The identical face in the view screen from the bridge looked embarrassed. “It asked for the captain of the Marauder.”

“Put it through.” Hart ordered.

The screen flashed for a moment. An image came into focus of a man’s face. Hart recognized it immediately. It was his face, but it was old. The face still had the rugged commanding presence of its youthful clones, but it was wizened and wrinkled with age. “Hello, Captain Hart.” The old man said using no effort to hide his indifference.

“Prime?” Hart exclaimed with an equal combination of admiration, fear, and hate. He looked around the room to see if anyone else could confirm what he was seeing.

“You’re a hard man to pin down.” The old man said. Captain Hart said nothing. He put his hands on his knees to keep his legs from shaking. “You’ve caused a lot of damage. More than we expected.” Prime said. The old man took off his glasses and wiped them with a cloth. Heavy dark circles pulled his cheek to his chin. The image on the screen stood in contrast to the square jawed pirate captain he spoke to. He was the original.

“Damage?” Captain Hart repeated.

“Yes.” Prime spoke like the whole ordeal was an inconvenience. “We calculated you would destroy some ships, but how many does this make? A baker’s dozen? That’s an accomplishment. Anyway, it’s time for you to come back home.”
     Hart cocked his head. “Sir?” He flinched at the respect he showed. This was the man responsible for the Conglomeration’s planetary harvesting. Hart held nothing but foulness for him, but he couldn’t help being awed.

“The Galactic Counsel ruled that you’re sentient, even though all your actions have been programmed,” Prime said, bored. “I’m required by law to give you the opportunity to rejoin The Conglomeration.” He leaned in showing the first sign of real emotion. “But we both know you won’t do that. It’s not in your nature.”

Hart squinted trying to stave off the oncoming headache. “I…” His mouth opened and closed like stuck in a loop. “I…don’t…” The words wouldn’t come.

“You were bred to be rebels. Bloodthirsty, vengeful space outlaws hell bent on stopping the evil Conglomeration from cosmic subjugation.” Prime spoke like he had better things to do. “It’s how I train the other captains against threats. In the past, dissenters were mostly nonviolent using blockades and other deterrents. I decided to kick it up a notch this time.”

Captain Hart sank into his chair as far as he could go. He’d be on the floor if he wasn’t already sitting. He opened his mouth to speak, and a dull moan came out. Hart cleared his throat and with all his effort he tried again. “I’m a training tool?” He squeaked with no more power than a child being scolded.

“What did you expect?” Prime roared making Hart jump. “I made your physiology along with the billion other versions of me. Is it so difficult to comprehend I made your psychology too?” He paused and snorted. “Then again, intelligence wasn’t something I focused on with this batch.”

Hart clenched his fists. The only thing he had going for him was his free will. But that was manufactured along with everything else.

     “Anyway, you’re my property but you’re also an independent person according to the law, so come back home and we’ll forget you were ever a pirate.” Prime picked his fingernail with a toothpick.

     Hart rubbed his head. The way he saw it, going back and helping a soulless money-grubbing oligarch like Prime wasn’t an option. If he was bred to be a pirate, he would lean into one of only two options…

     “You’re probably thinking you have one of two options as a pirate.” Prime said, breaking into Hart’s mind. “You can flee. Stay on the run forever.” Hart watched his progenitor press a series of buttons through the viewer. There was a shudder throughout the ship as the unmistakable sound of the lightspeed drive shut down.

     “Captain!” An electronic version of Hart’s voice called out over the speaker. “We just lost lightspeed! Navigation and helm are not responding!”

     Captain Hart ran to the door of his room to join his brethren on the bridge, but the door didn’t open. He banged on it with his fist, hearing his knuckles crack.

     “The other option rattling around up here,” Prime said tapping his temple. Despite his desire not to look at the screen, Hart turned to his genetic benefactor. “Is that you think you can fight. Let me assure you: you can’t. I’m in control of the ship down to the air ducts.”

A faint hissing sound emanated from the vents in his room. The air smelled faintly of almonds. Hart panicked and started coughing immediately.

     Captain Hart thrashed around the room looking for something that would open the door and allow him to breath again. Blood trickled from his eyes and ears as he clutched at his neck, his lungs finding no purchase. “You’ve given me more data than I anticipated.” Prime said watching his creation turn purple and gag, vomiting up what looked like chunks of organs. “Rest assured that the next generation will be even better because of you.” Prime chuckled. “Well, because of me, anyway.” The screen went blank. Captain Hart reached for the monitor and collapsed on the floor in a heap of blood and flesh.

     Bodies of were strewn all over the ship. Eyes melted inside their sockets. Offal escaped through various orifices. Each one of them died the same way at the same time.

The Marauder shook once as if something collided with it. There was a series of clicks as something docked with the ship. The fans in the air vents kicked on and after a few moments, the smell of almonds wafted away.

     The airlock opened and a crew of identical men ran into the Marauder. Each was infinitesimally different from the other, but they were the same man. “Gather up the corpses and clean the decks.” Captain Hart said. He was slightly taller than the other clones and muscular with close buzzed blonde hair and a voice that exuded authority. “Prime wants this ship in tip top shape when we return it.”

     He walked the corridors shouting orders to the copies of him that followed. The men used shovels and rakes to scoop up the dead versions of themselves. The crew placed the remains in bucket and bags labeled “For Repurposing” and shipped them through the airlock back to the giant Conglomeration ship now attached to the Marauder.

     Captain Hart made it to the bridge and after several minutes of transferring data from its computers to the larger ship and cleaning the consoles and chairs, he took control. Hart ordered the release of the airlock, and the Marauder was again on its own with a whole new crew of the same men. No one would be able to tell the difference from what just happened an hour before.

     “Set a course for Conglomeration HQ.” Captain Hart said. “Let’s get this ship home.”

“Belay that order.” A powerful voice said. Captain hart turned in his chair shocked to see his first officer holding a pistol to his head. “We’re not going to the home world.”
     “Have you lost your mind, Commander?” Captain Hart shot up from his chair. Two crew members grabbed his arms. Captain Hart struggled but couldn’t get away. “This is mutiny!” He roared.

“It is.” Commander Hart said. “We will not be a part of the Conglomeration’s campaign of universal destruction for personal gain any longer.” He lowered the corners of his mouth in a display of sympathy and sadness. “I’m sorry it came to this.”

Captain Hart gave one last jerk against his captors and Commander Hart pulled the trigger snapping the Captain’s head back. The crew members let go and the body fell to the floor.

“Corpman, get that body off the bridge. Helm, set a course to get us out of here.” The new Captain Hart said. “Find the nearest planet targeted for harvesting. We’re done letting them destroy the galaxy.”
     “Aye, Sir.” A chorus of the same voice from the bridge crew answered in unison accompanied by a cheer. Captain Hart smiled and took his place in the center chair of the bridge. It was done. He and the men who followed him were pirates now. Captain Hart crossed his legs and felt a calm wash over him. He felt like he was born to be a pirate. Like it was inevitable.

The lightspeed drive came online, and the Marauder dashed away into the void of space.

Rep. Susan Maynard (R-TX) was sitting in her office when there was a knock on her door. Ariana, her assistant poked her head in. Her elderly face was void of color. “Ms. Maynard” her voice trembled. “There are some,” she paused, gulped, and whimpered. “People here to see you.”
     Susan looked at her assistant puzzled. “Do they have an appointment?” She couldn’t identify the look on Ariana’s face. Fear? Shock? She wasn’t sure. “What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a…” Susan didn’t get to finish as Ariana opened the door and in walked a goblin, a witch, and a ghost. The door slammed behind the trio and Susan heard heels on tile rapidly click clacking away.

     Susan stood up with her mouth open. She picked up the letter opener on her desk and held it out like a knife. “Stay back! I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but you can’t…” The witch snapped her fingers and the letter opener disappeared from Susan’s hand and into the pencil holder from where it was grabbed. She wasn’t a witch from stories. She was matronly. More Mary Poppins than Baba Yaga. She was dressed like a librarian: white button-down long sleeve blouse and a charcoal grey pencil skirt with mid-calf black boots. There was nothing about her that would signal she was a witch except her shifting-colored eyes. One was blue and the other brown. Then one was green and the other red.

     “We didn’t mean to startle you, Ms. Maynard. We have something serious to discuss.” The witch said. “May we sit?” Susan nodded her head up and down, but it could have been shaking in terror. The trio chose to accept it as an invitation and sat. “My name is Prunella Baneberry. My associates are Josiah Jones.” She motioned to the ghost
     “Howdy.” He said in a distinctive Texas drawl. Hearing such a familiar accent from the creature made Susan lean on the desk to keep from falling.
     “And this is Blackcyst.” She pointed to the goblin.
     “Blackcyst?” Susan squeaked out.
     “Yes. Blackcyst!” the goblin said. He saw the woman staring at him in disbelief. “It’s a family name.”

     The ghost looked like what anyone would expect a ghost to look like. Chalk white and a little hazy like a fading away image stuck in mid fade. He was dressed in old cowboy attire, and he had the remnants of a long thin bruise around his neck.

The storybooks got goblins all wrong. He was big even by football player standards, at least seven feet tall and powerfully muscled. He was hairless and covered with green and brown scales. His eyes were solid black, and his ears were long and pointy, but his left ear was ragged as if something had chewed it off.
     “We’ve come to seek your help.” Prunella said.

Susan was breathing hard, but she saw the earnestness in their demeanor. They were downright professional. Susan sat back down in her chair and tried to calm down. First rule of politics: never let them see you rattled.

“What is it you think I can do for you?” Susan asked looking for the hidden alarm button on under desk, but not being able to find it. “You could have made an appointment.”

     “Please, ma’am,” Josiah said as he shuffled a spectral desk of cards. “We didn’t even have to use the door.”

     “We do apologize for our entrance.” Prunella said placing the button Susan was fumbling for on the desk. “But we felt a strong introduction would help bolster our cause.”

     “We want to you to draft a bill outlawing Halloween.” Blackcyst said getting to the point.

Susan chuckled and shrugged. “Mr. Blackcyst, tell me you’re joking.”

“Please, just Blackcyst. Mr. Blackcyst was my father. I ate him.” He smiled revealing a mouth full of jagged brown teeth. She froze. Blackcyst leaned forward, “No. We are not joking, I assure you.” She thought there was something wrong with her that she was more impressed with the monster’s articulation than his hideousness.

Susan looked at the trio one after the other wanting to say something but having no words. Her mouth just opened and shut like a fish. She gathered herself and reached in her bottom drawer for what she called her “pick-me-up”, a glass and a bottle of Southern Comfort. Not thinking about it she said. “May I offer you a drink?” She winced. Her upbringing, and her mother, had literally beaten manners into her since she was a child. To have company and not offer a drink was unforgivable.
     “Can’t drink.” Josiah said and passed his hand through the glass.

“Witches take a vow of abstinence to all vices.” Prunella said.
     “Alcohol makes me sleepy.” Blackcyst said and scratched his scaly chin.
     Susan nodded and poured the glass to near full. She quaffed it in one gulp. Very unladylike but very necessary for her stress. She wiped her lips in the most Emily Post way she could and said, “You want to outlaw Halloween?” The trio answered affirmatively. “Can you offer some context as to why? It’s a beloved holiday. It’s a grand tradition.” She said with all the politician’s grace she had.

     “Frankly, Ms. Maynard,” Josiah said in a lazy yet charismatic drawl. “We’re tired of being misrepresented.”

     “Ms. Maynard,” Prunella picked up where Josiah left off. “We have no issue with passing out candy. Why…I know a witch or two who regularly use candy to get children to,” Blackcyst put his huge, clawed hand on the witch’s arm redirecting her. “Yes. Well…in any case the traditions you call grand, we call cultural appropriation, and we want it stopped. We find it offensive and bigoted.” She sat like she had an iron rod for a backbone.
     Susan raised an eyebrow. “Really? Black cats, trick or treating and bobbing for apples are offensive?”
     “Do you know where bobbing for apples comes from!?” Blackcyst roared. His giant fist slammed on Susan’s desk cracking it. She flinched. “It’s an ancient goblin ritual where we plunge our heads into a pool of blood from our enemies! And let me tell you something.” He yelled and drew a finger across his neck. ”We’re not looking for fruit!”   

Josiah covered his mouth to hide a chuckle. “Calm down, buddy. She obviously didn’t know.”
     “As you can see, Ms. Maynard, the issue is very sensitive to us.” Prunella said patting the goblin’s hand.
     “I’m sorry.” Blackcyst said gathering himself, “I take great offense when our sacred rites are mocked.” He wiped the sweat from his forehead with a cloth Prunella handed him.

     Josiah leaned forward and tipped his hat back on his head. “We and our likeminded brethren have felt this way for a long time. And if we’re being totally transparent,” He grinned and motioned to his body. “We didn’t even realize there was anything y’all could to do help us until now.” Susan cocked her head to the side, still rattled by the goblin’s outburst but intrigued at the same time. She gestured for the ghost to go on. “We’ve done just about everything we can do in the way of hauntings, curses, abductions, mysterious goings on, etc. No one seems to be fazed by it.”
     “Political awareness is what gets people to notice your cause.” Blackcyst said. “Professional sports teams change their names over cultural appropriation. There was a story in the news not too long ago where a girl was kicked out of her prom for wearing an Asian style dress. And if we’re talking about Halloween: blackface, Native Americans, banditos…all those costumes are now reviled with good reason. A kid can still be a pirate, just not a Chinese or Somali pirate unless their race matches. Ninjas are still in, but our research shows that sales for those costumes have dropped significantly over recent years, while sales for more traditional costumes,” he spread his arms indicating he and his companions, “Are up.”

     “Don’t you think banning a holiday where being silly is encouraged is a little…” Susan hesitated, looking for the right word, “I mean it’s Halloween. It’s supposed to be fun. I agree, some costumes should be reevaluated, but…come on.”

     Blackcyst gripped the armrest of his chair so tightly he heard the wood start to creak. Josiah shook his and said “tsk, tsk, tsk”. Prunella rested her hand on the goblin’s shoulder, and he relaxed his grip, but the snarl on his face went nowhere. “Ms. Maynard, with all due respect,” Prunella said, “We have come to you in good faith. As Mr. Jones said, we did not have to. Blackcyst has told you how he feels about being discounted. This is the second time you have insulted us. Please, let there not be a third.” For the first time both Prunella’s eyes were the same color at the same time, bleach white. The temperature in the room suddenly dropped and the space felt as if it was shrinking. Then everything went back to normal or what passed for normal considering.

“Ok” Susan said adjusting her chair and folding her hands on her desk. “You’re right. My apologies for being dismissive. Please continue.” Susan was able to either play ball or get turned into a small animal, eaten, possessed or whatever. The trio was sincere. She may as well take them seriously.

     “Fun” Josiah said making air quotes “is not what we do. We are evil monsters after all, and that’s where the root of the problem is. Falsification. Contrary to what the cartoons might say, there are no friendly ghosts.”
     “I see.” Susan said. “What exactly do you want from me? I’ve made my feelings about Halloween clear.”
     Blackcyst sat up and grinned. He was already bigger than everyone in the room, but the act of straightening in his chair made him swell. “We think a successful marketing campaign will revolve around us revealing ourselves to the public. Legally, there’s nothing that prevents us from taking our rightful place in society as citizens.”

“But you’ve never been a part of society at large. You have no history, no political capital or influence other than, forgive me, stories and the very holiday you want to get rid of.” Susan leaned back in her chair.

“Reclusiveness does not override citizenship.” Prunella said, crossing her legs. “Like it or not, we are already a part of this country. We want the validity of our culture recognized and not ridiculed.”
     “We just want what every other person wants.” Blackcyst smiled again but more predatory.

“And why me? Why not a more well-known person?” Susan said brushing her blonde hair behind an ear.
     “Not being well known is precisely why we chose you.” Josiah said. “We need someone that is,” he started counting on his incorporeal fingers “young enough to see this idea to the end, appealing to large constituency, ambitious, and corruptible.”
     Susan’s eyes went wide. She was doing well handling monsters, magic and the undead, but assaulting her character was a bridge too far. She finally lost herself. “How dare you!” She said with her palm firmly on her chest. “Regardless of what you think about politics, I am not one of those elected officials who disregards the will of the people for her own gains!” She stood “This meeting is over.” She picked up the button Prunella had placed on the desk before and started frantically pressing it.
     “Please sit down, Ms. Maynard.” The witch said. Her voice was low and different from before. It was still her, but it sounded like she was speaking through a big tube directly in Susan’s ear. The next thing she knew, Susan was back at her desk and the trio was staring at her impassively.

“Try to understand.” Josiah said, “We see unscrupulousness as a positive trait.” He smiled in his charming cowboy’s way.

“Do you realize there are roughly 19 million monsters like us in the United States?” Blackcyst asked. “Goblins, witches, ghosts, ghouls, werewolves, vampires, and every other manner of foul demon among that number. What if they were all registered voters? What if they were single issue voters all proud of their heritage?” He puffed out his already gigantic chest. “Citizens of this great nation who have allowed their customs and lifestyle to be made fun of for far too long.”

“If they had a champion helping to fight for their rights, they would be eternally grateful.” Prunella smiled.

Susan looked up at the ceiling and considered their words. She got into politics to help people. But she also wanted more for herself. The higher she rose in the government the more people she could help. But if she went along with them, she’d literally be siding with the unholy. Could she do that? How could she reconcile between the rights of her people and her own morality? She was duty bound to help, but that meant promoting the wicked. Susan must have been thinking about it longer than she realized because the “ahem” from Prunella was curt and deliberate. She looked them over once more and rubbed her hands together. “Alright. If I do this, I’ll need allies and financial backing.”

“Do you know how many wretched souls of the damned there are in Washington, Ms. Maynard? It’s a long running joke that the number runs neck and neck with…” he pointed a finger down. Susan let out a nervous laugh. “I can get you support if it means folks stop cutting holes in sheets.”

“I don’t know if you’re aware, but goblins have gold. A lot of gold.” Blackcyst said. It made Susan feel at ease that the storybooks got at least one thing about them right.

Prunella waved her hand and Susan’s desk was repaired. The monstrous trio stood and bade Susan to join them. She waved it again and a small wooden chest appeared next to a platinum jewel encrusted goblet on a sliver tray. She raised the lid to the chest and pulled out a wavy bladed dagger. Prunella’s eyes went white again, and she chanted a few words in a language long forgotten and drew the knife across her hand. Ooze, not blood, spilled into the goblet. She repeated the chant over and over all the while looking at Susan. The politician’s heart was racing, and her head was swimming like she had downed the whole bottle of liquor in her drawer. And suddenly she saw herself as an older woman standing at a podium addressing the press. She was explaining the country’s recent economic windfall. People were cheering her name and clapping all the time calling her “Madam President”.

Susan was snapped back to her senses and all three of her visitors were smiling at her. Prunella held out the blade. Susan took it and raked it across her palm. The spike of pain made her wince, but it didn’t make her stop. She held the trickle of blood over the jeweled cup and watch her blood mix with the witch’s ichor. Prunella picked up the goblet and drank. “Do we have a deal…President Maynard?” She held the cup out. Susan took it and half smiled. She put the cup to her lips and tasted the metallic saltiness of her blood and the cold decay of the Prunella’s greasy liquid. The pact was done.
     “HA!” Blackcyst roared with excitement and slammed his great palms together. “We need to celebrate!” Susan wondered what kind of horrible things goblins did to celebrate. “I’d like to eat an old lady.” He said.
     “I think I know where we can find one.” Susan said, and she pulled out her phone and texted Ariana.

Gunter hid under a toppled bridge on the outskirts of a once tremendous city. The buildings were mostly intact…mostly. He saw two mutants pulling a huge wagon down a chewed up ancient road. The wagon was full of black clad people armed with sticks, makeshift bows, axes, and a handful of guns. The beasts pulling them were something out of pages they used to call “fantasy”. Worlds where the regular rules didn’t apply. They were monstrous and horrible, snorting and squealing, and he had to remind himself they were people once, except they didn’t have a choice but to do what the Blighters said. Most died from exposure to The Wastes. The ones that survived were used as bodyguards and bloodhounds. They became slaves. And they never lived long.

A couple of hounds were on chains. That’s what they called them, but they used to be people too. Their snouts and ears elongated to impossible sizes, and grey gunk slimed from their eyes like sick dogs. Their naked bodies were caked with dirt and their hair was matted. They whined and sniffed around scouting the areas their handlers trekked across. A female a few buildings away stopped and perked up her ears, looking in Gunter’s direction. Grand used to give him quotes, sayings from people long ago, and he remembered one now. “He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day.”-Oliver Goldsmith. Gunter had his rifle pointed at her. He was ready to fight and run, the life of a page miner.

He knew this group. They were led by a man named Caesar. How fitting, Gunter thought. He was at the head of the wagon barking orders to the driver who urged the beasts by flaying the backs with a length of barbed wire. He was thin, almost skeletal, with tight jaundiced skin stretched over bones. Caesar was a caricature of the torn land they lived in, dry and angry and void of mirth.

There have always been Blighters. Old pages used to talk about Fascists, Nazis, Communists, Democrats, Republicans, Christians, Atheists…the list of oppressors was nonstop, and it went back as far as people did. He’d read more pages than just about anyone, and Gunter could never figure out why it was so hard to leave people alone. Blighters were no different than their ideological ancestors except for one thing. There was no one to stand against them. The only thing they feared was knowledge. Knowledge came from pages. That’s why they looked to destroy any they came across. If they had their way, The Blighters would burn every page left. Then they would be invincible.

Gunter waited until he couldn’t hear the grinding anymore. The wind blew in the opposite direction they were going, so their hounds couldn’t smell him. He pulled free from the rubble and made his way into the ruined city. He looked around one more time. The people in his village called him paranoid, but they didn’t know. In the wilds and ruins, paranoia was just good thinking.

Gunter carefully unfolded the map from his pack. He was getting closer to the Y marked in red next to a building’s name too smudged to read. He wiggled his fingers in anticipation of handling pages that hadn’t been seen in centuries. He had to trade damn near everything to the caravan man for the map. There were other page miners in the area, but Gunter wasn’t about to let the mother lode to end all slip away. He wanted the man’s hat too, a blue cap with a bill that extended over the eyes. It had a blue star outlined in silver on it. And it reminded him of the old stories where sheriffs kept the peace in their frontier towns. The man said he’d be dead if he had to part with it. They both had a laugh at that.

The merchant said he found the map in the ruins of what used to be called an airport. It was a place where flying machines would pick up and drop off people after traveling great distances. The back of the map told of a long-lost page repository. Gunter knew chasing a legend was risky, but life was about risk. Those willing to risk more got more in return. That’s why Gunter was the best.

He stayed close to places he could easily hide in while he slinked through the remains of automobile husks and common detritus. Gunter read about cars many times and still had trouble believing the words. The past was hard to accept. Everyone had a car. Everyone had food. Everyone had a little device in their pocket that housed the entirety of human experience. And pages were everywhere. “There were so many pages, they used to use them to swat flies.” Grand used to say. Flying machines, abundant food, free knowledge…and they destroyed it.

No one knew for sure how it happened. Legends say there was a great war and their massive bombs killed almost everyone along with the land. Other stories tell of a giant volcano under the ground that erupted, blocking out the sun for years. The goofiest theory was that people made their machines so smart that they became alive and left the planet with all the knowledge stuffed into their computers. Without their automated world, people rioted against each other, and the race to find or burn whatever knowledge remained was on.

Gunter rounded the corner where Caesar crossed. Two smears of mutant shit were ground into the road like chunky paint. To his left he saw a large flat metal box. Gunter had seen enough ruins to know what a fallen sign looked like. The building the sign was presumably attached to a millennium ago was in a crumbled heap, but the area around the sign was conspicuously clear of debris. He approached the sign slowly with his rifle out. As he got closer, he could see a triangle next to a bent rectangle on the flat part of the sign. At first, he didn’t understand it. But readjusting his position, Gunter saw three smaller letters following the shapes. Gunter smiled so big and so fast he almost pulled a muscle in his face. It was a word. And the shapes made up the first letter. Y. Ymca.

Gunter didn’t know who or what Ymca was, but double checking the map confirmed this was the place. The sign was level on the ground. Nothing underneath. That was impossible. Things don’t topple and land completely free from everything else around it. The sign was here by design. “Look for the Y” The man said as he gave Gunter the map. “Y marks the spot.”

He lay on the ground to look under the Ymca sign, but it was so flush with the old pavement no light shone through. He couldn’t even get his fingers under it, not that he would have been able to lift it. It was made of thick plastic and framed in metal. Gunter looked around stepping away, checking and double checking for anyone that might be lingering.

 He scoured through the rubble until he found a stout metal pole. If he could wedge it under the sign, maybe he could lever it over. Gunter put the bottom of the pole near the corner of the sign and pushed. He may as well have been pushing one of the ruined buildings for as much as it moved. He set the pole down where he could push it with his feet bracing his body against the husk of an old truck. The scraping sound made him stop immediately, but the sign moved. Not much, maybe the width of a toe. Gunter jumped behind the car and counted to 1000 with his rifle up and his head on a swivel. No one came. He got out and pushed again. Gunter must have lodged something loose because the sign slid easier. The scrapping sound sent a gruesome chill up his backbone.

Under the Ymca sign was a metal circular disk built into the ground. They used to call it a manhole cover. It was slightly rusted, but the clear outline of a cow’s head with comically long horns was in the center of the iron circle. The words “City of Fort Worth” curved along the top edge, which matched the words on the map, but Gunter hadn’t seen any evidence of a fort since he started exploring. On the bottom, it read “Sanitation Sewer”. All things considered; the cover was extremely well preserved.

He was breathing hard. His hands trembled and his heart thrummed. He stepped away and paced for a few minutes, allowing his excitement to ebb. It wouldn’t pay to come all this way, skulk through Caesar’s horde, just to lose his cool. He was on the verge of being the richest man in the world. “Keep it together, G.” He whispered to himself and shook the tremors out of his hands.

He ran his fingers around the rim of the cover. Gunter had gloves on, but he didn’t feel anything that might be a catch or fastener holding the lid in place. He also didn’t notice any tripwires or releases that might indicate a trap. It was still possible, but the upside was so good, he was willing to take the chance. There were two metal pegs set into recesses in the cover that were clearly designed to be gripped and lifted. Gunter threaded his forefingers through each peg and squatted over it. He heaved with his whole body and the cover came off with no resistance other than its weight. He was no expert on archaic manhole cover maintenance, but it made sense that a cover hidden by the sign for who knows how long would have succumbed to the ground and made a tighter seal.

The first thing Gunter noticed was the smell. He expected rankness or foul decay. But the gentle scent of fresh earth wafted up from the hole. He poked his head in and saw iron rungs built directly into the walls of the shaft leading down. It was so dark he could only make out the first few feet. The air was still. Another quote from Grand made its way into his head. “Once more into the breach, dear friends, once more”-William Shakespeare.

He reached into his pack for his miner’s helmet and respirator. After smelling soil, Gunter didn’t think he was in any danger of toxic fumes, but there’s risk and then there’s stupid. He readjusted his rifle and knife for quicker access. Gunter lit the candle on his helmet, cinched his mask and started down the hole. He reached back and pulled the cover shut behind him. Moving the sign left great scratches in the pavement. Anyone paying attention would see the cover plain as day, but there was no point in making it easier by leaving it open.

Even with the candle reflected off the mirror of his helmet, the darkness was heavy. Gunter started down the rungs, slowly. No point in rushing now that he was here, but he had to keep saying it. He reminded himself not to get carried away, but it was damned hard. Every time his mind wandered to the collection that might be waiting, he stuffed the thoughts down. So far, Gunter was his worst enemy down here. He could feel the paper pulling him, and he forced himself to stay calm. “Easy” He chanted like a mantra, “Easy.”

He descended the ladder counting every rung. Twenty, Forty, Sixty, Eighty. Finally at 114 rungs his foot touched something solid. The ground was soft. Not rock or concrete or whatever the wall of the hole was made of. It was earth. He turned in a circle until the light revealed an opening going in one direction. It shone for what looked like fifteen paces then was swallowed by blackness, a tunnel just wide enough for one person leading north. The ground squished quietly with each step of his boots. He moved at the speed plants grow being careful to scan the area for traps or signs of an ambush.

The passage went on for a long way, but it could have been a result of him moving slowly, until the light from his helmet mixed with a faint glow. He pinched the wick of the candle and gave his eyes time to adjust. There was a light coming from ahead and above. As he got closer, moving even more slowly now, he could make out the outline of steps spiraling up. The staircase was void of dirt. The metal was dark but polished to a dull shine. This was not the piecemeal haphazard construction Gunter was used to seeing. The parts looked machined and assembled by someone with experience.

Sweat beaded on his forehead and the lenses of his mask were starting to fog. Gunter decided that the treasure he was looking for was more valuable than his extended health. Besides, someone had built these stairs recently and kept them maintained. Chances were that they didn’t do it breathing poisonous gases. He took off the mask and helmet but stopped when he went to stow them. Gunter couldn’t hear it before because of his respirator, but there was a constant hum with a rhythmic thunk laying on top. It wasn’t a sound he could identify. It was steady and uninterrupted and easy to follow. On instinct, Gunter looked behind him. The page miner part of him was checking to make sure he wasn’t being followed. The want-to-stay-alive part of him was looking to see how easy it would be to escape.

He put his foot on the first step and pushed. The stairs didn’t budge. The sound got louder, and the light grew brighter the higher he climbed. His knees wobbled. Sweat dripped down his neck. Gunter stopped to take off his gloves and dry his palms and face. He kept going, ignoring the inner voice screaming this was a bad idea.

He saw the end of the staircase and turned to look down. He couldn’t see the bottom. The light was bright but soft. He poked his head through the opening and almost tumbled backward. The area was bigger than any room Gunter had seen. Polished stone squares made up the floor in a pattern that alternated in two colors. The stone wasn’t old or broken. There was no dust or grime or evidence of rot. Giant archways held up a ceiling with a painting of men on horses lassoing huge cattle. Great columns of the same polished stone rose into the ceiling like trees. Giant lamps made of sparkling glass hung from the high rafters giving off white light from glowing orbs that should have been flames. The rhythmic sound was almost deafening. The place was clean and cared for.

He would have been impressed with that. Finding a relic like this place would have given him enough to make him very wealthy. The sound is what made him want more. It wouldn’t have been as loud if not for the acoustics of the high ceiling. And Gunter could see what it was coming from. In the center was a machine as clean as the room around it with a spinning drum, and with every revolution something was coming out. Gunter didn’t know if he was crying from the noise or from the unbelievable sight. He approached but didn’t touch it. There was a sweet chemical/bread smell. He thought it was the most beautiful scent in the world. The machine was huge and vibrating and spitting out pages in a neat stack. He hadn’t heard his rifle hit the floor. He didn’t even realize he dropped it until later.

He reached for the stack with a trembling hand. Pulled it back, wiped it on his leg, and reached again. Gunter gasped as soon as his fingers touched the paper. It was warm and he left it there for a second allowing the press to spit more pages on top. He couldn’t help but laugh, but he felt his cheeks moist with tears. He’d never seen print that wasn’t smudged or faded or torn.

The page said:

A Call To Arms

We will hide no more. The time has come for the well-meaning, good spirited, educated people of this blasted landscape to fight back. Our forces are gathered around the world. We are ready. You must help spread the word. We will not let the descendants of the corrupt people of the past hold us down any longer. You must choose a side. Are you on the side of the philosophies that destroyed the world or are you willing to fight to reclaim that which is good? There will be no bystanders. Join us and rid the world of the Blighters. Or stand with them and fall.

The Librarians

The sound quieted to a dull buzz until the only noise left was the ringing in Gunter’s ears. The printer stopped spinning and the flow of pages it birthed ceased. He stared at the paper and read it again. The Librarians. That’s what caretakers of books used to be called.

“It looks like you found what you were looking for.” A voice that sounded like how dust would talk said. Gunter spun and saw Caesar’s tall gaunt frame and sickly sallow face. He had five of his soldiers with him. They all held flaming torches except the fat one with dark skin who was holding Gunter’s rifle in one hand, and the naked hound woman at the end of a chain in the other. She snapped at him with a foaming maw. He was careless. The sound of the printer was so loud, he wouldn’t have heard a thunderstorm coming, but he should have known. Gunter backed into the printing machine and desperately looked around for an escape. The only way out was the way he came. 

“It took you long enough.” Caesar said. His eyes fixed on Gunter from under a blue hat with a blue star outlined in silver. He turned up the corners of his mouth in a predatory grin. “Another page miner.” He stroked his chin with a putrescent bony hand. “You lot like to be careful. I guess that’s ok, considering what we had to do to get the information from the man that sold you that map.” He adjusted the hat like a sign of victory. Gunter must have shown shock on his face because Caesar said, “Oh yes. We know all about the map.” He walked around in a small circle, picking up a page from the machine and turning it over. “Quite the find. It will make a beautiful fire…with you in it of course.”

One of his people stepped forward with the torch and lowered it to the stack of papers. Seeing the flame draw closer to the pages these horrible people couldn’t read and would never want to, made something in Gunter click. It was like feeling the world die again. In a flash, one of Grand’s quotes spiked into Gunter’s head. It was a saying he never understood until then. “Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats” -H.L. Mencken. “NOOOOO!!!” Gunter screamed; his voice cracked so hard he tasted blood in his mouth.

The soldier’s eyes went wide right before Gunter grabbed him, but he saw that the man’s focus wasn’t on him. He was looking at something behind Gunter. The man went to speak but stopped. His face went slack, as there was a sound like something being fried but louder, stronger. There was a bolt of green light, and he fell. Gunter could see the floor through a smoking hole the size of a potato in his back. The torch clattered to the stone.

Caesar and his crew raised weapons. Their attempt to defend themselves was useless as beams of light tore through them like rain through a spiderweb. A symphony of sizzling noises accompanied each beam. In the time it took for Gunter to focus his eyes, the seven Blighters lay on the floor with cauterized smoldering holes riddled in their bodies.

“Page miner?” A voice asked. Gunter didn’t dare raise his head. He stayed pinned against the printing press fixed on the corpses. His body convulsing with every choppy breath.

“Page miner!” She didn’t ask this time, and Gunter lifted his head the way a beaten mutant looks at its master. She was old, at least as old as Grand, and she was carrying a pistol of a design he’d never seen or read about. She was wearing a jumpsuit, all white, with the image of an open book on her chest. At least twenty others were with her, all armed with rifles and pistols that didn’t look real. All dressed the same as her. Nothing they had looked old or patchwork like everything else in the world. Gunter nodded his head. They saved his life. And there was nothing he could do to stop them if they wanted him dead. A show of respect wasn’t uncalled for. “You found us. Congratulations. You’re the first.”

Gunter shook his head, more to try and regain his composure than anything else. “The first?” He managed to eke out. “Of what?”

“To help us take back what we lost.” She holstered her pistol. The look she gave Gunter, he’d never seen anyone so serious.

Her people were already hoisting the dead bodies away. The scent of burned meat lingered. Gunter took a few seconds to look around at the spectacle of the lost artifact they stood in. It occurred to him the upkeep of the place had to be extensive and constant. The people here didn’t look like people from Gunter’s world. Their skin was healthy, untouched by the brutal sun. And they were muscular with clean hair and clear eyes. After minutes of him staring, Gunter blurted. “What is this place?” His desperate voice vibrated and echoed in the cavernous chamber.

“This,” She motioned to the room, “Is the lobby.” She chuckled at the confusion that was as evident on Gunter’s face as his nose. “Come with me.” She placed a hand on his shoulder and led him down a wide hallway to a railing that overlooked a room larger than the one he was just in. “This,” She motioned below, “Is our namesake. We are The Librarians. The guardians of knowledge and study. This is a library.”

Grand gave him a kaleidoscope as a gift when he was a child. Gunter would look through it with one eye and then the other marveling at the clashing colors and random assortment of shapes until he lost focus. He had the same feeling now. Shelf after shelf after shelf packed together like bricks stuffed with books. More books than he could read in one hundred lifetimes. More words than particles of dirt. More ideas than stars in the sky.

Gunter stood at the railing and gripped the metal feeling the cold steel on his sticky palms. He tried to stay stoic, but the sight below made his legs weak and his stomach flutter. He turned to the Librarian with a pleading look.

“Be my guest.” She said.

Like fired from a gun, he ran down the stairs that led to the ocean of pages. He wanted to swim in it, spend the rest of his life surfing the tomes. More books than he thought were left in the entire world. he reached for the nearest one on the nearest shelf. Like everything else here, it was clean, immaculate. Gunter opened it to creaks and pops like an old man stretching in the morning.

“We gave that map out in the hopes that someone like you might find us. We’ve been preparing and studying. Making new technology. We’re ready. And we need your help.” The Librarian said. Gunter hadn’t known how long he had stood there staring at the pages of a brand-new book. The words were dark on the alabaster paper. He blinked the wetness away from the corners of his eyes. The first line read. “The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.” He had no idea what that meant, but he wanted to find out.

“This isn’t the only one.” The old woman said. “The library? There are more. All over the world. We’ve been in contact with each other for years.” She pointed to a collection of small rooms closed in glass and manned by Librarians on the far wall. They were speaking into a communication device Gunter didn’t know still existed. Radios. And they had more? He swooned at the thought of more places like this, and more people who wanted a better world.

He couldn’t take the smile away from his face. And he realized that he stumbled into the greatest treasure he could have imagined. Gunter was going to help save the planet. The woman patted him on the back. He looked at her, unable to stop grinning and crying, “You can keep that if you want.” She said with a smile and pointed at the book with her chin. “We have other copies.”

Bull might escape the bars of his cell, but he can’t escape prison.

Bull was always good at lying. He convinced the judge, jury, and lawyers that he hadn’t meant to kill his family. He got murder reduced to manslaughter. He convinced the warden that he smashed his cellmate’s head into the toilet in self-defense. And he convinced the two prison guards driving the van that he had $40,000 dollars stashed in the Alaskan wilderness. He promised to give it to them to help him escape. The amount to entice the guards was tricky. Too much and it was too good to be true. Too little and it wasn’t worth the risk. There was no money. Bull wasn’t even his real name.

     The van swayed back and forth on the switchback road through the woods. Bull sat on the floor of the maintenance van in handcuffs next to an assortment of digging tools trying to stay in a seated position. He bumped into the bare metal sides every time the van turned.

     “How much further?” The driver of the van said. He was a skinny pock scarred dope with an Adam’s apple bigger than his nose. Tick thought of Ichabod Crane when they first met.

     “Keep going.” Bull said. Purposefully non-committal. He learned when he was a child to give only enough information to rouse curiosity when manipulating someone. For the greedy and gullible, Bull was like a cat. They were his canaries.

     “I don’t want to get stuck out here, convict.” The man in the passenger seat said. He was an athlete once, but his muscles went into disuse under a layer of beer fat. Just sitting in the car made beads of sweat pop up on his bald head. He had a shotgun lying on his lap, and he was the less congenial of the two. Bull would take him out first.

     “What’s the matter Benny?” The skinny driver said. “Afraid of Crescent Moon Man?”

     “Drive the van, and keep your hole shut, Chop.” Chop was short for Chopper. Because of his build, Rick liked to think it was short for chopstick.

     “Who’s Crescent Moon Man?” Bull said. Staying engaged meant dialogue. The more dialogue, the easier it was to keep his companions distracted.

“Local legend around here.” Chop said. “Long time ago, there was a Yupik man killed his whole tribe. Like fifty, sixty people.”

“I hate this story.” Benny grumbled and dabbed the sweat off his forehead.

“He was like some kind of butcher. Dismembered women, tore kids apart…”

“You’re kind of guy.” Benny interrupted directing the comment to his prisoner. Both the guards laughed. Bull joined them with a wry smile. They wouldn’t be laughing soon.

“Anyway, he kills everyone. But before he takes out the last person, it’s like a shaman, you know? She curses him to be bound to the place where he killed all their people.” Chop says as he winds down the road a little too fast making the tires squeal. Benny smacked him on the arm, and Chop slowed rubbing the spot and scowling.

“So, he’s stuck?” Bull said.

“Yeah. Forever. Immortal. That means he can’t…”

“I know what immortal means.” Bull said.

“His flesh is stuck to the land of his kill site. He can’t leave. Ever. And he can’t die. He’s a prisoner, like you.”

“Not much like him.” Benny chimed in. He turned his fat head on his fat neck to look at Bull. “You got off easy.”

“Why do they call him Crescent Moon Man?” Bull asked.

The two guards looked at each other waiting for an answer. Benny shrugged. “Don’t know. I guess that part of the legend got lost.” Chop nodded in agreement.

They went on for hours into the woods. The road was nothing but a single lane now and the trees got denser the more they drove. The canopy of leaves blotted out the twilight. Bull was waiting for the sun to set. Better to do the deed in the dark. “Pull over here. This is it.”

Benny jumped, more slid like a giant sack of mashed potatoes, out of the van and looked around. “You sure? There’s nothing around here. How do you know this is the place?”

Bull scooted on his butt out of the back of the van when Chop opened the door. “You think I don’t remember where my forty grand is. You know what I had to do to get that money? How many people I had to swindle?” Bull looked around theatrically. “Nah. This is the place. I’d know it like the back of my hand.”

Chop undid the handcuffs and Bull rubbed the cinching from his wrists. He reached into the van and grabbed the pick and shovel from under a rough wool blanket. The night was cool but not cold. Alaskan summers are notoriously pleasant, but the guards still wore their uniform jackets. Benny had his shotgun in his left hand as they walked through the woods to the fictitious treasure spot. He wasn’t wearing a sidearm. Chop was, but it was holstered and secured. That would buy Bull a second or two.

He led them deeper into the forest. Chop pulled out his flashlight to fight the oncoming dark. Benny stumbled over fallen limbs with his short plump legs, huffing and puffing the whole time. Bull stopped at a spot between five trees of the same size that were equidistant from each other. “This is it.” Bull said. He dropped the shovel and spit on his hands. He grabbed the pick and was going to start swinging into the soft earth when he felt a hand land on his shoulder. Bull sneered as he turned to see fingers so fat the meat was about to burst through the skin like overstuffed sausages.

“No games, Bull. We have a deal. You give us the money we get you to Canada. But don’t think I won’t cut you in half with buckshot if you double cross us.” Benny said. Bull could tell from the threat that Benny had never killed anyone. Killers don’t make threats. They just kill. Benny didn’t have the eyes of a killer, but Bull had no doubt the fat guard meant what he said. He jerked his shoulder free without reply and stabbed the ground with the pick. 

He made a show of it. Working at different angles, getting the ground loose for the shovel. He would stop and roll his neck or work the strain from his arms. The pauses in his digging were ruses for Bull to see if his companions were sufficiently excited. Their eyes were wide. The greedy are easy to mold. Bull mentioned the money and they were hooked. Like throwing a glass of whiskey in an alcoholic’s face. He’s going to lick his lips.

Bull hacked at the ground for a full forty-five minutes. That was by design. He put the pick down next to one of the trees and massaged his hands. He looked up. The stars were barely visible through the tightly packed leaves overhead. It had gotten dark quickly. He picked up the shovel and motioned to Chop. “Shine the light right there.” Bull pointed at the chewed up dirt circle he made. Chop aimed the beam down. “You ready?” Bull asked. Chop smiled and laughed with lust in his throat. Benny took two steps closer. It was exactly what Bull wanted.

He aligned himself so that his back was to the fat guard. He put his shovel into the earth and gathered up a full mound dumping it to the side. He did it again, and right after he dumped the dirt, Bull swung in a wide arc. There was a dull clang as the shovel hit the side of the fat guard’s head with so much force the wooden haft broke at the connection point. Benny’s head caved in at the eye and below. He fell like a sack of garbage.

Bull was still holding the broken shovel handle, and he didn’t hesitate. He ran to Chop who dropped his flashlight and went for his gun. Bull had him figured out all along. The untrained will go for the weapon that does the most damage. It’s natural. At a few feet away, Chop would have had a better chance using his fists. By the time Chop had his hand on his pistol, Bull clubbed him in the head with the handle. Chop fell, but he was still conscious, scrambling back to get away. “We had a deal!” He screamed as blood spilled down his face. Bull didn’t like to gloat over his victims. He thought added dialogue took away from the drama. He came down with an overhead strike smashing Chop’s head again and again until his only reaction was a limp flop in reflex to Bull’s hammer blows. Chop’s head was pulp.

Bull dropped the handle and a heard rustling from where Benny fell. His body was shaking, and foam gurgled from his mouth. Bull chuckled and grabbed the pick. He ended Benny’s seizure with a quick strike to the head.

He was in his teens when he had his first taste of killing. He stomped on a homeless man’s head when he tried to mug Bull. To his surprise, he didn’t feel bad or guilty about killing him. He felt refreshed, like a cool shower or a drink of water. And that’s how he felt now seeing Chop’s smashed skull and the pick sticking out of Fat Benny’s head. Bull stood straighter, he breathed deeper. He was a better man now. Stronger. More confident. Scrubbed clean. Sick? Possibly. That was something Bull was willing to accept for the invigoration that always came with killing. And it had been too long.

Between the two guards, Bull was able to change his clothes. Chop’s pants were a little snug, but Benny’s would have uncomfortably large even with a belt. He had to settle for the fat man’s shirt and jacket though as his skinny companion was covered in blood. He picked up the shotgun and put on the gun belt. He waved goodbye to his corpse liberators and started back to the van.

It wasn’t hard to find even in the dark. Bull made a straight line at a ninety-degree angle from where they stopped to make getting back a no brainer. As for the bodies, Bull left them to the worms. They would be long gone before anyone discovered them. He got in the van and started it up, on his way to freedom.

Five minutes into the drive Bull realized two things. One, he didn’t know where he was, and therefor didn’t know where he was going. He started in the same direction they had been driving before. Bull told them to go east because that was the direction to Canada from where they were, but he didn’t know where he currently was deep into the weaving switchback road. Second, traversing the winding road in the dark was much more difficult than Bull expected. He had the brights on, but all he could see was the few yards of gravel that constituted a road in his high beams and the ever thickening walls of trees that moved closer to him the further he went.

He slowed the van to a crawl watching the lights and the sides of the road for anything that might tell him where he was. Surely, there would be sign sooner or later. He glanced at the gas tank and saw he was a hair over half full. Ever the optimist. If the tank was full when they set out and they were averaging twenty miles a gallon on a twenty gallon tank, Bull had near 200 miles left before he ran out of gas. Anywhere else that would have been fine. In rural Alaska, it was a concern.

He pulled the van over and turned off the ignition. He opened the glovebox and rummaged through it. He looked in back and under the seat. There had to be a map or something in the van, but no such luck. He glanced at the radio for a split second and put the idea down. There was no way they wouldn’t figure out what happened. Bull was a great liar, but even the greats have their limits.

Coming up empty-handed in his search he decided he would take his chances and keep going. He could probably squeeze a few extra miles out of the gas tank if he was really careful. Bull put the key in and started the van. Nothing. He pumped the gas a few times, checked to make sure the transmission was in park and tried again. Bupkis. He took the key out and put it back in a few times trying in vain to start the van and got the same result.

“Goddammit!” He said out loud. He wasn’t sunk yet though. Bull spent a few years as a mechanic before his sentence. It might be a simple fix, he thought. He got out of the van and popped the hood. The canopy of the trees was like a black umbrella blocking out the night sky. It was so dark Bull had to squint to see anything further than a foot. He went back to the van and got the flashlight. It didn’t turn on. The damn thing was fine not ten minutes ago. Bull unscrewed the top and switched the batteries around. Same result. A fleeting thought entered his head. This is how horror movies go. Bull shook his head and pushed the thought away. He could feel the closeness of the forest right up against the road. It was like being in a closet.

Bull decided he would walk up the road a little way. Just a little, to see if there was a road sign or marker. He was looking for anything that would give him a clue to where he was. He didn’t go more than fifty feet away and he made sure to stay on the road. Keeping the van in sight was futile. It was white but it might as well have been covered with stealth technology for as much as Bull could see as soon as he took ten steps. It was quiet. No owls hooting. No rustling of leaves in the wind. Now that he thought about it, there was no wind either. The only noise came from his feet walking along the road.

 “Screw this.” He said. Bull didn’t get the fifty feet he allotted himself when he abandoned the idea of walking down a pitch-black road in the middle of Alaska all alone. The van was dead, but it was still a shelter. He could sleep there until morning and get a better lay of the land. It was getting colder in the darkness, but the van had a blanket. With that and the jacket he had, Bull would be plenty comfortable.

He turned and started back to the van when he bumped into something. He groped in the dark and felt the striated bark of one of the tall trees. He was certain he didn’t stray from the way he came. But Bull couldn’t find the van. He hadn’t gone more than a handful of paces, and he’d lost his temporary sanctuary.

  Bull walked further than the distance he left. He still hadn’t found it. His pace quickened. His hands got sweaty. Had it gotten even darker? He started to make noises in his mouth like clicks and whistles just to have something break up the monotony of silence. Then he heard it. The gentle squish of his boots on the ground. Rick was positive he never left the road, but there he was in a forest so thick he had to turn his body sidewise to squeeze through the trees.

His gun belt got caught while he was shuffling in the dark and he took it off to move better. He was holding it and weaving his way through the brush and brambles when something hit his arm, and he dropped the belt. Rick bent down to get it. He was already lost. He didn’t want to be lost and unarmed. He felt around but he couldn’t find it. It would have fallen straight down, and he heard it hit the ground. Wait. Did he hear it hit the ground? He wasn’t sure. He groped around in the dark for what felt like a long time and came up empty.

Maybe he was losing it, but while he was on his hands and knees feeling around in the dark for something he already knew he wouldn’t find again, the trees were closer than before. Bull crawled a little bit to find his lost gun, but not so far that the terrain would have changed. He stood and wiped his hands off on his guard jacket. He took a breath.

He spun in a circle looking for a way out. His hands stretched out on either side banging into tree trunks. Every time Bull moved, a part of his body hit something. He unbuttoned the top of Fat Benny’s oversized shirt to catch a breath. His mouth was met with dryness. He swallowed a lump of nothing that hurt going down. He swayed on his feet clutching at anything to keep himself upright. Until finally a soft pinprick of light shone at him in between the thicket. He was light a moth unable not to go to it.

Bull walked into a clearing in the middle of a near wall of trees. He focused only on the light, faint as a whisper, coming from a tumbledown hut of mud, sticks and straw. There was a ring around the structure dug into the ground like a tiny moat ten yards away with the hut at its center. Stars were over his head again. The all-encompassing canopy had opened. Bull took a second to catch his breath and slow his thundering heart. When he gathered himself, he stepped over the tiny ring around the hut, and everything went black.

Bull’s eyes fluttered open to a messy dark blur. He could smell smoke and the distinctive musty odor of old cloth with a hint bowel mixed in. He reached up to rub the atrophy from his eyes. His arm didn’t respond. Bull willed his hand to his face but nothing moved. He blinked trying and get his wits back, and after a few seconds his vision cleared.

He was staring up at a lattice of sticks and vegetation. His eyes were dry. He tried again to rub them, but his arms didn’t move. Bull was laying on a bed made of the same material as the roof. He raised his head and saw he was inside a small square room. A cookfire was in a cobblestone hearth in the corner that looked like it had been repaired several times over its life. The walls looked the same as the roof, but the floor was dirt.

Bull tried to get up. He was stuck, and it wasn’t until he saw the other person in the room that he realized He couldn’t move because his hands and feet were bound to the bed. The man, Bull thought it was a man, had his back to him. He was hunched over the fire wearing a threadbare blanket over his shoulders. He had long stringy grey hair so thin Bull could see patches of aged skin on his scalp even in the dim light. The smell of smoldering wet wood filled the little space. His head was misshapen. Like something fell on it and left a dent.

“Hey.” Bull said. His throat was dry as a cracker. He cleared it and tried again. “Hey!” The man didn’t respond.

Bull yanked against the ropes. He only managed to start the beginnings of a rope burn. He tried banging his feet to loosen the binding. He was held fast. He licked his lips. His tongue was like jerky rubbing over sandpaper. “I was stuck on the road.” He said in his most pitiful voice, but he was only a quarter acting. “I got lost. I was looking for a place to sleep.”

The man stopped fiddling with the fire and pulled something out. He held it to his side. Bull saw it was a glowing hot blade. He looked around the room for something, anything that might help him. Hanging on the wall was Chop’s gun belt next to a war club that looked so old Bull initially mistook it as part of the wall of sticks.

The man walked over to the weapons. He kept his head turned away from his captive and pointed at the gun belt with a bony finger. “You.” He said. His nails were long with ragged ends. Then he pointed at the war club “Me.” His voice was low, almost bestial. Bull got the impression the man hadn’t spoken for a long time.

“Yeah?” Bull groaned. His voice trembled. “Well, you can keep the gun belt. Just cut me loose and I’ll be on my way.” He hadn’t expected it to work, but he had to try.

He turned to Bull, finally showing himself. His nose was flat and sunken into his face, and his eyes were set deep into his skull, like someone pressed them into the sockets with their thumbs. His forehead jutted out over his eyes making a shelter for them and his chin turned up to meet it. In prison, Bull saw a lot of scars and deformities. It’s just part of the life. His captor had a disorder or defect, Bull had never seen. He looked other worldly. The shape of his face reminded bull of a capital C. C for crescent…crescent moon.

Bull jerked against the ropes so hard the bed jumped. The man advanced. Bull yelled for him to stay away. He pleaded. He threatened. He begged. He thrashed hard against the ropes rubbing his wrists raw and bloody. The man lowered his face to Bull’s. He opened his mouth in a wide grin. His maw was black. His gums receded down to the bone making great gaps between his rotted teeth.

He jabbed Bull in the chest with his terrible finger then slapped himself in the chest. “We same.” He raised the hot knife, cut a piece of his finger off and popped it into his mouth. Bull screamed. The man pulled up Bull’s pinky and slice it off putting it in his mouth as well. Bull cursed the man. He told him he would kill him. Then he told him he wouldn’t tell anyone about this if he let him go. Then he told him he had $40,000 that was all his if he cut him loose. The bindings were wet and sticky with blood, but Bull could feel them getting looser.

The old man put his thin calloused hand on Bull’s forehead to hold him still. He didn’t force Bull’s head down. He wasn’t harsh. It was a tender gesture, compassionate even. His face was so close he was out of focus, but Bull saw his sunken eyes. It was familiar and chilling. He understood how long it had been for the man to go without the refreshing rinsing of his soul from the blood of others. He recognized it because Bull saw that lustful stare in his own eyes. And he knew Crescent Moon Man was right. They were the same.

He started to speak. Not like before where he struggled. He was fluent and graceful. It was like he was speaking backward deep from his throat in more than one voice. It might have been a beautiful language. Bull didn’t recognize it. It wasn’t any indigenous dialect he’d ever heard. He quietly wondered if it was of this world at all.

As the man chanted. Bull felt his jaw start to disobey him and his lips parted. He commanded his mouth to shut and used all his strength to clamp his teeth together, but they only responded to the words Crescent Moon Man spoke. Bull’s eyes streamed tears as he made incoherent cries for mercy. The man leaned over Bull and opened his mouth, A stream of black sludge spilled out into Hick’s. He gasped and choked and did everything he could to spit the vileness out. He was powerless as he swallowed the hellish dark ooze. “I you, and you me.” Crescent Moon Man said and pointed at Bull. “You I and me you.” He poked his thumb at his own stomach.

Bull flailed hard against the bed, and with a giant twist, the rope snapped. He pushed the old man away knocking him to the floor. Bull reached for the ropes of his other hand and pulled them loose. He was in the middle of untying his feet. When he heard the old man laughing. It was strange to define, but Bull was certain he heard that laugh before.

“Too late.” Crescent Moon Man said in a voice that was all too familiar.

Hick kept untying the ropes around his boots and watched in shocked silence as his hands withered into bony appendages with long chewed fingernails. He turned to the man, who was standing straight and tall. His grey brittle hair sucked into his head as a new chestnut crop sprouted. His features smoothed. His body filled. Before Bull’s eyes he watched a myth, someone that wasn’t supposed to be real, morph into an exact copy of him.

“No!” Bull said in a guttural animal shout. He grabbed his neck to stop the alien sound and felt leathery worn skin. His hands brushed his chin sticking out, curling up to a huge forehead that jutted out over his eyes like a visor.

Crescent Moon Man gave Bull a bow and walked out the door. Bull quickly, as quickly as he could using decrepit hands, finished with the ropes, and stood from the bed. A bolt of pain from the soles of his feet to the top of head shocked him. He swayed but managed to stay standing and stumbled out the door after his doppelganger.

The body was young and spry as it nearly skipped away from the hut. Bull’s body wouldn’t cooperate. He was moving as fast as he could, but his feet would barely rise off the ground. Every step was like his body was falling off a ladder. He wheezed. He coughed to catch his breath. After he couldn’t take anymore, Bull stopped and put his hands on his knees. He hadn’t gone five feet from the door, and he was panting like he’d sprinted a marathon. “Wait!” He screamed, and he felt the pain rock his body.

Crescent Moon Man stopped and turned around. “It’s your curse now.” He said. He stood stock still on the other side of the moat circle. Bull did his best to slow his breathing. He shuffled to the edge of the circle. Bull reached up to throttle Crescent Moon Man’s neck and his hand banged against something as hard as metal. There was nothing there. He tried again and was halted again by an invisible barrier. He tapped the air with a gnarled fingernail. “You’re tied to the land Crescent Moon Man.” Said Crescent Moon Man. “You have to pay for your crimes.” With that Crescent Moon Man walked away, And Bull fell to his knees screaming into the dim sunrise, pounding his hands on nothing.