The Ancestors

 by Jason V. Brock

15 March 1970

     “There’s a story about a man who tries to revive a long-dead relative through magical means… are you familiar with it?”

   No reply. The doctor squared some papers on his desk before continuing. “Do you understand?”

   The man seated opposite stared at the doctor. He made no signs of comprehension.

   “It’s old. Poe or someone. Maybe Lovecraft. Regardless, the plot is suspiciously like the testimonial documents in your apartment,” the doctor went on, glancing at his scribbled notes on the cover of a report on his desk. “But your notebooks are written in the form of a diary, not like a fictional account. What does it mean? Some of the passages are bizarre-looking equations, or perhaps an extinct language of some kind. Both, maybe. We’ve had difficulty transliterating the symbols and glyphs in these sections. And they’re out of chronological order. Almost as if there were more notebooks, and different sections were written in different volumes, but we think most of them were lost in the fire. Are they a code, perhaps? A statement of some type?”

   No response, just the background drone of the air conditioning system.

   “There are a few places where you wrote ‘I’m alive!’ and ‘They stole our minds!’… then you make reference to your twin brother who appears to have died in the fire. And there’s this idea that you were both tricked into swapping something, but you make no reference in the remaining notebooks about what you were tricked into swapping, or who was responsible… Can you explain any of this? Is it what you believe or just a story?”

   The man swallowed but did not react otherwise.

   “You’re leaving us few options here,” the doctor intoned, sighing. “And your caregivers tell me you haven't said anything in close to a month. All you do is stand in your room and stare into the mirror.”

   Frustrated by the lack of response, the doctor leaned forward, his gaze fixed on the man’s face, squinting his eyes for any hint of understanding. “Are you hearing me? They also tell me you don’t appear to sleep and haven’t for weeks.”

   Nothing.

   The doctor gripped the edges of his desk and reclined back in his chair. The man blinked, slow and reptilian. Though slightly disheveled in his scrubs, his high-cheeked face and intense green eyes still had a semblance of intelligence under the thick crown of dark curly hair.

   After another few moments, the doctor punched the intercom button on his telephone. “Please escort Mr. Wingate back to his room.”

   After his patient was gone, the doctor updated his assessment:

   Still no improvement in Wingate. His affect is flat, unresponsive. By all accounts he still hasn't slept in more than three weeks. Discovered he is ex-military. Honorable Discharge. So far, no complications physically. X-rays aren’t showing any issues, and neither are the EEGs, though there appears to be unusual activity in the hippocampus and amygdala regions.

   Other clinical signs—reflexes, bodily functions such as eating and waste elimination, as well as general mobility—seem normal; basal metabolic rate and heartbeat are quite low. BP is low normal…

   The doctor thought for a moment, fingers poised over the typewriter keys.

   I've never seen a case like this. Checking the literature, there have been a few instances of this sort of response after trauma, especially physical torture. Sometimes drug overdoses cause this kind of dissociative reaction. A type of catatonia. Although the ER noted that a seizure preceded this, the patient has no previously documented history of such issues. . .

   Another pause.

   So far, still no pathogens or infections have been detected. Patient did present with delirium when first admitted. He kept repeating, ‘I’m alive… They stole our minds… I’ll get you…,’ and so on. He reportedly said this for several hours in the ER during his seizure before going silent. Over the course of the following few days, he withdrew more and more until he reached his current state. No luck in locating any living relatives, though, apparently, he had an identical twin. Not sure the status of that relationship, as his apartment was practically destroyed in the fire and only a few files and notebooks were salvaged. Could it be they had a fight? The body they recovered was so badly burned that dental records were inconclusive for identification purposes, but the M.E. theorized it could be him… or not. The remains were likely a male based on the pelvic measurements, but there were other issues. There might have been pets or something that were also killed in the blaze, as other bones that were decidedly not human were commingled with the remains at the scene.

   The doctor checked his watch.

   He knows to eat and use the lavatory. The mirror fascination manifested three weeks ago, coincident with the insomnia. . . Will monitor for another 48 hours before escalating.

   Pushing away from his desk, Dr. Ward had no reason to believe his life was in danger. He rose from his chair, suddenly feeling much older than his fifty years. He stretched, walked to the coat closet, donned hat, gloves, topcoat. He snapped out the light, locked the door to his office, walked to the elevator. He was looking forward to bridge at the Tomerlins with Lydia and the Beaumonts.

   Outside, the night was clear and crisp, the stars subdued by high gossamer clouds. He inhaled the cold air and was immediately transported back to those endless Midwestern autumns of his youth, replete with the earthy smell of firewood char, bright orange pumpkins, the languorous tumult of falling leaves. His mind drifted as he ambled to the carpark. Peculiar how those days—so distant in time—were still so vivid in his mind’s eye. Like yesterday.

   The drive home was uneventful, traffic light. As he pulled off the rain-sheened street to his house and into the garage, he noted that everyone was already parked in front. The warm glow from the living room window radiated softly through the autumnal gloom, golden and inviting. The trip from his office afforded time to daydream; some of his greatest insights and breakthroughs had presented themselves during those meditative intervals away from tedious paperwork and the day-to-day obligations of co-worker interactions. As the radio murmured in the background, on-and-off syncing with the wipers, he once again found himself absent-mindedly puzzling over his strange patient, Mr. Wingate, as the more mundane cares of the day melted away: …Still, Wingate has a strange familiarity… I guess he reminds me of that subject we tested under MK-Ultra a few years ago—during the ‘Switch Program.’ Probably just a coincidence… But that fellow would have to be older after all these years. An odd one, too, though there is a resemblance. He was one of the ones we lost track of just as our funding was pulled by CIA. What was his damn name…?

   He shook his head, opened the car door. He knew that after a lively dinner the games would begin, and he was excited to completely leave work behind, at least for the rest of the evening.

   As he entered the house from the side door separating the garage from the mudroom, Dr. Ward had no idea the horrors awaiting him in the next few hours. . . And he never would have believed—had anyone told him—that he and everyone he knew, in fact everything, would cease to exist as he understood them shortly afterward. 

15 March 1946

   He had decided that evil was a moral evaluation, a construct. There was no such actual state; it was a conception that people fell back on when they could not explain terrible people, events, or circumstances. The idea itself vibrated with religious overtones not useful to the comprehension of willful transgressions: It’s a dodge, an excuse for negative conduct. There are only good and bad behaviors, good and bad actions. Considered in toto, these actions may often be deemed “evil” or “divine”; in reality no such conditions exist. To explain is not necessarily to excuse, though people confuse these ideas; the notion of “evil” leaves no way to explain horrific outcomes, only to remark on them.

   As Joseph Ward watched the trials in Nuremberg unfold, he was taken not only with the so-called “banality of evil” on display, but also this idea that evil was extant in the first place. The men he heard testifying were not monsters, far from it. They may have occupied the grotesque hinterlands of humanity; may have been the progeny of hateful, twisted ideologies; even exhibited a loathsome willingness to subvert their egos to the personality of so slight a man as Hitler. In truth, none of them seemed quite human, either. But certainly, none were evil; they were simply very bad people who chose mayhem and violence to impose their will on others for short-term glory, enrichment, and, sometimes, purely sadistic reasons. These were men—and in some disturbing examples, women—of action. Terrible thoughts alone were not enough, he decided; creating a ghost requires action. To that end, speaking of an “evil act” was different; the phrase is not an evaluation of the action itself, merely a descriptor. And without an act, there was no crime, no injustice, no horror.

   Just a few days prior, Joseph had read with considerable interest about Winston Churchill’s assertion regarding the Soviets—that they were in fact closing ranks, that an Iron Curtain was descending across the Continent. This was especially troubling as he observed the Nazi defense play out from his bench seat in Courtroom 600 of the Nuremberg Palace of Justice. The International Military Tribunal had made its case spectacularly, he felt, but the politics of the moment seemed to outpace the looming history. Just yesterday, March 14th, Stalin had seemed emboldened in an interview with Pravda, rinsing his bloody hands of responsibilities to come, even suggesting that the U.S. and England were like the Nazis. Between the expansion of this frigid hostility and the recent public debut of the U.S. government’s computer marvel ENIAC, Joseph felt a growing personal unease—the future appeared to have arrived with shocking speed and impact, disrupting life, changing perspectives, realigning alliances in strange and unanticipated ways.

   The old order was dead.

   Later, as twilight dimmed the world outside his hotel room, Joseph stared from the dingy courtyard window at the broken shells of buildings and the crater-blackened streets below. There was still patchy snow on the ground in Nuremberg, but spring was very near. In the distance he heard thunder; the room was stuffy, musty smelling. He had no appetite after the horrific courtroom testimonies; his studies were due to resume in the United States in May, and he was scheduled to return home in a few days. Nuremberg had been a distraction from mother’s death in January, but it would be comforting to go back. The insanity and desperation of post-war Europe depressed him.

   He opened his notebook and started writing, continuing his thoughts from the courtroom:

   To describe someone as “evil” is an equivocation; it’s a way to avoid dealing with a scenario or person that is very unpleasant or disturbing. Often the person responsible for these sorts of horrors is not “evil” but mentally deranged in a social, sometimes clinical, sense. “Crazy, not insane,” as my professor explained it; not the same as the legal definition of “insanity” which must pass the so-called M'Naghten Rule. Perhaps they're sociopaths, this is quite often rooted in brain damage, for example, or just callous. Inured to unacceptable levels of violence, which is more of a socialization problem.

   He snapped on the table lamp.

   “Evil” is not required in any of these instances. Are terrorists “evil”? No. Are they insane (leaving aside political or religious brainwashing and radicalization for a moment)? No. Yet they do commit evil acts. Same for criminals committing horrendous violence.

   But depravity… depravity does not require religion, superstition, or supernaturalism to explain it, only the processes of ritual to codify it or the cloaks of tradition to hide behind. It doesn’t need anything to explain it; people are not born evil or depraved: They acquire these characteristics. Some are simply miswired in their brains or are gradually exposed, slowly broken down, and develop a psychic callus as they attempt to treat themselves. Some become more and more violent after repeated exposure; others are more resistant to positive intervention, therefore more susceptible to negative influences and experiences. Still others become lost in the folds and recesses of a deteriorating brain, the mind increasingly untethered from reality—from a pathway to the self, to identity.

   It was dark outside. Joseph could just make out a few ethereal figures wending their way across the street. The storm caused the skeletons of bushes to scratch at the window. He was feeling tired now.

   There is no “moral” part of the brain; that is purely a mental construct. Individuals may be mentally, emotionally, or physically damaged by others—parents, lovers, friends. Plenty of extremists, Crusaders, even the Nazis, believed that God was on their side. But God does not take sides—or should not. God, it would seem, creates the circumstances where bad occurrences may manifest, yet looks unable or unwilling to control these circumstances. Rather than moral authority, the Deity instead exhibits moral indifference.

   So, what caused these people or groups to commit such atrocities? Belief did. They believed they were “right” to do these things, and that gave them the “moral authority” to carry out despicable acts on others. Dehumanization is a part of this process, also. It’s moral ambiguity… Ethical relativism. In some cases, there may be cultural or social reinforcers to confirm biases—even if only for a period, such as with the Nazis, or dire situations which may present themselves. But we learn first and best from our predecessors. Our forebears mark us with these reactions, these attitudes—actually their fears and insecurities—starting from an early age… not always on purpose, but more purposefully at times than we understand, I suspect.

   We build identities as we grow; develop a certain youthful idealism, even rebel against our upbringing… But, over time, we tend to lose sight of our goals and dreams for various reasons… excuses, really. We ossify in thought and deed. We acquire, and become paralyzed at the idea of losing our acquisitions… Before we realize it, we have become like our families before us.

   Joseph dropped his pen on the table, stretching his fingers. He thought for a moment, listening to the rain outside the hotel.

   But even in their flaws are our ancestors “evil”? No. They are, in many, many cases, simply people who think they are doing “good” for fill-in-the-blank reasons. Good, to them, may be relative, and depends very much on their desired outcome, no need for spiritualism or any other such explanation. They justify the consequences despite the means used to acquire them. Thus, I don't subscribe to the “bad seed” theory; all “bad” individuals and actions can be explained and understood, and we should learn more about them in order to comprehend how this seeming phenomenon happens.

   Also, people confuse extreme violence with moral lapse; sometimes it is required (self-defense, war, etc). It doesn't make one evil to do violent things, but then context is key; stripped of context, even the most understandable defense could appear just as untenable as any other offense. The inversion of this I describe as “elaborating the context”: Society often uses the stripped-of-context example as a pretense to rationalize why an overly developed response is necessitated; those who do horrible things never really believe that about their own actions; they can always explain and justify them. We must resist the impulse to simply say “it's inexplicable, it’s unfathomable.” Everything is fathomable, though not always pleasant. There is no supernaturalism.

   Anyone may become depraved, corrupted, depending on their given circumstances.

   Joseph closed his notebook. “Yet… that would take a lot for me personally. How can people get so lost?” He rubbed his face, bones weary, soul exhausted. “That’s enough for tonight.”

   He readied for bed. The lumpy mattress was squeaky and uncomfortable. Joseph had always found it hard to fall asleep in overwhelming quiet. As a native of the big city, he was used to the distant underwash of city noise; it comforted him. At some point, unnoticed, tiredness prevailed; his slumber was dark, fitful, disquieting:

   “How terrifying it must be. Living someone else’s life… They will find you out eventually… Do you ever get the feeling that you are an impostor?”

   His anus tightened at the question. “Before-before I became a professor, yes; before I regained the ability to hope… to imagine... to believe—”

   “Believe in what? We’re all doomed in here. Consider just how many species went extinct before it was even established they existed… How many are still undocumented and will never be known? Why should humans be any different? And how will you be saved? You must do what is required never to be discovered for the cowardly charlatan that you are.”

   “Who… who are you?” He swallowed; throat tight, dry.

   “No one. Everyone. Your past. Your ancestors. Your future. Your progeny.”

   “Why are you here? Leave!”

   It laughed.

   “You can’t escape me. I’ll always be here.” 

16 March 1970

   Through the mirror, Wingate stared beyond his distorted, wavering reflection and into the deep past… and finally understood: It was not only alive. It was more than alive—

   “A…ware.” His voice was garbled, its pitches shifting.

   And that awareness was shifting… Growing... Comprehending... Emerging... Now Wingate was shouting, his eyes bulging, mouth frothing—

   “Hold his arms! Hold his arms!” the orderly yelled, tossing his entire 300-pound bulk onto the convulsing man. A second orderly was trying to contain the patient’s legs, but was kicked in the face, sending teeth flying across the room to rattle like dice on the tiles of the floor.

   “Get him!”

   “Alive! We’re alive!” Wingate screamed. His body stiffened like a man with end-stage tetanus.

   “Jesus! Get the doctor! Get Dr. Ward!”

   With that, Wingate exploded to his feet, throwing the orderlies against the walls where they sagged in bloody, crumpled heaps. The stench of burning flesh was ripe in the confines of the cell, wisps of smoke rising off the two now incapacitated men from their charred, splitting skin. Wingate turned his attention from them, his fury now focused on a single goal as the emergency alarm blared: “WARD!”

   Wingate grabbed his face. Under his smoking hands the skin was twitching, reshaping. The room was crackling with a hazy blue electrostatic charge, and the flesh on his arms bruised, blistered, while blood began to leak from his ears, fingernails, nose. The white scrubs he was wearing blossomed with bloodstains as it leaked from his pores. Strange, slender whips of flesh erupted through the skin of his arms, augmented by bony protrusions on his head, his hands suddenly as gnarled as an ancient oak tree.

   “My God. I’m on my way.” Joseph Ward hung up the telephone. He rubbed his temple in the darkness, abruptly sensing the onset of a migraine.

   “Who was that?” his wife, Lydia, asked, her sleepy voice syrupy in the darkness of their bedroom.

   “The hospital. I have to go in. Wingate is seizing—”

   “Now? Jesus, it’s three in the morning—”

   Joseph nodded, holding his hand up. “I know. I know. But he’s a special case. Reminds me of a subject from the Switch Program… Remember? That experiment where we tried to create the multiple personalities by feeding them synthetic drugs CIA cooked up? Spooky stuff.”

   “I remember when you were working on that project. Really bothered me. How could you feel comfortable doing that to people? I mean without their consent? I’m glad they terminated it….” Lydia trailed off, pulling the covers closer.

   Joseph looked down. After a moment he shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know. It seemed the way to go at the time. It wasn’t my idea, I was just following orders. I mean, nobody’s perfect, and we needed the money, the prestige of working for the CIA at the time, you recall. Things were tight, and they got a lot better with all that money… You didn’t object to that, did you?”

   Lydia looked away. Joseph swept his hand through his hair. He sensed her disappointment, and thought back on his time in Nuremberg, when he still had his idealism, the feeling that he was on the right side of history… sometimes, even lately, he was not so sure of that. Was not so sure he had been on the correct side of history in a long, long time. People change… they do what they think is right, and sometimes… sometimes it isn’t. Or they do what it takes to get ahead in life, to be taken seriously. And they try not to think too hard on the consequences. They tell themselves they ‘just need to get through it all…’ Does that make me a bad guy? An evil villain?

   “Anyway, Frank has already warned me to get him to open up before we have to escalate… or he might have to disappear. His words, not mine. Says the higher-ups seem to have taken a keen interest for some reason. Maybe he’s from another group they were tracking, I don’t know exactly.”

   “I thought they were all dead by now?” Lydia looked back up at him, eyes glimmering in the darkened room.

   Joseph pulled his pants on, tucked his shirt. His head was getting worse, but he tried to ignore the throbbing pain behind his eyes. “So, they said… it’s strange. Not sure what’s happening here, but I don’t want to get caught up in some investigation. And I’m not going to dig too hard. I need some plausible deniability here. And so do you. There’s a lot of ‘investigatory fever’ in DC at the moment, especially regarding Black Ops and so forth. I mean, we’re that close,” he pinched the air with his thumb and finger, “to getting the promotion. Frank wants out, and he’s recommended me. Interview went great. All I have to do is coast for the next few weeks and I’ll be made Director Ward.”

   Lydia watched him, bundling her nude body tighter under the bedclothes. “That close…,” she imitated his gesture.

   He smiled. A trickle of blood started down his lip. “Damnit!” He grabbed a tissue from the nightstand and dabbed at his nose. “Another nosebleed. Between the dry air and my allergies…” The blood stopped and he disposed of the bloodied tissue paper.

   “I’m sorry, baby. I hate that.”

   “Yeah, yeah. So let me go handle this.” He grabbed his keys, head pounding as he bent down to kiss her on the forehead. “My love. Back in a jiffy.” 

15 March 1996

   “It’s a real weird situation. Ever read about it? It’s a case study.”

   The elevator doors closed. Arthur shook his head. “No. Heard rumors, that’s it.”

   “They say it has some kind of strange ‘electro-chemical aura’ that can seriously burn you, even kill you. Burns other stuff, too, but only if he becomes enraged. Only happened a few times on my watch, and no one was hurt, but it made folks rethink the job. If you catch my drift.”

   “Really? That’s pretty wild!”

   “It is. The two orderlies, if you read about the case in the papers, had broken bones, burns all over their bodies. They both had to be committed because they seemed to have sustained some sort of long-term psychological damage. Couldn’t talk, unresponsive for a time. Eventually they healed and families took them home, but they weren’t ever right again. Each of them has passed on, but under mysterious circumstances. One disappeared, just left his clothing, all bloody, in a pile. Other one… they found his body, this was years later, mind you, and his head was gone. Like blown off. But there was no gun, no evidence that anyone had shot him. Just his head exploded one day, apparently. Case is still open on them, but…”

   Arthur’s eyes widened. “Holy shit. That’s very weird, man.”

   “No doubt. So, anyways, just remember, never turn your back on it. It’s dangerous. No touching with exposed skin. And ignore the weird stuff—it’s just trying to get into your head.”

   “Weird stuff?”

   Mark, the orderly, smiled. “You’ll see.”

   The elevator doors opened. A sign directly in front of them on the wall read: MAXIMUM SECURITY.

   Arthur glanced over at Mark. “Nice.”

   The two men walked down the long corridor, their heels clacking in the sterile confines of the brightly lit hallway. They passed several unused cells until they reached the final door at the very end.

   “How long have you been here?”

   Mark touched his chin. “Wow… over 15 years, I guess. Getting time to think about retirement. A few more years. Lots of people get spooked, but I take it in stride. Suit up,” Mark said. Both men secured their faceplates, gloves, and batons.

   Mark unlocked the door. “Coming in. Stand at the back wall, please.”

   The door swung open. In the room, a single figure was hunched over, breathing heavily.

   “Welcome.” The voice was deep, with a strange undertone Arthur could not quite identify. There was a rumbling quality to it that was multi-harmonic. “I am… aware.”

   The figure shuffled closer.

   “Close enough,” Mark said, pointing the baton like a sword. The figure stopped, and Arthur got a good look.

   The individual made no physical sense. There were weirdly shifting elements to its features; the visage looked almost blended together, morphing from one face to another, almost smeared as though caught in a timeslip, one moment solid another moment rippling and fluid. There was a disquieting element of shifting between masculine and feminine, human and non-human. Under the scrubs, its body appeared to be shifting in the same manner, changing and warping as though viewed through a waterfall. It cast no shadow anywhere on either its body or the floor.

   “I see we have a new keeper.”

   Mark nodded. “Yes. Arthur.”

   “Arthur…” the word rolled out, the polyphony bottoming out into an inaudible chest-rumbling sub-tone. “I look forward to your service.”

   The being spread its arms wide, and the lights started to slowly pulse.

   Then it began to levitate. 

16 March 1970

Police Incident Report

   OVERVIEW: At approximately 0347 hours on 16 March 1970, a disturbance was reported at the XXXXXX Mental Institute in XXXXXXXX, XXXX. The disruption involved staff and a patient, XXXXX XXXXXX. Mr. XXXXXX had been admitted several weeks prior as an involuntary committal due to disruptive and disturbing behaviors first reported at his apartment complex, XXXXXXXX XXXXX in XXXXXXXX, XXXX. According to staff at the Institute, XXXXXX had been a recently arrived tenant at the apartment complex, and there was concern that Mr. XXXXXXX might be capable of injurious and/or homicidal or suicidal behaviors. He had no previous history of confinement but was acting erratically after a party the previous week.

   A few days thereafter, there was a single-fatality fire at his complex. Several individuals were displaced as a result, to include Mr. XXXXXXX. His mental condition deteriorated, and he was reported via an anonymous tip. During a routine background check at the hospital, his military records were retrieved; except for his general service record in-country and Honorable Discharge status, they are sealed and require Top Secret clearances.

   Officers arrived due to an emergency alarm at approx. 0402 hours on 16 March 1970. There was a violent confrontation by Mr. XXXXXX in progress. He had severely injured two orderlies, Mr. Charles and Mr. Avery. Both were unconscious but expected to survive. A fire of unknown origin had already been extinguished. Several other staff were in lockdown; the doctor-in-charge, Dr. Joseph Ward, had arrived on scene approx. fifteen minutes prior and engaged with the patient. Dr. Ward has still not been located at this time, 1538 hours, 16 March 1970.

   The scene was very bloody and disorganized (REFER TO CRIME SCENE PHOTOS), and emergency services were contacted. Mr. XXXXXX was taken into custody and interrogated at the hospital under heightened security. Patient was exhibiting a variety of bizarre tics and other indescribable afflictions and growths, as well as apparently self-inflicted thermal injuries of a serious nature. REFER TO FILM AND AUDIO DEPOSITION.

   A partial transcription follows, as an example of the content of the testimony:

OFC GARNER: “You feel you're not ‘insane.’ But—”

MR. XXXXXX: “No, but he is not entirely sane at this point—”

OFC GARNER: “I thought you said he’s you? Your twin brother?”

MR. XXXXXX: “Yes. Genetically. We were still individuals in the before. However, we share a merged consciousness now, due to Ward’s actions.”

OFC GARNER: “So, you're saying he is your twin? But from the past?”

MR. XXXXXX: “No—he's me. From the future. From 1996. And my twin, yes. We are siblings as well as ancestors to one another, and so much more, now… since we decided to meld…”

 

   Mr. XXXXXX further claims that he was previously the victim of a radical government mind control experiment. He also stated that he finally remembered Dr. Ward was the one who had performed these experiments on him when he was enlisted, during anonymous trials. He said it was a form of “mind rape” and that he had been “mentally invaded.” These claims are so far unsubstantiated. Mr. XXXXXX also states that Dr. Ward has been “ingested” and has “joined us in our mind.” In fact, he has given the doctor partial awareness of “their” mind, and that he had to be “taken in” because his twin brother had been tortured in another similar experiment while enlisted and likewise “psychically abused.” He said “absorbing” Dr. Ward was punishment for his actions, because the so-called experiments had “unleashed a great power that had destroyed our lives as a result.”

   As noted, Dr. Ward has not been located yet, though his clothes have been; they were singed, bloody, but no other signs of the doctor, so they were collected as evidence and sent to the state crime lab for forensics testing. The body at the apartment fire—assumed to be Mr. XXXXXX’s brother—has not been conclusively identified at this time, either. 

15 March 2020

   “So, no charges were ever brought?”

   Arthur shook his head. “For what? Nobody even knows what this thing is. Is it Wingate? The brother? Ward? None of them? Something else? They never found Ward’s body, and they never figured out who died in the fire. Or if there was any MK-Ultra connection. I mean… it’s real Deep State shit, y’know?”

   The new recruit, Adam, shook his head. “Yeah. Like those chemical tanks they found in Louisville a while back.”

   “Oh, yeah… heard about that. Saw a documentary on it once.”

   The two men walked down the long corridor, their heels clacking in the sterile confines of the brightly lit hallway. They passed several unused cells as they approached the final door at the very end.

   Adam: “If this guy’s so weird and powerful, how can he be kept locked up? Why doesn’t he just like… escape with all these outlandish abilities and stuff?”

   Arthur chuckled. “I know. Seems crazy to me, too. Bullshit, I think. But they say he wants to stay here. Calls it a ‘prison within a prison.’ That he said he could get out, but he wants to stay to ‘punish Dr. Ward.’ That his brother is helping him keep Ward… ‘locked inside’ or whatever, because Ward allegedly fucked him up, too, another time. Split his mind apart. That’s what Mark told me, anyway. Claims he read the full report, uncensored. Not sure I buy that, but whatever. Seems kooky to me.”

   Adam nodded. “I know, right? OK, so maybe they uploaded his mind or something. I heard they were close to doing that. Maybe they tried it on him, early on, I mean, as an experiment. Or something like it.”

   Arthur shivered. “Experiments. Yeah, like the damned Nazis. Tuskegee. MK-Ultra. Man, that really creeps me out. Drugging you. Infecting you with shit. Uploading your mind? That’s not really even you anymore!”

   “Sure it is, it’s an exact copy! Holographic! There’s other ways to mess people up, too. Drugs can, sure, but so can digital simulacra. Virtual Reality will be doing it soon. And AI. Machine Learning… We won’t have mental illness in the future, I bet, because we’ll be able to cure it with pills and wetware reboots. Like my cousin… he had a bad trip once on LSD or Molly or something and decided to go off into the desert. Never heard from him again. Mom said he lost his mind. Lose your memories, lose your identity, so back all that up to a hard drive. Or the cloud, even, then they can download you… kinda what Facebook’s doing anyway. Then, instead of getting old, just replace parts with bionics, or robotics. Even clone your body. Take stem cells and regrow you—”

   “No. Way. It’s not ‘you’ anymore! It’s a Ship of Theseus problem… That stem cell situation is weird, too. Reminds me of the old ‘essential saltes’ thing from that Lovecraft story I mentioned. Sorta the same idea. ‘Cept now we can do it! Too weird for me…”

   Adam chuckled, shrugging. “Getting old, huh? You been here since 1996? That’s a long time. Might be time to think about life extension, dude.”

   Arthur laughed. “You kids today. You crack me up! You never even read Lovecraft, I bet. So much cool tech, medical advancements—”

   “Lovecraft? I heard that guy was a racist. My father really liked his stuff, but no, never read him… I like videogames.”

   They paused at the final door in the hall.

   “Don’t judge, Adam. Learn to keep the art and the artist separated or you’ll wind up hatin’ everything. At least check it out! So, anyway, like I was saying, you got nothing to concern yourself about, not like in the old days. Damn, we had AIDS. Ronald Reagan. Nuclear Winter. Chernobyl. The Reds. Y2K. 9/11. What do you folks have to worry about? Internet mobs? Sticks and stones! Social media? That stuff’s for idiots anyway. COVID-19? Give me a break. That’s just a cold! And what’s so bad about online porn? Damn, we had to sneak around with magazines…” Arthur hefted the baton, shaking his head. “Right, so back to work. Remember, just ignore the freaky stuff, like I told you. Take the precautions. No close contact touching. And never turn your back on it…

   “Now, we’re going in… suit up.”

 

( 

 

 

(To the memory of

Dan O’Bannon)

click to read 

The Girl with the Error Message Eyes

 

by Keith Graham

only on

the FREEZINE of

Fantasy and Science

Fiction 

Please Accept This

by John Shirley 

        *note:   the author has illustrated this story with five of his own photos

   “I don’t know, Braylon,” his older brother said, a little impatiently. “But I think you should ask yourself if the job’s worth the…” The voice in his Bluetooth fuzzed out at the end of the sentence.

   Braylon glanced at his daughter playing with the sawdust under a park swing. She was twenty-three months old, and interested in everything, even sawdust. There was a little red and yellow object sitting on the swing over her head. A fallen leaf?  It was a moist autumn day in Oregon and leaves fell with every gust of wind. “It’s the only job I’ve found that pays well enough for us to live on, with Aurelia’s spending habits,” said Braylon. His brother Mel said something that fuzzed out completely. Braylon pushed the Bluetooth a little deeper into his ear. “What’d you say?”

   “I said talk to Aurelia about it. Talk to her about economizing. Or decide you shouldn’t have to work at Vape-a-tude if you don’t want to.”

   Easy for you to say, Braylon thought. Marrying a guy who owns a profitable app start-up, you can afford to decide to be an artist, Mel. Shivering in a gust of wind and wishing he’d brought his coat, Braylon said, “You know Aurelia. She has a rationale for every last thing she buys. It’s all vital to her self-image, or something. If I object to a purchase she’ll say it’s because I’m against her finding herself, she says.”

   “She says that? Weird. I’m lucky with Robert. He actually listens to me.”

   “Well yeah—” He broke off, staring at his daughter. She had pulled the little round red thing off the swing and was gawking at it. “Hold on, Mel. Gabby, what’s that you’ve got, girl?”

   Braylon strode over and took it from her hand, at which she immediately burst into tears. “Hold on, hold on…” It was a small sort of homemade bracelet made of cheap beads and imitation-gold foil. It was roughly shaped like an angel, with the red beads being its body and legs and arms, and its head being a circle of white beads, gold beads for a halo, gold foil for wings. It was in a small plastic bag with a note in blue ink that said, Please accept this angel made to share smiles. Keep or share.

   “What’d you do to your kid to make her wail like that?” Mel asked—just kidding, but annoying.

   Braylon opened the plastic sac and took out the little angel bracelet and handed it the baby. “Here, Gabriella, you’re as spoiled as your mama. Don’t tell her I said that. Do you want me to put the bracelet on your arm?” He reached for it but Gabby snatched it away, pouting. “No!”

    She turned away, and toddled a few steps, staring at the angel of beads and wire and foil.

   “Fine, be that way.”

   She gnawed on the beads. New tooth coming in.

   “Anyway, Mel—dude, we got the results of that test in. Vape-a-tude’s most popular vape turns out to be toxic. It’s some humectant they’re using—”

   “I thought all that stuff was just water vapor?”

   “No, there’s flavorings and perfumes and the humectants to give it a feeling like cigarette smoke in your mouth. And nicotine of course. And they found some Chinese company that was making a new humectant supercheap but it’s not what they said it was and it’s giving people lung disease or something—”

   “So that means they’ll discontinue it?”

   “No it means they should discontinue it. But they said that the FDA will force them to discontinue it soon enough so Carl says until then why not sell as much as they can, it’s our most popular flavor and they don’t want to get stuck with all the recalls and—”

   “That is so unethical! I can see why you don’t want to work there.”

   “I’m VP of marketing and it’s the best paycheck I ever had but how can I stay? And there’s a toxic work environment to go with the toxic—” He broke off, staring. Gabby was bent over double, coughing, flapping her arm at her mouth. “Uh—gotta call you back, Mel.”

   Braylon rushed to Gabby, didn’t see the bead angel anywhere. He knelt by the wheezing toddler, raised up her head a little, saw her cheeks were deep red, her lips turning blue. Looking in her open mouth he could see the angel’s white-bead halo poking up at the back of her throat. There was a little blood brimming around it. She’d swallowed the thing somehow, perhaps thinking it candy—he sometimes gave her red gummy bears. Heart thudding, he pushed his index finger in her open mouth, trying to snag the top of the bead angel. She squealed, not understanding, attempting to wriggle away from him—

   “What are you doing to that baby girl!” a woman hissed at him.

   He reflexively turned to see a chunky blond woman in a spangled America First t-shirt and a spangled blue and red dress, standing by a big tattooed man with a vaper in one hand—

   “She’s my daughter!” Braylon shouted. His finger was still working to snag the circle of beads. “She’s got—”

   “Get him off her, Dutch!” the woman shrieked, her eyes wild, her mouth quivering, hands fisted. “Get him off that baby!”

   “Karen sweetie, I got this,” the man said. He stepped in and grabbed Braylon by the collar just as he almost had a latch on the beads—and Braylon was jerked backwards, his neck whiplashing painfully, Gabby falling back, flapping her arms…

   The burly stranger dragged Braylon to his feet, turned him around—and slammed his chin with an uppercut.

                                                                      #

   Waking was like laboriously swimming up through gelatin. That’s what Braylon thought, in a hazy way. Everything was blurred by a translucent thickness. “Hold still!” said gruff voice. A pain forked through his neck. He groaned. The pain woke him up some more and the blur swept away. He was looking up into the frowning face of a young Black man. He was wearing a blue shirt that had a uniform look to it. An RN, probably. The ceiling was white, with a diffuse light set into it.

   Hospital room, he thought.

   “Lay still now,” the nurse said more gently, managing a smile. “You’ve got a bad neck injury. There’s a brace around your neck, best not to disturb it.”

   “My daughter…Gabby…”

   The nurse’s smile vanished.

                                                                       #

   “I don’t understand why her gravestone is crooked,” Braylon said. It came out sounding like ‘graveshtone ish cruck-ed,” because of the medication. He was on Oxycodone for the chronic pain radiating from his misaligned upper vertebrae, and the heavy dose made him mush-mouthed.

   Gabriella’s headstone—shaped like a somber teddy bear, at Aurelia’s insistence—was surrounded by ivy and thistles and a few March wildflowers, though they paid a fee to keep it clear of weeds. And now it was tilted to one side.

            

    “They settle sometimes,” Aurelia said, through the Bluetooth. “Gravestones. The ground gets wet or something. Can you straighten it?”

    Braylon tried. He gasped as the pain of the effort pierced right through the Oxycodone. “Tried. Can’t.”

   “Oh yes. Your chronic pain.”

    She said it as if he was malingering, or milking it. “The doctor diagnosed damage from the guy’s whiplashing my neck—” He said it like ‘whish-lashing’.

    “Nobody said anything different. You going to be okay to testify this week against those two? You’re slurring.”

    He licked his lips and made an effort to speak slowly and clearly. “I wish it could be a criminal case instead of just civil.”

    “The DA said no to a criminal charge. But we’ll win the suit if you can show up and tell the jury what happened—and say it clearly. He’s got money, he owns a Harley dealership.”

    She’d already talked to another lawyer about divorcing him. But she wanted the settlement first.

    “I have to go. We’ll get them to fix the headstone.”

    She hung up on him. He looked at the crooked teddy bear. Aurelia had given Gabby a teddy bear, which she’d ignored, mostly, in favor of a giraffe. But now the teddy bear’s stone likeness sat on Gabby’s head.

    Braylon walked away, trying to remember if he’d taken his antidepressants. He weaved between headstones. It seemed to take forever to get to the street. Starting across the street, he called his brother on the Bluetooth. A ringing, and then Mel’s voice appeared in his ear. “Yes Braylon? I can’t stay on the line, I’m at a company picnic and Robert is about to speak—”

    “Her grave-shtone is bent over, all crookedsy.”

    “Her what? Speak clearly, dude.”

     Braylon stepped out into the street, heard the roar of an engine, looked up to see Danny “Dutch” Griffin driving his enormous giant-wheeled black Dodge Ram pickup truck straight for him, and the look in Griffin’s eyes said that he had every intention of running Braylon down. The lawsuit…

     Braylon stepped back, turning, but the truck caught his hip as he leaned forward to run—and now he was spinning through the air.

      A thump. He found himself on his back. He was staring up at a post, next to the cemetery, that had moss atop like hair on a head. Someone had scratched the semblance of a face on the old wood.

   “Are you the Green Man?” Braylon asked it.

   The scratched-in mouth twitched. Braylon thought it said yes, but he wasn’t sure because it was being blotted over  by the encroaching darkness.

                                                                        #

    Braylon found himself floating over the sidewalk. And over a body on the sidewalk: a man lying on his back, with his head cracked open on large rock at the base of the Green Man post. The body seemed as empty as an old suit someone had tossed away.

   The man lying on the concrete looked familiar.

   The sidewalk under the dead man was flowing like a creek of dirty, mossy wet cement. Then it was drying out; then it was cracking up, breaking down, covered over with water and drying up again. And then it was reconstructed into the sidewalk with the dead man lying across it—all within a few seconds. He dimly realized his relationship to time was askew. Dim realization was all he had about anything. He tried to remember how he came to be there, and couldn’t. He stared at the body, the man’s gawking, unblinking face, and then made up his mind: That is me.

   But who am I? Or—who was I?

   He couldn’t remember his name.

   He turned to look at the post with the crude face of the Green Man on it. “Can you help me?” he asked, wondering why he bothered to ask it anything.

   Then he seemed to see himself in a park, with a little girl. He was talking on his Bluetooth to someone. His daughter was putting something into her mouth, and he wasn’t watching her and she was…

   “Greetings, Braylon,” said a creaking, ageless voice. It said something else in a language Braylon had never heard before. He thought it had a vague Celtic ring to it.

   The park was gone, and Braylon was aware of the Green Man standing beside him: a man with bark and lichen for skin, and leaves and moss for hair and a wide mouth and eyes that might be black or just very dark green. He was shrouded in greenery but there was a murky sense of a human body too. Braylon could smell him: a rainforest after a monsoon.

   “Your reproductive body is dead,” said the Green Man, in the unknown language, but the words became English in Braylon’s mind. “Your subtle body is what you have now, Braylon. Yours is almost so subtle it’s not there, but you will have a chance to make it more there.”

   Braylon looked down at himself—and saw almost nothing. Only a sort of wavering of the air. There and gone, there and gone. There again. He tried to look at his hands—he could feel them, in a nearly-numb way. But he couldn’t see them.

   “Your selfhood will grow, stem and blossom, if you work for it,” The Green Man said. “I can help you a little, by introducing you to someone.”

   “Why help me?” Braylon said, feeling a sudden fear; a throbbing suspicion.

   “You asked me to help you, a few moments ago, and I was moved by your sincerity,” said the Green Man. “Also, you cracked your head on my support rock.”

   “I want to see my daughter,” said Braylon. Blurting it, really.

   “That is not impossible,” said the Green Man. “But come with me, and speak to Rusty. See what he says.”

   The Green Man became a sentient greenness flowing over the wall of the cemetery. Braylon wanted to follow—and wanting made it so. He was suddenly flowing over the wall too.

   A timeless moment, and they were in the cemetery beside an old, mossy stone tomb. A rusted metal fence around the tomb had fallen or been pulled down; the wrought iron was figured with Catholic imagery, and gazing up at them from the ground was the face Jesus in wrought iron.

   It stared at nothing—then it looked through nothing, right at Braylon. Then it quivered—and a man arose from the fence; a man of rusted iron. The iron face of Jesus regarded him Braylon thoughtfully. The iron was blackened with age; flecked with rust.

   Braylon felt like backing away; afraid of a divine judgment. Remembering that he’d failed to help take care of his mother as she lay dying. He had left it to his sister, and the memory was eating slowly at him—like rust.

   The Green Man spoke to Rusty Jesus in yet another language, one seeming a mingling of Hebrew and Greek.

   Rusty Jesus responded in a deep, gentle voice; speaking the same language, lips unmoving, but the words emanating from the rusted iron face.

   “Is he…Jesus?” Braylon asked.

   “He is a Christus,” said the Green Man.

   “Christ? Made of rusty iron?”

   “Rusty iron was used to transfix Christus onto the wooden cross,” said the Green Man. “Between this world and The Cosmos In Its Entirety there is an intermediate spirit, which some call Christ and some call Krishna and some call by other names—even names spoken on other worlds. He is the Intermediate. The Intermediate emanates into many forms. Some are female; some are male. Some are stone, some are iron; some are of wood, some of flesh. He sometimes formulates in lonely places, for lonely persons. Thus he came here, to the image in the iron.”

   Then Rusty Jesus spoke directly to Braylon. “I am told you wish to see your daughter.” The words were not spoken in English but they became English in Braylon’s mind.

   “I…yes. Can it be done?”

   “If you will put yourself into my hands.” Hands of rusted iron stretched out, creaking as they came, and cupped open for him.

   “I’ll do anything,” said Braylon. He felt no deception in this being; he felt no antipathy. He knew nowhere else to go.

   He urged himself into the cupped hands of rusty iron…

   Braylon was in a plastic bag. Giant hands placed him, within the bag, a giant swing seat, and then came a giggle that seemed to weep, and fingers that plucked him out –and he was being thrust toward a large blurry face, a child’s face, the open mouth.

   “Rusty!” he cried out. “Rusty Christ!”

   The mouth was gone. A void opened up before him.

   “You fell into your mind,” said the deep, gentle voice. “Come.”

   Then Braylon was falling, through a vast emptiness, but he was not alone; someone was here, though he couldn’t see anything. There was nothing to be seen.

   Then came a glimmer of blue; a flicker of scarlet; a fillip of green; a twist of sunlight…It spun about a central point. Braylon was drawn toward it, and heard the voice say, “Go in peace. Go in trust.”

   Then he was in a whirling whirlpool of glass; a crystal that was liquid and solid at once. Colors changed places and danced; blue asserted itself; red protested. Braylon remembered a song his father had liked, “Crystal Blue Persuasion”. Maybe that’s what this was.

   He fell…and was swallowed.

   A period of anguish…He bore the anguish. Bearing it seemed to make him stronger...

   Then he was walking under a blue sky, on a path through a forest of growths that looked like coral, except for the eyes, numerous eyes on each one, turning to watch him…

   He glanced down at himself and saw he had something of a body. It was translucent but it was almost human. It had fog for clothing.

   Under the biggest coral tree was a little girl, his own little girl, in the same yellow jumper she’d been wearing. She seemed more solid than he. She was smiling at a small sprout of a coral tree; it was gazing back at her.

   “Gabriella!” Braylon called.

   Gabriella looked up, and beamed, and ran toward him—they embraced.

   She took his hand, and then she led him along the path, saying, “This way, Daddy. They told me which way we should go.”

   “You speak like an older child,” he said. “You walk like one too.”

   “I’m not any age now, Daddy. Come on!”

   They emerged from the forest of seeing coral, out into an open plain green with gently waving grasses. Ahead was a low, rocky ridge. The path led between two great standing stones. Beyond there was a pillar of mist, which emanated a rushing sound that seemed to resonate with all things everywhere.

   “There, let’s see what’s over there!” she said.

   Braylon let her tug him along, though he worried about what might be over that ridge.

   They crossed between the stones, the rushing sound becoming a strangely reassuring roar. They stepped into the caressing mist and onto the ridge. With dread, Braylon looked down and saw what was there…

   He was surprised to see that it was something good. It was very good indeed.

   An ineffably tall and powerful waterfall was falling through the pillar of mist. It seemed to be falling out of the cobalt sky. It fell into an enormous pool; from the pool issued nine streams, symmetrically raying outward in five directions. Some went into caverns in the escarpment under the ridge; others stretched off into the infinite distance through a field of rippling green and yellow.

   “Where does it fall from?” he asked.

   “From everywhere,” she said. “Let’s look at it up close!”

   “Wait—!” Braylon cried.

   But she stepped out into the air, beyond the ridge, and—still gripping his hand—she floated there.  

    

 

 

   Click to read    

The Ancestors

by Jason V. Brock

only on

the FREEZINE of

Fantasy and Science

Fiction 

Odd Man Out

 by Lewis Shiner

 

    First the dream. Then, when he rolled over to escape it, the bright, shooting pain in his arm. He woke up with the pain and a buzzing, throbbing head. For a few seconds he lay dazed, unable to recognize the cramped, stuffy metal room he lay in. Slowly, the memories began to trickle back. He got only pieces. He knew he was in a spaceship. He remembered that he had been to the moons of Jupiter. He had no idea what he had found there. There were four other people on board. He could not seem to recall their names. Each piece of data was isolated, conjured up no corollaries, led to no further revelations.

   He got up and searched through his things. His eyes did not want to open all the way; a close, alkaline smell caught in his throat. He rubbed his shoulder absently. Finding a diary, he sat down on his narrow cot and opened it.

   The writing inside shifted and blurred. He struggled to keep his eyes in focus, managed to read a few disjointed sentences. He learned that his name was Swenson. It seemed right enough, but not irrevocably correct. The names of the other crewmen were also there, and he had a fair idea of the faces. One name, Miller, echoed something from his dream. The dream itself was gone.

    Someone pounded on the door. The cubicle was smaller than a broom closet, and the noise resounded in his brain.

   "Okay, okay!" he shouted. "What do you want?"

   "Are you all right?" He recognized the muffled voice as belonging to Jones, the captain.

    He got up, careful not to bump his head on the low ceiling, and opened the door. Jones, medium height, black, ordinarily handsome, looked terrible. His eyes were bloodshot and puffy, his face drawn, blotchy and unshaven. He smelled bad as well, but Swenson knew that it was a problem they shared. His own body felt sticky and unpleasant.

    Beyond him, in the cramped center section of the ship, sat Davis and Ingersol. They were equally bleary, equally morose. The air outside Swenson's room was no better than inside, and possibly worse: thick, malodorous, hard to breathe.

   "I'm okay," Swenson said. "What's wrong?"

    Jones turned away and one of the others said, "Something fucked up in the air system." Swenson thought it was Davis, but he wasn't certain of anything. "We'd all be dead except that the computer finally figured out what was going on and cleaned it up."

    Swenson was lost for words. He had no experience to draw from, was afraid to ask questions. The other astronauts seemed unpleasant and distasteful to him, but he had no idea if this was unusual. Did the air always smell this bad? Should he admit his amnesia?

   "I was really groggy when I woke up," he said. The others all nodded.

   "Where's Miller?" he asked.

   "Sleeping it off. We already checked him, he's okay. Just shaky. "

    He sat down at the table. He was repelled by Davis and Ingersol--their haggard faces, their heavy, sweaty bodies, their complacency. They started a canasta game, ignoring him. A book lay upside down near them; Swenson spun it around and looked at the cover. Celestial Mechanics. He found both the title and the concept offensive, turned the book back around. He drummed his fingers on the table.

    He needed to know where they were, how long it would be till they got back to Earth, what he was supposed to do on the return trip. The emanations of hostility from Davis and Ingersol pushed him away from the table, even as the thought of returning to his coffin-like cubicle seemed unbearable. He got up and climbed the ladder to his crash couch.

   The top of the central chamber was a domed display screen, with computer readouts in green superimposed over the black of space. The vertex of the dome was seven feet from the floor, and the couches grew horizontally out of the wall beneath it. His couch was in the highest rank, next to Jones'. Again, this knowledge had an objective ring to it, not the conviction of true memory.

   Hoisting himself onto the couch, a sharp pain went through his arm. He winced, and a momentary flash of the dream shot across his consciousness, too fast for him to hold onto. He could not remember what had happened to his arm--could not conceive of anything on board that could have caused it. The sudden violence of it disoriented him, left him with a helpless, childlike fear.

   He crawled into his couch and leafed through his mission plan. The timetables, graphs and numbers helped fill the holes in his understanding, oriented him in terms of the ship's progress. According to the mission clock, they were only a few days out from Jupiter, with weeks to go before they reached Earth. He wondered if he would be able to stand the confinement, the smells, the alienation for that much longer.

   Jones pulled himself into the seat next to him and studied the readouts flickering above them. After a moment or two he began to covertly examine his own mission book. Swenson recognized the forced casualness, knew that Jones' memory was weak too. He wanted to say something to the captain, but was afraid of embarrassing him, forcing him into a comer.

   "You all right?" Jones asked.

   He noticed the room spinning a little, knew he must look green and bilious. "Not really," he said.

   "Maybe you better go lie down again."

   He nodded, and clambered back down the ladder.

   Davis and Ingersol did not look up as he squeezed by them and shut himself in his own cabin.

   The pain in his head had eased a little, and the cramps in his legs had relaxed. He felt more of a gentle drowsiness than the heavy stupor he had awakened with. He assumed he was coming out of it, recovering from the effects of the bad air. He lay down, forcing his fears away, wanting to sleep off the rest of the poisons in his system.

   He slept, and when he woke up this time, he remembered the dream.

   The aliens looked like people. That was the most striking thing. They had normal human bodies, faces that with only a little surgery or makeup could have passed easily on a crowded street. It was their minds, their attitudes that were different. Alien, terrifying.

   Swenson watched while one of them picked up the man called Miller and calmly tore him down the center of the chest with his two hands, insensible to the gushing blood or the tortured screams, his eyes registering only a mild curiosity.

   The dream Miller was not the one that Swenson knew.

   The Miller he knew was short, with red-brown hair and compressed features. The Miller he watched in his dream was thin and blond, with an aquiline, aristocratic face. The head had fallen off, and he could see the features clearly.

   He did not question, in the dream, that the man's name was Miller. He knew it with a conviction, with a totality of awareness that escaped him when he was awake. With the same intensity, he knew he was in danger, that if he were caught in the alien base he would probably die as casually, as brutally, as Miller.

   He needed to get away, quietly, to find his way back out of the underground camp, back across the frozen surface of Callisto. To warn the others that the aliens were dangerous, that they were strange and foreign, and they weren't like people at all. And that was when something grabbed his arm and he wrenched away, feeling the muscles straining, and ran for all he was worth.

   A leg jerked violently and he woke up in a sweat. Before, his memory had been like a pointillist painting, but now the gaps had closed and his thoughts had depth and solidity again. He knew the dream had been more than hallucination. It had been real, authentic memory. And Miller...

   Was there a Miller on board? If so, was he tall and blond? Or short, thick, and reddish-brown? He had to find out. He stood up carefully and was relieved to see that his legs were steadier.

   Davis and Ingersol were still at their canasta game. Swenson squeezed past them and knocked on Miller's door. "Come in," said a voice, and he opened the door. With Miller in bed and Swenson standing carefully bent over, it was possible to close the door. He shut it and looked at Miller.

   He was short, with reddish hair and a tight, wrinkled face. Part of Swenson identified him as Miller, and part recoiled from him as a total stranger.

   "What's wrong, Swenson?"

   He licked his lips, and had to make a couple of tries to get his voice to come. "What did you do with Miller?"

   "Are you crazy?"

   "Keep your voice down," Swenson said, sounding more frightened than commanding.

   "What the hell is wrong with you?" Miller sat up on the bed, too fast, and bumped the bulkhead above him. His face didn't even register the impact.

   Swenson felt a chill run the full length of his body. "Don't you feel anything?" he asked.

   Miller's eyes seemed to shrink in his head, as if the flesh had sphinctered closed around them. The movement was completely alien, impossible for human anatomy. "Go back to your hole, Swenson," he said, "and keep your mouth shut. As long as you behave yourself, I won't say anything to the others. They'd just lock you up and leave you for the rest of the trip."

   Gripping the handle of the door, Swenson said, "Let me see if I have this right. One of you killed Miller, and then they fixed you up to look human and take his place. It was easier to tamper with our memories than to try and fool us into believing you were the real Miller."

   Swenson stared at the alien's eyes, shrunken to an infinitesimal size. "You just need to get on the planet to do whatever it is you're trying to do," he went on, too frightened to run, to even stop talking. "Jones and I are the only ones who'll be talking to ground control, the only ones who could give you away. Ground wouldn't have known you were a ringer until you were out of the ship, and by then it would have been too late, wouldn't it? How am I doing?"

   "You're stark raving mad," he said, but Swenson knew the truth, and the knowledge was visible on his face. The alien had opened his mouth to shout when Swenson hit him with the first thing he laid his hands on. It was a helmet, and it dented with the force of the blow. Even so, the alien was barely stunned and came after Swenson with a hideous yell.

   He can't hit me too hard, Swenson thought, or tear me in half, or do anything that would give him away. So Swenson hit him again with the helmet, and by the time Davis and Ingersol pulled him off, the job was done. The alien was dead.

   They locked Swenson in his cabin, their faces drawn and frightened. He didn't blame them. He knew how he must have looked when they found him, standing over the body, waving the bloody helmet and screaming about alien menaces. Davis had given him a shot and it was starting to work on him. Swenson didn't mind--he felt at peace with himself at last. Once they landed on Earth, they'd find out who the alleged Miller really was, and he would be a hero. He could wait.

•

   For a couple of seconds he didn't realize where he was, and it only came back bits and pieces at a time. He knew he was on a space ship, returning from Jupiter space. There were three other men on board, not counting poor Miller, who died on Ganymede.

   His face and arms were bruised, and he had no memory of how it had happened. But there were bigger gaps in his past that he worried about.

   He looked outside the cubicle and saw two short, burly men leaning over a table, playing canasta. His head was reeling, his vision not focusing, and just for a second he thought he saw the farther man's eyes shrink back into his head.

   He shook off the illusion and went back to his cot. He was very drowsy and disoriented, needed to sleep some more.

   He wondered how soon they would be getting back to Earth.

 

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Please Accept This

by John Shirley 

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Fiction

The Tale of Time

by Shaun Lawton

   You are a cipher in an alphabet, one letter itself comprised of an entire alphabet. It takes an alphabet outright to compose one singular figure, you who are only one character in a word. The ideograms streaming through you also produce an idiom with you, just as they eventually generate a phrase of you, and render you into a sentence.

   The syllabary running through your genetic code some day makes you into a complete paragraph. This takes at least a decade or so as your fable is being woven around the loom of the Sun.  After two decades you may grow into your own saga, a very short tale perhaps, only a couple of paragraphs long, but not without its own punch line. By the time we each reach adulthood we are breathing examples of a sort of flash fiction, after a good and long life, say double that, we'll transform into animated novels.

   If we double that and live into our eighties, we'll metamorphose at long last into legends of flesh and blood.  When we die, the book that became ourselves will dissolve in the earth, having been reduced back into the ash of a particular character, shed like so many individual scales of snakeskin from this ongoing articulation that came before it. The Omega transubstantiates back into the Alpha.

   And so it goes, an ever cycling process channeled through the subatomic forces at the heart of the universe, expressed along the second law of thermodynamics, to bring about everything from an endless series of big bangs right on down to this very moment, where I, already having lived long enough to have developed into a novella of living information, have been led  to transcribe these thoughts here to you like shadows onto the screens of your mind.

   You, like me, each one of us a solitary letter, symbol, word, idiom, phrase, sentence, paragraph, whose lives have now become many stanzas of a developing collection of stories, interacting with each other in the most complex anthology that has yet been written in blood upon all of the pages of flesh and bone.  Each one of us a chapter, describing every permutation of the one story, that's been told since before the title of The Tale of Time was established as the heading for this account, having captured in monograms of the alphabet this single letter, composed outright as a page, for you who are only one character in a world being spelled out by each one of us, about to step off a cliff, one exclusive mark at a time. 

  

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ODD MAN OUT

 

by Lewis Shiner

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of Fantasy and Science Fiction  

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