In the mean time, we have plenty here to peruse. Thanks for reading!

I’d failed miserably. It was as obvious and unwelcome as the bright light pouring through my dorm window. I pulled the covers over my head in disgust and pretended not to hear the last group of my fellow students as they noisily left the hall for the final time. I should be preparing for my own departure from the little cubicle that had been my home for so many years, but I was stuck waiting for the grade on my final project that would determine whether I graduated or not.

I wallowed in self-pity and tried not to think of the graduating students who had already received their final grades and gone on to lucrative positions. Intruding on my depression, a young student knocked on my door and nervously told me I had an urgent summons from the head of the department.

Yanked from my lethargy as if I’d been thrown into a cold shower, I quickly donned something remotely appropriate and hurried to his office on the top floor of the faculty building. Had something gone horribly wrong? Was my final graduating project − the one I was basing all my future career hopes on − unacceptable? Or perhaps he was so impressed by my results he wanted to congratulate me personally. I knew I was kidding myself as I sprinted up the stairs.

My heart sank further as his assistant quickly showed me into the office where two of my instructors were standing on either side of the man in charge. On his left was my career advisor, William, the most amiable and supportive instructor on staff. He was almost as wide as he was tall and had a worried but brave expression. Dumready, the tall, thin man on the right, was William’s exact opposite. He was the bane of many of the students here at Corporeal University − and someone who’d disliked me, for no reason I could determine, since the day I arrived. He was smiling.

“Benjamin,” the head said solemnly, “I called you here to talk about your final project.” The old man was using his benevolent face, one he used when attempting to teach a lesson not requiring discipline (he had an entirely different face for that). As always, I marveled at how he kept the flowing beard actually moving in the breeze-free office.

I waited, trying to keep the fear from showing on my face. “Yes, sir,” I said, glad my voice didn’t crack. William was noticeably fidgeting and getting a little fuzzy around the edges. Not a good sign.

The head pushed a folder across his spotless desk, far enough for me to see but not close enough to actually touch. “Do you know what this is, Benjamin?” Before I could answer in the negative, he continued. “This is a list of complaints from the other departments concerning your final project.”

I was confused. Final projects weren’t even seen by other departments until a grade had been assigned by the three men in this office. Did that mean…?

“Your final grade has not been determined,” he said, as if reading my mind. “This department still has…reservations.” As he spoke, he glanced briefly at Dumready, then back to me. “Perhaps this might be a good opportunity to discuss your project, Benjamin.”

He pulled out another folder, one that I recognized immediately. I’d been poring over every detail of those specifications for the last six months. “Did you not understand the assignment, young man?”

“Yes, sir!” I said, “and I met every requirement the client requested!” William looked pleased at my response, but Dumready continued to smile smugly.

The head of the department sighed. “Yes, we can see that. It’s the…embellishments to your project that cause us difficulties.”

“As usual,” muttered Dumready, loud enough to be heard and earning him a frown from the head.

“Has he always been like this?” He turned to William, my favorite teacher.

“Oh yes!” William said proudly. “From the beginning, he couldn’t produce anything he considered substandard or even remotely average.”

The head looked disapprovingly at me. “Benjamin, you know how important a final project is to you and to the customer. Because you are a student, clients are willing to take a chance on you if it moves them to the top of the list for corporealization.”

“Yes, sir,” I said, feeling my cheeks burn from the unfairness of it all. Of course, I knew how important our work was here; it’s why I’d asked for a temporary student body to attend university. I had talent!

The head pulled out yet another folder and actually opened this one. He flipped through a dozen pages before turning back to William. “Never two left feet? No all thumbs?”

“Never,” said William, beaming and growing firmer around the edges. “He’s a genius with bones and tissue, but his real calling is skin and delicate features.”

“And yet,” continued Dumready, “every creation Mr. Benjamin worked on – individually or with a team – was repeatedly graded low for being overly cosmetic and bumping up against the top of the probability curve.”

“But that’s what the curve is for, Dumready,” argued William. “We want some who are nearly perfect.”

“Not every one, every time!” shouted Dumready, losing his composure. “Even when Mr. Benjamin was instructed to create something at the bottom of the bell curve, he failed miserably!”

I hung my head in shame. He was right; even for something as basic as a hunchback, I had made the most alluring hunch ever created.

The head turned his frown on me. Was I imagining it or was his flowing beard whipping about as if in an unseen office tempest? “Benjamin, I assume you know why we work so hard to train you to produce appropriate, long-term corporeals?”

“Yes, sir. We enable hosts to humble themselves and learn about mortality and high compassion,” I quoted.

“And how much humility and compassion do you think the host will experience wearing your final project?”

Again, he didn’t let me speak. “If you can’t create real, harsh corporeals for the customer to wear, how do they achieve their potential − goals they’ve been reaching toward for millennia? They forfeit their memories of being immortal and glorious and are given new, painful ones. All in the name of high compassion to make them more loving entities.”

“They deserve the chance to be ugly, fat, or infirm,” lectured Dumready, “before they return to us as truly enlightened beings.”

“He is still within the bell curve,” insisted William in a thin voice.

“Have you even looked at his final project?” Dumready spoke directly to the portly instructor. “If she’s not outside the curve, I’ll eat this desk! That corporeal is not what the customer asked for; she’s almost a goddess herself!”

William was aghast. “There’s no need to use that kind of language, sir! The customer did not specifically ask for her to be hideously unpleasant to look at either. Beauty brings its own misfortunes and challenges which this host will have to deal with. The results speak for themselves; when Benjamin graduates, he’ll be the most sought-after artist in the history of this school!”

“If he graduates,” said Dumready nastily.

“Sir?” I asked the head a question. “Why are the other departments complaining?”

“Favoritism,” he said with a sigh.

“About my project?” I was still confused.

“No. About access to it.” He looked at the first folder as if it was going to leap at him. “It seems some upper classmen showed her to some of their friends who showed her to a teacher who showed her to some of her friends. While we were in closed-door deliberations to determine if you passed or failed, we discovered there was a viewing schedule going on behind our backs!”

“We stopped it immediately, of course,” said Dumready.

William smiled wider. “And then the complaints really started coming in! She’s the most beautiful thing they’ve ever seen, Benjamin. Excellent work.”

“Blatant disregard for the tenets–” began Dumready, but he was interrupted by the secretary as she cautiously opened the door.

“I’m sorry, gentlemen,” she said, her manner decidedly and uncharacteristically flighty, “but the boss wants to see Benjamin’s final project!”

The head looked like he’d been hit with a hammer. “Impossible! Send him a message saying we’ll be glad to schedule something after we’ve made our decision.”

The assistant looked over her shoulder into the outer office with a frantic look. “He’s here, sir, and asking for a few minutes of your time. Right. Now.”

“But he’s never come down to the university before!” The head jumped from his seat and dashed from the room. Oddly enough, he looked inordinately pleased while Dumready’s expression became one of disbelief.

William placed a comforting arm around my shoulder and, pointedly ignoring Dumready, led me out the back way. “So, Benjamin, after graduation where do you want to work?”

“I haven’t really thought about it, sir. Maybe one of those small, special request firms.”

“Excellent,” said my cheery mentor. “That will be very profitable for a young man like you. You’ll be getting your own chance at long-term corporealization before you know it. And where’s your final project going again?”

“She’s going someplace called Troy,” I replied. “As soon as I get my final grade.”

In the distance we could hear trumpets blaring, and William chuckled. “I don’t think that’s going to be a problem, my boy. No problem at all.”

© 2012 Tom Howard
Original fiction debuting at Residential Aliens.

I hear music in the sunset. Sad, contemplative music, saying farewell to the day. The flute begins the opus as it plays the wind across the sky. The rivers and brooks keep the pace, and then the trees add their low, reedy voices to the melody. The sun listens to the music, silent as it drifts steadily below the horizon. Is it mourning as well?

I am older even than the stately oaks that tickle the clouds, and that kind of age emphasizes the routine in everything. Morning, afternoon, night. High tide, low tide. From the new moon to the full moon – it’s all the same. Every day, every year. How many years has it been this way? Why count when I know there’s no end?

This island is teeming with life, and I am fortunate enough to understand the language of the forest – all languages in fact, but I can only speak the music. My only companions in this respect are the trees, the waves, the wind, and the sky.

Forever is a long time to be alone. And I was alone. Until she arrived.

She came across the lake on a small row boat with her parents. The father, beads of sweat trailing down his tan face, grinned as only a man with a family can. The mother, a more reserved smile on her face, gripped the sides of the white boat with knuckles to match the paint.

Both of them paled in comparison to their daughter. I could hear her music long before they reached the shore.

Not everyone has music inside of them, and those that do are rarely aware of it. This girl – this vision – seemed all too aware of the lilting melodies radiating from her smile. She stretched forward over the bow, strands of her earthy brown hair trailing in the water.

I nearly fell from my perch at the sheer beauty assailing my senses. I had to meet this girl, talk to her if I could.

At once, a warning sprang forth. She would be confused, it wasn’t right to do that to her. Of course I dismissed it. I would do whatever I could to make her understand.

Having decided, I sprang off the bough I was crouching on, hooked another branch with my hands, and swung myself forward, my childlike limbs making the descent effortless. I halted at the top of a willow tree to watch them come ashore. My vision of beauty vaulted out of the boat and landed barefoot in the sand.

How I longed to be that sand as it curved and conformed to the shape of her lovely feet.

“Careful, Aeris,” the mother cautioned.

Even her name was music.

Aeris ignored her mother and dashed along the shoreline, kicking up sand and spray with each step. Her bright yellow sundress fanned out behind her as she ran.

Her parents pulled the boat ashore, and all too soon, they called her back to the blanket they’d stretched on the ground underneath my willow tree. Undaunted by their interruption, Aeris sprinted in a wide circle back to where her parents waited.

“Have a sandwich, darling,” her mother cooed, handing over half the sandwich she’d been holding. “And be careful not to drip mayonnaise on your dress.”

Then they spoke of things I thought no one knew.

“Is this island really magic daddy?” Aeris asked.

“Sure is,” he said around a mouthful of sandwich. “The pagans built a temple here about a thousand years ago, and they say the magic from the rituals they performed seeped into the soil. Some people even think it’s dangerous.”

Aeris held her uneaten food in her lap. “But why?”

I thought the father smiled, but from my position above him, I couldn’t be sure.

“If I knew why, it probably wouldn’t be magic at all.”

“That doesn’t make it any less dangerous,” the mother chimed in.

That time, I was certain the father’s lips stretched into a grin.

“But it does make it more exciting,” he said.

I wanted to laugh. He had no idea.

The mother shook her head. “Everett, it’s one thing for you to chase down these magical places, but it’s quite another for you to drag our daughter along with you.”

“Who’s dragging?” Everett asked, incredulity creeping into his voice. “I simply asked if the two of you wanted to go on a picnic with me.”

“I like going to special places with you,” Aeris said, her mouth full.

“There you have it, right from the horse’s mouth,” Everett said. “Besides, like you’re so fond of reminding me, there’s probably nothing to be worried about. There might not be a temple here at all.”

“If you really believed that, you wouldn’t have said it,” the mother said.

Aeris set aside what was left of her sandwich. “Can I go play now?” she asked, the excitement apparent in her voice.

Her mother looked like she wanted to say something, but Everett answered first.

“Of course you can, but make sure you stay where we can see you and don’t wander off.”

Knowing that I’d never get another opportunity to meet this beautiful creature, I followed silently through the trees.

The next part would be the hardest, I knew. Making contact with her without frightening her away. When you spend your days and nights in the forest, there’s not much to be done about your appearance.

The lighthearted tune emanating from her core mingled with the voices of the trees, creating an overture so wondrous, it took all my effort to keep from lying back and enjoying it. But I had to follow her. I was entranced.

A glance back showed me that her parents were arguing, their heads bent towards each other, the mother’s brow furrowed into a near scowl. I could guess what they were arguing about, but it made no difference to me.

Aeris was approaching a rocky outcropping, which would be the perfect place to show myself to her – just open enough that her parents, should they glance over, would be able to see her, and just shrouded enough that if I perched on the topmost boulder, they wouldn’t be able to see me.

The question still remained though: how do I speak to her?

With no time to puzzle that, I raced through the treetops, swinging from oak to maple to spruce and back to oak until I landed atop the firm, unyielding stone. There, I waited, my heart racing, as I listened to her footsteps in the soil coming closer.

When she came romping into sight through the underbrush, I settled my features into a smile. She stopped running when she saw me and cast a nervous glance over her shoulder to where her parents sat in argument. She turned back slowly, perhaps satisfied that she could still see her mother and father.

“Hi,” she said to me.

The greeting, short and cautious though it was, sent shivers from my shoulders to the tips of my fingers.

Such a simple word. Surely I’d be able to duplicate it.

“Hi,” I said back, lingering on the H a bit longer than was necessary.

“Who are you?”

It was a question I couldn’t answer. My lips struggled feebly, unable to bring the words to life. Instead, I gestured to the trees around us and then pointed at my chest.

She frowned, not understanding.

I could only speak the music. That would have to do.

Her face lit up when I started to hum. I sang her my song, the music my spirit makes that none but the trees and the sky and the wind and the waves can hear.

My song is a sad one, a lingering one, but the way it blended with hers created a contrast that made my head spin. For the first time in my long existence, my song sounded almost hopeful.

The smile on Aeris’s face grew so wide I almost wept at its beauty and the fact that I was the cause of it. I could have kept humming my song until the sun said its farewells that day, but I forced myself to draw it to a close.

“That was you,” she said, as though remarking that water was wet.

I gave a shy smile in response, and a single, slow nod.

“Do you live here?”

Another nod.

“Why don’t you say anything?”

Her question made the space between us stretch wider and deeper than a few boulders and some weeds, as I tried to form an answer she could understand. I didn’t have a song for this, but after I thought about it, I realized I had my memories. I could show her part of them.

Exhilarated at the prospect, I scrambled to my feet and held my hand out for her to take. For a moment, I was surprised by my own bravery, but then her warm hand grasped mine and I had to remind myself to breathe.

Together we made our way through the thick underbrush, and I wasn’t entirely surprised at the pang of jealousy that gripped my stomach when she hesitated and glanced over her shoulder at her parents. She still didn’t trust me. She still wanted to go back to them.

I should have let her.

My tanned, calloused feet stomped over rocks and thorns without the slightest twinge of pain, but her delicate feet soon grew too sore to continue and so I offered my back for her to climb onto.

Again, she hesitated. Another glance over her shoulder. She couldn’t see her parents, I knew, and part of me couldn’t help but be delighted at that. By now, I knew what she would see, what she would hear if her hearing were as advanced as mine. It would worry her, maybe even frighten her, though not as much as it had already frightened her parents. Along with the pleasure of having her all to myself, I couldn’t suppress the tinge of guilt. What had my parents felt when they feared I would never return to them?

What difference had it made, though? What help had their fear given me so long ago?

When she turned back, she gave a slow nod and climbed onto my back.

How old was she? I wondered. Eight? Nine, maybe?

She wasn’t much smaller than me. Perhaps that was the reason she finally let me carry her. To her, I looked like a child. I wonder sometimes if my eyes show some hint of my age or if they, too, are bright and curious like children’s eyes.

Unfortunately, it’s a question I have no way to ask anyone who could answer it.

Aeris’s arms clung tighter around my bare shoulders as we ascended a hill so steep I had to grasp shrubs and exposed tree roots to pull myself up. My breath came in short, quick pulls, only in part due to the climb. It would have been faster to go through the treetops, but I wasn’t sure if Aeris could hold on tightly enough.

But to be this close to her music was well worth the effort of the hike. From the top of the hill, she’d be able to see where I was taking her.

Just as I expected, Aeris gasped when we reached the peak and she realized just how much of the story her father had gotten right.

The valley we stared into was a sea of trees, shrubs, vines, and moss, and from this height, it looked as though the hands that shaped the world had taken a bowl and scooped out a giant portion of the land. At the bottom stood the stone ruins of a temple, the crumbling stone blocks and pillars covered in vegetation. I suppressed a shiver and took a deep breath, steeling myself.

I glanced at Aeris over my shoulder, wanting to know if she wanted to continue or go back. At least she had some answer to her question, even if it left most of it up to her imagination. Part of me wanted her to hear the rest of it, but another part of me knew better. I knew which part would win.

“Can we go down there?” she asked, and I smiled in spite of myself. She wanted to know the rest. She cared, at least on some level. I only hoped she’d understand what the others had not.

This time, it was I who hesitated. The same thing had happened too many times. Why should this be any different? But when she nudged me, I ignored my concerns. Maybe this time, it would be different. Maybe Aeris would be the one to understand all of it.

I nodded once and started the descent. It wasn’t as steep as the climb had been, but I still chose my steps carefully. As I walked, I sang the song of what happened here, the low, raspy requiem of my memories. Her music quieted until I couldn’t hear it anymore, as did the music of the trees, the wind, and the sky, until mine was the only song in the valley.

The magnitude of the verse silenced everything else, and I felt Aeris grip me tighter, and I saw the goose bumps on her arms. The song was a string of long, woeful notes interrupted by short bursts of high, crying trills and interspersed with moving minor passages that would’ve been pretty were it not for the odd meter. Five beats per phrase. An odd number to feel, to contemplate. Disturbing, even.

By the time we reached the moss-covered ruins, she’d gotten her explanation of why I could understand her words but not speak them. She saw my memories through the music, the agony, the betrayal, the curse of a life tied to the forest.

“Did it hurt?” she asked me as I set her down onto the stone steps upon which I once lay dying.

I nodded once, very slowly.

Her bright, beautiful eyes had tears in them and she threw herself into my arms. A cry, both of surprise and delight, escaped my throat, and I held her close. For the briefest of moments I let myself drown in the joy of genuine empathy. Someone who cared, who understood.

The embrace lasted only a few seconds before Aeris stepped back. Her eyes roamed the stone pillars and crumbled walls of the temple, taking in as they did the unusual trees appearing to grow through the rock – the bark slightly off colored, the limbs somewhat familiar.

I wondered if she understood that too.

When her eyes finally returned to mine, I knew she did. I could see what she wanted and the music that came from her heart grew louder, more determined. A crescendo of desire.

I was flattered.

“Will you—” she began, but I shook my head firmly.

“No.” A word I knew, though it sounded foreign coming from my lips.

“Please?” she said, looking up at me through brown eyes I couldn’t refuse, brown eyes I would never see again if I agreed.

“No,” I said again, as I pointed in the direction of her parents and mimed picking her up.

“Pretty please?” Her music was deafening. She’d get her wish one way or another, but I wouldn’t be the one to do it. For all that she understood of this place, she missed the most important part. Already her bare feet were breaking through the steps beneath her, the magic of the temple compounding her desire.

The instant she realized what was happening, the pain struck, and a scream tore from her throat and sliced through the air. For the second time that day, the music of the valley grew silent, respecting the screams that punctuated her sacrifice.

I couldn’t bear it. The temple’s method of transforming was one of ripping and stretching and searing, a method I knew and feared and despised. I could stop it and give Aeris her wish without the pain, no matter how much I might hate myself for doing it.

Why do they always understand everything but this?

Putting my regret aside for the moment, I stepped forward, gripped Aeris’s shoulders, and began to hum the song of the trees.

Starting low, drawing from the earth. The ardent, the turn, the same nine notes sweeping and spiraling to collect and focus the magic.

Aeris’s feet had broken through the stone steps, expanding into the moist soil.

The same nine notes taken up an octave. Harder. Accented. Staccato.

Her legs and torso merged and expanded into the graceful curve of a trunk. Her eyes never left my face; her lips stretched into a smile.

I took my hands from her shoulders, gripped her arms, and stretched them wide as I took the notes up another octave, splitting them in halves, then quarters, then eighths.

“Thank you,” Aeris whispered before her head expanded into a continuation of the trunk and then broke off into branches.

One more octave up, the end of my range. The notes fast, twisting, trilling, weaving. Lush, green leaves grew on the branches, filling out the rest of the Aeris tree.

I finished and stepped back, wanting to cry and wishing I could.

Her music was the same but different. The same notes, the same melody, but in the reedy voice of a tree. No song is exuberant or joyful in that voice. Her tree would age, grow, and die in the span of a human life, and I knew she understood what she’d missed before when she made the decision to join me.

Don’t be sad, she sang to me in her mournful new voice. I won’t go anywhere. I won’t wander off.

You already did, I sang back. But I climbed into her branches, careful not to break them, and nestled against the place her heart would’ve been to better hear her song.

Her pitch became even more despondent at my words, but it was nothing compared to the dirge in my own heart.

I think I understand now why the sun is silent as the earth turns away from its light.

© 2012 Stephanie Kraner
Original fiction debuting at Residential Aliens.

Most of Earth’s seventeen billion inhabitants had already chosen Heaven, transcending physical manifestation and transferring their consciousness to the machine hive paradise.

Not Jack.  He couldn’t afford it.  Years of dirt packed under his fingernails – he couldn’t remember his last shower.

He limped down the cracked San Francisco sidewalk, jaw clenched to ignore the pain in his left knee.  Red, white, and blue neon signs buzzed overhead, advertising Heaven’s exquisite bliss.  Half the tubes had burnt out; the rest flickered and zapped.  Below, grass tore through concrete cracks.

Jack winced with every step when at last he reached the grime-stained glass door of H-Tech’s global headquarters.  The logo, once a bold, black font, had faded to near invisibility.  A dormant, sphere-headed robot receptionist waited inside.

“Do you have an appointment?” it asked, buzzing to life.

“Yeah.  I’m here for the job.”  Jack wondered what part of the dome was the robot’s face.  Most had a camera or knob to clue you in.  This one was just plastic and circuitry.

It whirred motionlessly.  “Jack Zand?”

“Yes.”

“Applied position:  Senior Technical Administrator.”

“Yes.”

“Why are you qualified for this job?”

Jack bit his lip and wondered if he should make up some lofty certifications.  “I’m a human,” he said.  “I’m not in Heaven, and I’m not on drugs.”

More whirring.  “Approved.  Proceed to phase two interview.”

“Thank you,” Jack said.

The receptionist didn’t whirr.

#

He waited in an empty office for nearly two hours before a fat hologram in a black and red suit appeared, seated behind the oak desk.  Jack stood and extended his hand.  The hologram ignored it.  At length, Jack sat back down.

“So, you’re here about the job.”  The projection flickered slightly; the projector’s ‘REPLACE LAMP’ light blinked red.

“Yes, sir.”

“So boring.”  The hologram sighed, his absent gaze drifted to the dirty window.  “Need to get someone to clean that.”

Jack glanced around for glass cleaner.  He didn’t see any.

“Oh well.  Let’s get this bore over with.”  The voice came from a single working speaker in the north-west corner of the room.  “You want the job, yes?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Have you ever worked in facilities before?”

“No, sir.”

“Ever worked in a datacenter?”

“No, sir.”

“What have you done, then?”

“I was a chef at the Red Sea restaurant.”

The hologram scoffed.  “What makes you think you’re qualified for this job?”

Jack nodded at the window.  “You said a human is required.  I don’t see many people left, do you?”

The hologram snarled.  “Quite right.  So tell me, why haven’t you entered Heaven?”

“I can’t afford it.”

“No?  Heaven is affordable to nearly everyone.  You say you even had a job – you sure you aren’t drug trash?”

“No, sir.  I spent everything I had to send my wife and daughter.”

“I see.  No extended family to help you?”

“No, sir.”

“Do you want to transcend?”

“Yes!  More than anything, sir.”

“So why not save up for it?”

“My limp. My knee prevents most manual labor.  The few odd jobs I get are barely enough to feed me.”

“Well, you’re in luck.  This job pays well.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you know what it entails?”

“Keeping the datacenter clean and functional.”

“Yup.  It’s all documented, only routine tasks.  Mostly busy work.”

“That’s fine.”

“I’m concerned that you want to enter Heaven, however.”

“Oh?”

“Your job entails critical maintenance of the hive.  If you were to buy a spot in Heaven, we’d lose another key employee.”

“Can’t a robot do it?”  Jack regretted the question immediately.  Robots had already stolen most available jobs.

“Nope.  Can’t seem to shield the buggers enough from electromagnetic interference.”  The hologram sighed again, fidgeting.  “Tell you what.  As part of the formal job agreement, we’ll work in some special retirement stipulations.  Fair enough?”

Jack bit his lip to stifle his concerns.  “Uh, yes, sir.  I guess that’s fair enough.”  A long pause followed; the hologram seemed distracted. “Does that mean I got the job?”

“What?  Yeah, whatever.  My assistant will work out the details.”

The hologram flickered out.  Jack was alone in the office once more.  Confused, he stood and left.

“Congratulations on your new job,” the dome-headed receptionist droned as he passed.  “I have all the documents ready.  Please read and sign these before you leave.”

Jack nodded.  The salary was lower than advertised, but still generous.  It would be more than enough to feed and shelter him, maybe even enough to get his knee fixed up by one of the rare, remaining doctors.

He hesitated before signing the Heaven denial form, however.  Its stipulations were rigid, and barred him from transcending to Heaven until he was at least eighty-five.  If he quit, was fired, or caused (or failed to prevent) a catastrophic failure his ban would be permanent.  Taking the job meant fifty more years of physical life.

It was a good job, though.  An important job, too.  His wife and daughter were in the hive.  Even if he couldn’t be with them, at least he could protect them.  He signed his name and returned the papers to the robot, which whirred and scanned them.

“Thank you.  Here are your instructions.  Have a nice day.”  The receptionist became idle once more.

Jack ate well that night – Top Ramen and real, actual chicken meat.  It had cost most of his savings but he was in a mood to celebrate.  He hoped it really was chicken – the sunglassed addict he’d bought it from had cats in cages beneath his stand.  Jack pushed the doubt from his mind and chose to believe it was chicken.

He turned on his television and clicked through the four remaining channels broadcasting re-runs.  He savored each juicy, meaty, delectable bite, and laughed at the old T.V. shows.  It felt good to laugh.  For the first time since his family transcended, he felt genuine optimism for the future.

Perhaps he’d even bathe, he thought.

#

His gratitude barely lasted a month before resentment set in.  He seemed to be the only human employed at H-Tech’s flagship datacenter, despite the fact his manual clearly stated no fewer than six human employees were to be on-site at all times.  But that was written over a decade ago, when people were still around.  Now he, alone, maintained the central nervous system of quantum links, which connected distributed data stores to the central processors.

Somewhere amid this vast, virtual infrastructure lived the consciousness of his family.  At times he’d touch the servers and imagine the vibrating hum was them purring.

His knee hurt, though, and keeping the raised floor clean was more work than one man could handle.  He abandoned all but the most essential tasks – replacing failed hardware components.  On the few days nothing broke he’d try to sweep and tidy what he could.

He yearned for the promise decrepit billboards advertised:  Eternal life and everlasting happiness in Heaven.  Each transcended soul would receive his own virtual world to do with what he pleased.  Ineffable bliss, the ability to manifest any pleasure desired.

Some nights he cried himself to sleep.  How glorious Heaven must be!  He thought of all the worthless people inundated with perfect delight they didn’t deserve, while he had to work and suffer.

He longed for retirement.  For the day he could at last re-join his family in paradise.

#

When he was forty-six, a howling, red alarm he’d never seen or heard before screamed at him over lunch, so loud the walls and table rumbled.  He pulled out his manual and dug through the index, struggling to focus despite the jaw-rattling alarm.  It was worse than he’d thought.  Something was wrong with the reactor core.

He proceeded past the sub-basement to the self-sustaining power plant below.  The fluorescents were dead, leaving the hall lit solely with rotating yellow emergency LEDs.  Jack wasn’t authorized here.

Except during catastrophic failures.

The thick vault door that normally glowed red now glowed green.  It opened as he approached.  A long catwalk greeted him, suspended above a pit whose depths he could not fathom.  In the center, a mechanical arm swung from wall to wall, rising and lowering along a grooved track.

“Technician, please proceed to sector 5-B and troubleshoot the cause of power issue 15821.”

“Um.  Where is sector 5-B?” Jack asked.

Green lights lit on the catwalk.  Jack followed.  He stumbled down a metal step in his haste, fell forward and landed palm-first.  His bad knee collided with the metal grate and gashed open.  He screamed out in pain, but stood and ambled forward.

Several turns and stairs later he arrived at one of the many service stations.  The failure’s cause was immediately obvious – a wrinkled dead man hunched over the workstation, his ID badge still lodged in the access port.  The corpse was fresh, the man very old.

His screen flicked out of power-save mode.  “Abort system shutdown?” a dialog box read.

Jack held his breath and chose yes.  The alarms ceased.  He exhaled, staring through giddy translucent spots dancing before his eyes.  His heart slowed and his breathing returned to normal.

He wondered if he should tell anyone about the dead technician.  As if there was anyone to tell.  He hadn’t seen another human, even a hologram, since he’d taken the job.

It wasn’t his responsibility to clean up corpses, he decided.  His resentment, momentarily relieved by the emergency, returned.  He snarled at the dead man, took the access card, and limped back to his post.

#

The dead technician’s keycard became his favorite possession.  Its authority granted him access to the power core, and from there he could do almost anything.  Even destroy Heaven, if he so chose.  Before the world started its apathetic spiral, only top executives had that kind of access.  The power gave him happy shivers.

He visited the dead man, who’d since become a skeleton, almost daily.  He talked to it, asked it questions.  Sometimes, its silence provided poignant answers.  The skeleton was Richard Grant, former CTO of H-Tech.  One of the giants.  Jack called him Bones.

“Why’d you want to destroy what you created?” he asked.

Bones never answered.

After several months of one-way conversations, Jack decided to seek his own answers.  Perhaps Bones could speak from the dead.

One night, Jack limped down pitch-black streets into what was once a rich, elite neighborhood.  He paused to catch his breath before attempting the final climb up the CTO’s steep driveway.

The doors were unlocked; all windows smashed.  Vandals long ago ransacked the neighborhood of anything they could trade for drugs.  Squatters had lived in the home, turning its corners into toilets.  Save insects and rodents, the abode was now deserted.

What Jack was looking for had no monetary value, however.  It might not even exist.

Thankfully, it did.  Strewn about the bedroom, Jack found several torn, yellowing pages of Richard Grant’s journal.

#

Richard soured to his creation after most of the world embraced it.

“Virtual approximation of reality, engineered to produce bliss and prevent suffering, precludes human advancement and maturity,” he wrote.  “Heaven does not liberate or free us from strife.  It enslaves us to our own desires.  For who would choose a path of suffering when ecstatic joy is as free as air?

“I am lucky to have escaped the hype, to have been forced by my position to remain external to the hive.  It is only now, long past the point of no return, that I understand my grave sin.

“I am freer here, in poverty, surrounded by addicts, than anyone inside Heaven.  The best I can do for them is end their horrific existence.”

Jack clenched his fists.  He wanted to tear the pages in half.  Richard’s disgust stabbed Jack through both his lungs.  How could Richard even suggest Jack had sent his precious family to such a dismal fate?  No; his wife and daughter were happy in paradise.  They had to be.

As the weeks passed, however, and the pain in Jack’s knee grew worse, he found himself mulling over the idea again and again.  Perhaps Richard was right. Perhaps suffering was necessary for fulfillment.  It shushed Jack’s self-pity and gave him a hint of hope.  Why should he envy those who weren’t complete?

He stared at his reflection in the bathroom mirror, stroked his beard, and said, “I’m the lucky one.  I’m the lucky one.”

Years later, he even started to believe it.

#

When he was sixty, few of the neon lights still buzzed.  H-Tech’s pervasive billboards had deteriorated to decayed cardboard slabs and fluttering, washed-out strands of torn paper.  The city was deserted.  Those still alive had migrated to lusher rural lands.

Jack’s own paycheck had ceased a decade ago.  Those in Heaven must have forgotten entirely about the outside world.  Still he stayed in the city, performing his routine duty without complaint.  Richard was right, he’d decided, and someone had to tend to the poor souls trapped in ecstasy.  Tend to them, or put them out of their misery.  He moved out of his apartment into the datacenter, scavenging whatever canned food and nonperishable goods he could.

His stolen access card granted him full reign over the facility, including the library file shares.  Most of the documents were corrupt, however after careful searching and study Jack learned how to operate the transcention device.

The process was simple, driven by robots.  Only minimal human interference was required.  Once activated, the human would lay on a medical bed and a robot would inject anesthesia.  A large electromagnet would lower, press against the back of the patient’s skull, and zap his existence into the hive.  The body would die minutes later, and a crematorium was down the hall for disposal.

He vowed never to transcend into Heaven, however.  He would suffer, and through his suffering he could justify his existence.  So he performed his duties in good humor, keeping the hive humming, giving the damned a few final years.  It was the least he could do for them, those without pain.  Those who were no longer free.  He’d care for them as long as he could.

When his days ran out, he would free his family from eternal delight.  Shut down the system and complete Richard’s final mission.  Until then, he would wait, secure in his belief that he was the lucky one.

© 2012 Dan Hart
Original fiction debuting at Residential Aliens.

“Paul, I’m cut off from Life Support.  Comms is our only chance.  We’ve got about six hours of life support left—that gives you four hours to fix the console and contact help.  It’s up to you, kid, but don’t worry.  I’ll talk you through.”

When Val had said that two hours ago, Paul had actually been excited about saving the station.  Then he lost contact with Val.

“Don’t worry.”  Right.  Paul’s laugh sounded slightly hysterical.  Let the preacher’s kid fix comms.  Great plan, Val.

It was the best plan they had.  All the colonists of New Covenant had some skill, like Dr. Smithson, who left a thriving practice to join the colony, and all could work New Covenant’s systems, but no one knew how the systems worked, except Val, his father’s broadcast technician, and Paul, who’d spent the last year hounding Chief Engineer Keller.  His father never approved of his spending so much time with the only outsider on the station, but he couldn’t deny the value of Paul learning about station mechanics.

Keller was the only experienced Spacer.  He’d helped build the station almost 30 years ago and stayed on as Chief Engineer.  He didn’t share the colonists’ strict religious beliefs, but adhered to Spacer Code 6:  If it’s irrelevant to survival, respect other people’s beliefs.  “Code 6 keeps us Spacers from killing each other.  Can’t afford no squabbling in space like ya have on Earth,” he said.  “We got enough that’ll kill ya as it is.”

Like the meteorite that took out the solar array and caused a power surge that shorted out most of the vital systems.

Paul had dreamed of going to space ever since he’d seen Right Stuff 2:  Station Alpha.  He used to pretend he was one of those early engineer-adventurers, living in space, designing the first gravity generators, going on EVA to repair a hull breach.

On his first actual EVA, part of the station’s emergency actions training for all colonists, Paul had nearly thrown up in his suit.

That’s when Keller told him Code 1: Spacers never panic, and taught him some tricks to slow his breathing and steady his fluttering heart.  His “Spacer education” had begun.

After regular lessons, Keller made Paul help with whatever he was working on while he kept a non-stop monologue.  If Val was there, he stuck to equipment functions and their history.  If Val was working elsewhere, he told colorful stories about life in space, from gossip about other stations to horror stories real and imagined and the miracles of St. Gillian.  Some evenings, Paul brought Rachel and John-Mark.  They would sit by the gravity generator, which was the warmest spot in Engineering.  Keller told them a long yarn about how R.C. Hawkin’s partner, who was from Louisiana, engineered the generator to work at 76 degrees Farenheit.  “Vary the temperature and the gravity’ll fluctuate.  I’ll show ya sometime.”

Mostly, though, it was Paul and Keller.

Keller took me everywhere on this station. I know all the short cuts and weird routes.  I should have gone to try to fix life support and let Val work on comms.  It all happened so fast.  Keller’s dead and Val’s trapped and he’ll be dead soon if I don’t find fix comms.  I’m only 13!  I’ve been studying Bible history and Algebra, not computer maintenance!  I don’t know enough.  Val was coaching me, and I still messed up.  Now we don’t even have internal comms.   I’ve got two hours left.  Val probably has less time than that—

A sob escaped Paul’s throat.  It echoed oddly in the empty room and startled him.  He spun around, but he was alone save some empty chairs, and a mess of wires and circuit boards that used to be communications.  He couldn’t mess up.

Paul set down his soldering iron and shut his eyes, forcing himself to relax.

Code 1:  A Spacer never panics.  Maybe I didn’t zap the internal comms.  Maybe it just just took longer to short.  It doesn’t matter.  I’ve got to do something.  Please, God, let me do the right thing.

Paul opened his eyes, picked up a magnifying eyepiece and started going over the motherboard.  Val had made it sound so simple:  find the chips that got burned out in the power surge, then bypass them.  If they could transmit—  He was just getting to the how of bypassing when the intercom just went dead.

Paul shivered.  Was it getting colder already or was it just him?  Everyone else was in the chapel.  They’d be warmer together.  His father would be keeping them calm.  He always had a way of making people believe things would turn out o.k.  They were probably singing hymns and praying for Val and for him.

Would Rachel be crying?  Her mother would, but Rachel had guts.  She and John-Mark were his best friends.  He couldn’t let them die. They were depending on him, even his dad.

Oh, Dad, I know we’ve been fighting a lot lately, but I,  I can’t let you die here!

Paul stopped, shook his head to clear it, and stared out the viewscreen to rest his eyes before going back over the circuit board.  Code 2:  Double-check everything.  Keller taught him that one especially.  He was double-checking the sensors on the solar array when the meteorite hit.  Did he have to take them down to go out there?  Is that why they didn’t see the whatever-it-was that hit them?

What did hit us?  Everything that could damage the station  was supposed to have been cleared from our orbit.  Cole promised.  Paul remembered how Keller had laughed.

“No guarantees in space, boy,” he’d said late one evening when Paul was supposed to be in his room saying nightly prayers.  “Lots of dangerous, unexpected stuff out there.  Some of it, they say, is haunted, like White’s Glove.  Followed ol’ White out of the hatch on America’s first EVA.  St. Gillian of L5 almost caught it, they say, but we haven’t been able to retrieve it.  Gover’ment tried to make that it destructively de-orbited back ’round the turn of the Twenty-First Century, but ain’t so.  Every January 27, it changes orbit, goes after some poor ship or station.  Only the manned ones.  Avenging Apollo I, they say.”  And he had talked long into the night about how White’s Glove haunted this station or attacked that ship, trying to make mankind retreat back to the ground.

Looking out the viewscreen, Paul wondered if it was White’s Cursed Glove.  Was it even now grabbing the station, tearing the hull in some dark mission?   Paul shuddered.  He could hear his father scolding him about listening to such ungodly tales…but it was January…

Paul picked up the eyepiece and started back over the circuit board.  He wouldn’t let White’s Glove claim their lives. It wasn’t his fault their stupid capsule caught fire.

Why couldn’t we have gotten hit on Sunday, right in the middle of Dad’s broadcast?  His father always started his “spaceside talks” with an update on the status of the colony, but otherwise allowed no communications.  “We will keep unspotted from the world,” he’d paraphrase James 1:27.  After a year, even the government tracking stations took them for granted, and waited until Sunday to pick up telemetry.

We’ve got a couple of hours of air.  Maybe.  By the time they notice, we’ll all be dead dead dead—

His hands fumbled the pointer he was using and he stopped to regain his composure. I’ve got two hours before it’s too late for search and rescue to reach us.  Cut that in half for Val.  That’s an hour—lots of time.  I just have to keep my head.  Code 1.  Code 1.  He tried to remember the “Code 1 Hymn” Keller sang when something in the station’s antiquated systems gave him problems:

Be calm, cool and collected,

Deliberate in all that you do.

Be calm, cool and collected.

St. Gillian is praying for you.

Keller loved that song.  Paul wondered if he was singing it when, when he—

Paul finished the circuit board.  He’d found two burned-out chips.  He still had no idea how to bypass them.

But maybe… Paul scrambled to another other console and started unscrewing the panel.  Maybe different chips got zapped in the backup system.  Maybe between the two motherboards, he could make one whole one.

Hang on, Val. Hang on, guys.

He tried to stay calm, but his hands trembled with excitement.  The electric screwdriver went so slowly!  Paul wanted to scream with frustration, but forced the feeling away with his fear.  Code 5:  Spacers survive first, feel second.

Keller was always quoting Code to them, telling them that the Code kept Spacers alive.  His father always countered that Mankind lived just fine by following the Code of God.  To which Keller would reply, “Code 6, Reverend.”  Next to the medallion of St. Gillian Raphael of L5, which Keller always wore outside his shirt, Keller’s reverence for the Code most annoyed his father.

Naturally Paul picked it up.

“You want to be a Spacer, keep the Code,” Keller told him.  “You follow it, you and your neighbors live.  You disregard it, somebody dies.”

“Why six?  God gave us 10 commandments,” Paul countered.

“Jesus gave us two, boy.  And Jesus didn’t live in space.  Six, that’s what a Spacer needs.  ’Course, they say there should be a Code 7:  Trust in St. Gillian.  Some folks think that contradicts Code 6, though.”

“Do you really…worship her?”  Paul winced at the inflection of his voice.  He sounded like an excited little kid about to learn forbidden knowledge.  His father had told him only Catholics worship saints, not good Christians, and that praying to a saint was like praying to a false idol.  That broke Commandment Number Two, but not any Spacer Code.

Keller just rolled his eyes.  “You ever talk to your momma in Heaven?  Well, that’s how it is with saints.  You talk to them, ask them for help and if they can fix it with God, they’ll take care of you.  It’s no guarantee, mind you.  Still, any Spacer worth his air reserves some of his faith for St. Gillian.  Too many people have gotten out of tough scrapes thanks to her help not to.  Well, Code 6.”  He shrugged and fell silent.  Paul waited as Keller gave a nearby handle a slight twist.  He nodded as the reading changed slightly, then spoke again.

“Still, we get into trouble out here, you’ll be glad for her Order.  The Sisters of St. Gillian run most of the Search and Rescue functions.  They’re out here risking their necks for nothin’ but food, shelter, air and the love of God.  All Pope-loving Catholics, too.  Bet that gives your dad heartburn.”  Keller chuckled.  “C’mon.”

He led Paul to the Life Support module.  Bolted to a free spot on the gravity generator was a statue of a lady.  On her spacesuit was painted a Celtic-style cross with a stylized four-point star in orbit along the circle.  She had her helmet off and her short red hair curled around her face, which had an odd half-smile.

“She used to be in the chapel,” Keller commented.  “Cole never liked it much, being your father’s disciple and all, but he understood the Code.  When ColeCorp sold, though, he made me move her.  Figured your dad wouldn’t understand.  Anyway, I figured this was kinda appropriate.”

“Is this where you pray to her?”

Keller gave him a harsh look.  “I don’t ‘pray to her,’ not like you’re thinking.  I ask her to pray for me. And the station.  She’s the Patron of Spacers, not the Goddess of Space.  Most of the time, I just talk to her.  Been doin’ lots of that lately…”  His voice trailed off, and he gazed quietly at the statue.  In a flash of insight, Paul realized Keller had no real friends on the station, and his dad’s “no communications” rule had cut him off from the friends he had in space.

The thought bothered Paul, so he changed the subject.  “Saints do miracles, right?”

Keller nodded.  “Need four miracles post-mortem—that’s after ya die—to be declared a saint.  Wasn’t hard for Gillian.  So much could go wrong in those early days, still can, that lots of people said she got them out of tough scrapes.  Some miraculously, some not, some…”  He shrugged.  “Pretty soon, any Spacer with brains had a medallion of St. Gillian of L5.  Didn’t matter what you believed–don’t even need religion to believe in her.  Fact, there was this atheist, an asteroid miner…”

~*~

The last screw came off on the magnetized bit of the screwdriver.  Paul tossed it aside.  Instead of landing with a hard clang, it settled softly.

The gravity’s changed.  Paul’s heart leapt. Val’s playing with the gravity!  He’s still alive and in Life Support!

But what if it wasn’t Val?  Was it getting colder in Life Support?  Seventy-six degrees, Keller said.

No.  No.  It can’t be a failure.  It…  It just can’t.  Gravity is one of the best protected parts of the station.  Something else would fail first.  It had to be Val.  Either way, it doesn’t matter.  I need to get the comms  fixed!  Paul told himself as he gently pried the panel—

—revealing charred ruins.

He sat back on his heels and stared at the destroyed system for a long time.  Then he closed his eyes—and started crying.

He cried for the console, and he cried for Val and for the colonists because he couldn’t save them, and he cried for himself because he didn’t want to die, and he cried for his mother who used to hold him when he was scared even when he complained that he was too old and she’d said “Then you hold me” and he missed how safe she made him feel, and he cried for Keller because he was dead and he probably didn’t even have time to ask St. Gillian for help.  How many times had he heard Keller say, “St. Gillian, pray for our equipment.  Pray for us.”

When Paul finally opened his eyes, he could see the last of his tears trickle down his nose and float to the ground like a soap bubble.  He giggled a little as it settled itself gently, the way Rachel’s mom was always telling her to sit “like a lady.”  He wiped his eyes, sniffled loudly, and leaned against a chair. He suddenly felt so tired.

That made him wonder what the O₂ levels were.  Was Val wrong?  Was the air getting bad already?

He moved carefully to the console and pulled out the charred motherboard.  Maybe some of the circuits were salvageable—

He spotted a small undamaged section and took the board back to the main console to compare.

None were the chips he needed.

Code 4:  Improvise Intelligently.  He pulled out the good circuits that most closely matched the one he needed, replaced it. Ran the test.

Positive energy flow! Yes! Please, God….

The next one didn’t fit.

He leaned over the board, soldering gun in hand.  Think.  Code 4.  What would Val do? He didn’t know what Val would do, but he knew what Keller would do.

With his free hand, he reached into his coverall pocket and pulled out a small battered laminated card.  Keller had given it to him on his birthday.  Old and worn, it looked like Keller had kept it in his pocket for years.  The picture of St. Gillian was still bright, however, and the words legible: St. Gillian Raphael of L5, Patron of Spacers.  On the back was a poem or prayer.

“You want to be a Spacer, boy, you just remember.  Any Spacer worth his air has some little faith in St. Gillian.  You need help, you call on her and she’ll help if she can.”

I really need help.

Even so, Paul hesitated.  He felt like he was defying everything his father had taught him, and even though he wasn’t sure he believed all of it anymore, he felt like he was leaving the safety of the station to jump into the cold vacuum of space.  The thought made him dizzy.

Or was it the air getting thinner?

He didn’t have time to waste on indecision.  Code 7.

“Blessed St. Gillian,
Watch over us, God’s children, as we leave our earthly home for the stars.
Pray for us.
Pray for our equipment.
Strengthen our life support, as well as our lives
That we may be blessed with the breath of life.
Blessed St. Gillian, intercede for us.
Keep clear our communications—”

“Blasphemy!”

Paul jerked at the sound of his father’s voice.  The soldering iron brushed the motherboard.

“What are you doing, praying to that false god?!”

“Father, I wasn’t—”  Paul dropped the soldering iron.  It fell among the tangle of wires and began to sputter.

“Don’t talk back to me!  We are hours from death and I come to find you, and you—” He broke off with a sob.  “I should never have allowed you to spend so much time with that Spacer.  He’s infected you with wicked beliefs.  I thought you were stronger than that!”

“Dad, I, I’m…”  Paul lowered his eyes, saw the soldering iron, and snatched it up.  “Oh, my God!”

“Thou shalt not take the name of thy Lord in vain!”  His father thundered as if in the height of one of his sermons.

But Paul was staring at the comms console.  “Oh, my God,” he repeated, this time in a whisper.

His father strode forward.  “Didn’t you hear me?  Thou shalt not—” Then he saw what his son saw.

The comms console.  Powered.

Active.

Transmitting an automatic distress

“Dear Lord.”  His father took another step forward.  “How?”

“Don’t touch anything!” Paul yelled and his father froze.  For a long while, they just stared at the telltale light that indicated active transmition.  Paul glanced at his father, saw his lips moving in prayer.  “Dad…”

“Can we receive?” his father cut him off.

Paul shook his head.  “I wouldn’t want to touch anything, anyway.  They’ll hear us.  We’ve got enough time.”  But his voice trembled with doubt as he said it.

“And we have faith.”  Paul nodded and together, they sat to wait.  Silence again, then his father asked, “Keller?”

Paul bit his lip and shook.  His father pulled him close and they huddled together watching the light.  Five minutes.  Fifteen.  Thirty.  Paul had felt himself nodding off when his father said, “He was a fine man.  Don’t look so surprised,” he scolded lightly when Paul gaped at him.  “Just because we disagreed didn’t mean we didn’t respect each other.”

“Code 6.”

His father grimaced.  “You do understand that the Spacer Code is merely a guideline for living in space and not God’s laws?  They will not save your soul.”

“Yes, Dad.  I’m sorry if I made you think otherwise.”

Again, they were silent.  Time passed, slowly, yet too quickly.  Would anyone hear the signal?  Would they get to the station in time?  Paul shivered and his father pulled him into his lap and he leaned against the soft fabric of his shirt.  “Dad, do you miss Mom?”

“Every day.  But she is in God’s Kingdom.”

“Does she pray for us there?”

His father looked at him keenly.  “You’re thinking of Keller’s St. Gillian, aren’t you?”

“Dad, there was no way I fixed comms.  It had to be a miracle.”

“Of course, it was a miracle.”

“But if I was blaspheming—”

“God’s ways are not our ways, son.”

It was as close as his father came to admitting he wasn’t sure about something.  He looked at his father, saw him gazing thoughtfully at the transmit light, and guessed he was thinking about the miracle they’d just witnessed.  Paul leaned back against him, breathing slowly.  The air was definitely getting thinner.

At least they would die together.

Suddenly, his father gave him a slight squeeze and grinned.  “I’ve prayed a lot for you this past year, my son, yet I have the feeling I’ll be praying a lot more in the future.”

Paul grinned back weakly.  “I hope so.”

“I know so.  Look!”  His father pointed to the viewscreen.

There, against the backdrop of blackness and stars, was a rescue ship of the Order of St. Gillian, its cross and orbit symbol bright upon its hull.

© 2008 Karina and Rob Fabian
This story originally published in Wayfarer’s Journal, 2008.

Karina and Rob Fabian came up with the universe of Code Seven, the Rescue Sisters, and St. Gillian while on a date as a fun alternative to talking about work or kids. This story led to several others, plus three anthologies — Leaps of Faith, and Infinite Space, Infinite God I and II. Karina is an award-wining writer and Rob a Colonel in the USAF.  Find more at Fabianspace.

Smoke rose in twisted pillars that reached well into the inky blackness of a moonless night. It seemed to Captain Noam Harel of the Israel Defence Forces that the stars shone a bit less brightly tonight, but that could have been his imagination or just the smoke of the fires that burned almost unchecked.

“You know Hamad,” he said to the man next to him “if you want to take off what’s left of that uniform and try to slip away I won’t stop you.”

The Druze Second Lieutenant shook his head and grinned fatalistically. “Not a chance Serem. The company isn’t half as good down there.”

Noam rubbed his eyes and sighed in mock exasperation. Even now the Brit Damim, the “Pact of Blood” held firm. Well at least he was in good company. Hamad still wore the stag insignia of the Northern Command while Noam’s commission was for the Central Command. The roughly 200 Israeli troops dug into the Mount of Olives included soldiers from the Southern Command, the Home Front, the Northern and Central Commands, the Military Police, as well at least three dozen irregulars, both Israelis and members of the foreign born “Theodore Herzel Brigade.”

It was not, Noam reflected, a situation he had ever expected to find himself in. For that matter the entire country was in a bind they’d never prepared for.

An all out invasion by the Muslim world? Sure.

A nuclear attack by Iran? Of course.

Both at once? Somehow that had been overlooked.

Of course the idea that Iran could somehow smuggle a nuclear weapon into Tel Aviv with the Mossad finding out was inconceivable. Heck, the Iranians flying down out of the sky on magic zebras  was less inconceivable than that they could not only produce a working nuclear warhead but also slip it through security in the worst possible way and set up an alliance with the mostly Sunni majority Arab states, all without Israeli Intelligence catching wind.

The nuclear destruction of Tel Aviv had thrown the entire country into chaos as the military struggled to close gaping holes in the chain of command and simultaneously throw back a massive invasion by all its neighbors. Egypt held off for about six months before a coup toppled the secular government and the new leadership sent troops rushing into Gaza and the Negev.

Of course they counterattacked Tehran with two bombs immediately afterward, but unfortunately the Israeli nuclear arsenal wasn’t as big as it might have been, the only other two weapons Jerusalem possessed had since been used tactically, leaving them high and dry. Tehran was probably a mistake, it had been used as a justification to keep the United States and Europe out of the war, even though American planes skirmished with the Iranian Air Force daily in the Persian Gulf Washington had held back from joining the war for the past four years and wasn’t likely to join in now. Of course in those days after Tel Aviv it would have been impossible not to launch, even the Israeli-Arabs were behind the war effort for the most part as more than a few of them had died at Tel Aviv.

A sense of outrage and intense patriotism had led Noam to enlist and he soon learned the satisfaction of victory after the desperate IDF pushed back the Arab League forces at the Battle of Jericho and the numb shock of pyrrhic success in the second year of the war after the panicked Battle of Jezreel Valley and the nuclear destruction of the combined Syrian and North Iraqi armies. When the Turks joined the fight he had known defeat in Netanya and retreated through the still glowing ruins of central Tel Aviv only to somehow end up in the fighting against the North Africans near Ashqelon.

One year ago he ago he had been scooped up along with anyone else who could be spared and sent back to where he started in the West Bank. After a grueling slugging match with the Iranians and Pakistanis that included the use of phosphorus and gas by both sides, the beaten, but not broken, pieces of the Central Command and the Home Front had fallen back into Jerusalem with the combined bits of any units they could scrape up.

Israel’s military technology had given it an edge, but the Jewish State lacked the numbers and staying power to fight a drawn out war of attrition. They had fought from the trenches of the Golan to the radioactive rubble of Gaza City but in the end it was not enough.

The Battle of Jerusalem lasted four months and left most of the city in ruins as both sides fought street to street and house to house in an insane struggle of attack and counter attack. In the name of G-d they had pummeled each other with every weapon they had at their disposal. It was not until the past week that Noam had come to realize they were going to lose.

He was the only survivor from his unit, somehow coming out alive from a desperate last stand at the Temple Mount that saw the Al Aqsa Mosque smashed by artillery fire and the Western Wall cratered with small arms fire.

He could see them from where he crouched in his foxhole, the gaping wound in the Dome of the Rock and the tents, nearly obscured by smoke, that stood by the battered Western Wall of Mount Moriah. To the other sides of the Mount of Olives he could see lights where Iranian, Jordanian, North Iraqi and Pakistani encampments surrounded his meager force on all sides. Apparently the enemy was content to wait to annihilate them in the morning.

According to the radio the President and what was left of the Knesset were at Dimona in the Negev where the Air Force could still maintain air superiority, but Noam didn’t see any particular need to try and break out.  The fire of patriotism that had caused him to volunteer was long extinguished by cynicism and he no longer felt any urge to do more than try and survive for as long as he could.

They could die here or somewhere else, it really made little difference.

A whispered query in English broke him out of his reveries.

“Captain Harel?”

“Yes Sergeant?” Martin Webb was the highest ranking member of the Theodore Herzel Brigade on the mountain, a born again Christian who was an oddity among the Brigade’s mostly Jewish troops.

“There’s something on the north side you need to see.”

Crawling through the churned up morass of dirt and bone fragments, the Mount of Olives was a cemetery, Noam and Hamad followed to where group of regulars and Brigade soldiers were dug in on the lower slope.

“Down there Captain.” Martin pointed “It looks like they’re trying to get up here.”

What looked like a group people in civilian clothes, some armed and some not, were trying to make for the holdouts. It was looking unlikely they would get within a few hundred yards of the thin line of barbed wire that was the demarcation between what Israel still held and what it didn’t.

Why not? Noam thought cynically.

“Lay down some covering fire, we’ll try to at least give them a half a chance. Got any grenades Sergeant?”

When Martin shook his head Hamad sighed and pulled a fragmentation grenade out from somewhere and shrugged.

“I was saving it for a special occasion!”

Trying not to laugh despite himself Noam pulled the pin and threw the grenade as hard as he could. Beside him the other men and women opened up.

It was pretty clear however, as one after the other of the running men fell that they weren’t going to make it.

Noam swore, he didn’t have the soldiers to waste on something like this!

“Sergeant, you think you can go out and grab them?”

“Just watch me sir.” Kissing the cross that he wore around his neck, Martin waved over several Brigade troops. “You heard the man let’s move!”

Noam put a round in the air and watched them dart down the slope. By the time the irregulars reached the runners there were only three left to save and even as he watched one jerked and fell as a bullet found its mark.

“Come on, come on…”

After what seemed an eternity the Theodore Herzels were back. One of the runners was dead, victim of a stray shot but the other was still whole and holding a briefcase to his chest.

One of the Herzels was clutching her arm where a bullet had sliced through skin and muscle.

“There’s a medic back on the crest.” Noam told her in English.

“I can deal with it sir.” The soldier began to bandage her arm.

Shrugging he turned to the man they had pulled up. Dressed in the ruins of a once fine suit with the beard and peis of an ultra-orthodox it was impossible for him to be a combatant.

“Captain Noam Harel.” He reached out his hand to the man who took it.

“Rabbi Abraham Benet, Antiquities Authority, responsible for the excavations under the Temple Mount. Captain I must reach Dimona, it is of the utmost urgency.”

Noam bristled at the Rabbi’s tone. “Look I don’t know how important you were before all this, but in case you haven’t noticed we’re surrounded on all sides Rav Benet, and unless you’ve found the Ark of the Covenant I don’t think I’ll be throwing away my men’s lives on a worthless breakout attempt.”

“Well…it’s something like that. But Captain you must realize that my discovery is of paramount importance!”

“Really.” Noam arched an eyebrow. “And what is this valuable discovery of yours?”

“I-I’ve worked out how to say The Name.”

The was a moment of silence as Noam briefly considered shooting the religious fanatic that he had risked the lives of his men to rescue. One of the regulars started to laugh.

“What do you know, it’s the Messiah after all! You picked a fine time to show up your highness!” He wasn’t the only one who laughed.

“I’m heading back.” Noam told Martin. “If he causes any trouble just send him back down the mountain.”

“Wait!” Benet held up his hands. “I’m telling the truth. I’ve worked out the Ineffable Name! This is the greatest advance Judaism has had since…”

Noam ignored the man, not even bothering to turn around.

“If you won’t listen to me…”

And then he said IT and the world stood still.

IT was not a sound in usual sense, although sound was a part of IT, IT went deeper than a mere sound reaching out to plant an unforgettable…feeling? Sensation? Such words meant nothing. The universe vibrated like a plucked cord resonating deep inside Noam’s being. Colours smelled like the earth after rain and sound tasted like clear air from the top of Mount Carmel. Time was coloured a bright purple and space brushed his skin with wings of feathers. IT lasted for eons. IT lasted less than a second. IT had only just begun. IT had been going on his entire life. IT was IT had been and IT would be.

Noam realized abruptly that the Rabbi had stopped speaking. There was very long moment of silence. “What the…” He swallowed the profanity unsaid.

“It’s gone.” The Theodore Herzel who had been wounded pulled off her bandage. “Just like that, it’s gone!”

“It’ll take about an hour to organize everyone if we’re to have half a chance at breaking out.” Noam told Benet.

“Thank you Captain.” The Rabbi said gravely. “You won’t regret it.”

He grabbed Hamad and they started back to prepare for the break out- not everyone had radios and co-ordination wouldn’t be simple, when he heard the shout.

“Captain Harel!” Noam whirled at the sound of the soldier’s exclamation. “Sir, they’re coming!”

The man in a tattered paratrooper’s uniform pointed down to where the enemy had started to advance, darting in and out of cover.

“Oh no.” All they needed was time! “Hamad you get everyone you can together, we’re going to have to try this now.” Noam snapped off a shot but didn’t see if it hit anything. “Go!”

Mortar bombs began falling on their position, throwing up lethal fragments of stone and the bones of those buried for millennia on the Mount of Olives.

“Rav Benet you have to do something!” He said to the little man. “If you don’t then I wouldn’t wager much for your chances of escaping to Dimona.”

“But I can’t, I don’t know how!”

“Try!”

Rabbi Benet took a deep breath and then launched once again into IT.

Only this time it wasn’t just like a string being plucked. The world seemed to vibrate faster and faster. Lights, colours, and sounds assaulted his senses. Thunder crashed louder than any artillery as Reality seemed to break apart and fly into a thousand shards. Noam’s last thought before he lost consciousness was to wonder whether or not he would ever wake up again.

When Noam did wake up it was only for the briefest instant in which he was deluged by such a sensation of utter sadness that he perceived it as physical pain. The pain was unbearable – like having his flesh pulled off in small strips – so he passed out again with the words or rather concepts of words echoing in his head over and over again.

Ayn ephsher l’chagog kasher heyldim shli matim…

When he regained consciousness the second time he lay there unmoving for a very long while during which he simply clutched himself and tried not to think. After a time he began to hear a dull rhythmic pounding coming from the distance. For a few seconds Noam wondered what it was then his fogged mind identified the sound as one of the omnipresent artillery bombardments that had been occurring on somewhere in the land of Israel for nearly four years. As his mind returned to the present, he pulled himself up.

The dying echo of the Ineffable Name was fading away and below Noam, on the slope, enemy soldiers were milling around apparently aimlessly.  He felt no urge to shoot at them and indeed no bullets came his way.  As a child he had learned the first ten commandments – everyone did – and now he recalled the seventh ‘Do not take Hashem’s name in vain.’  It had never seemed to be a particularly important rule to him but perhaps, Noam reflected, there are some lines that are never worth the price of crossing.

Rabbi Benet appeared to have learned that lesson as well.  At the captain’s feet him lay a briefcase and the torn remains of a once expensive suit. Of the Rabbi himself there was no sign at all.

© 2012 Nathan Weisberg
Original fiction debuting at Residential Aliens.