Fiction Vortex - September 2013 Read online

  As if mesmerized, I stumbled out of bed. To my right a number of people were digging with picks — or trying to, as the terrain was rocky, and they were having trouble breaking through the ground

  One of the people was Sossomo, the others the seven men I'd seen in the basalt chamber. They were still dressed now as they had been the first time I'd encountered them, and they cursed as their picks struck the stony ground, elicited sparks, and jarred in their hands.

  Sossomo paused from his exertions to look at me, then at his workers, then back at me. "Lucky seven," he said.

  "Is it really lucky?" I asked.

  "Things develop lives of their own, and what lives has influence."

  One of the men suddenly broke from the group and bolted for the cliff, throwing himself over the edge. He plummeted into a jagged outcropping of rocks far below, his body broken, battered, and punctured. Then the ocean crashed against the base of the cliff and washed away the corpse.

  I turned back to Sossomo and found him grinning hideously at me. "And what dies," he went on, seemingly oblivious to what had just occurred, "leaves an imprint forever. An echo." His grin broadened. "Would you like to join us?" he asked. "Eight is a number of Power ... or it can be."

  "Eight?" I asked. "Don't you mean ..." I was going to compensate for the man who’d flung himself from the cliff. My voice trailed off. I saw now that that man was back with the group and trying to dig. I frowned, turned to Sossomo, who was still grinning.

  "Memories are like pimples," Sossomo told me with a cackle. "Some times they break the surface. But don't worry; they don't last forever."

  I looked at the digging — foundations, it appeared, or at least an attempt at them. The only one who'd made any headway was Sossomo.

  Sossomo smirked and got back to his digging.

  ~~~~~

  I awoke, back in my bedroom. Sunlight streamed through the window and I buried my head under my pillow, trying to get away from it. There’d been plenty of mornings I’d spent in bed — particularly after Elsie had gone. Sleep became my refuge. My escape. Now, though, it felt like my condemnation.

  Getting out of bed, I switched on my computer. While it booted up, I rang the number from the card I'd been given. "Who are you?" I asked when someone answered. "Where do you come from?" I got no answer, though. Instead, the person on the other end hung up.

  The next several times I called back, the number was busy again, and on the last couple of occasions I got the recorded operator's message telling me that the line had been disconnected. Then nothing. It simply didn’t work in any form. That was it for dialing that number — I've tried it several times since, but all to no avail.

  When I eventually got around to checking my email, I found one from Eternius:

  We have a nature to be reborn one way or another, physically or psychologically.

  That's life.

  Everything is reborn one way or another.

  Similarly, you cannot bury things forever. Eventually, they will rediscover their way to the surface, like moles burrowing toward the sunlight. When that occurs, we need to take heed and remember.

  Sadly, unfortunately, recollection and the registration of thoughts, ideas, and events within the mind to become lifelong memories and signposts in the road are two different matters entirely.

  Some will never remember.

  Some will choose to forget.

  And those who do recall ...

  Well, none choose to.

  Not entirely, anyway.

  – ETERNIUS

  This email was the last I received from Eternius, but things weren't over just yet.

  ~~~~~

  For the rest of the day, prank phone calls plagued me. Whenever I answered, computer screeching blasted me, then cackles of laughter. The only note of interest — before I disconnected the phone, and you better believe I was worried it'd still ring — was that the laughter dimmed with each call.

  When I went to bed, I slept uneasily and was finally awakened by that deep voice telling me, "Wake up. Wake up."

  I did so easily — I'd been sleeping that poorly — but as I sat upright I found my bed was now in the basalt chamber. The bed rocked and creaked as the torrent of blood that raged through the chamber buffeted it violently.

  Above me, suspended by fish hooks from the ceiling were the seven men I'd seen previously — the party of men responsible for my prank phone calls and whose names were Gilbert Anelzark, Alwyn Vogel, Lyndon Rickabaugh, Hamilton Carmichael, Jacob Tolan, Noble Hastings, and Emanuel Verrault.

  Sossomo approached from the far corner, wading through the torrent. His hideous face was twisted into a caricature of amusement, and he lifted his hand up out of the deluge of blood to reveal he was bearing a huge machete.

  "Why me?" I asked.

  His mouth twisted into a snarl, and with his free hand he caressed my chin. His fingers were deformed and thick, and his skin was hard, like the calluses you might get on your feet.

  "Because what’s empty," he said, "opens itself to be filled."

  He swung the machete, but swiveled it just as I thought it’d be impaled in my forehead. A lock from my hair was cut, and fell into the torrent of blood. My focus remained on that flashing blade, which continued its arc as Sossomo lopped off the foot of one of the suspended men — Anelzark, I think it was. The river of blood bubbled around the area where the foot fell in, as if beneath the surface something — or some things — feasted on the morsel. I thought of my lock of hair in there and felt myself touched, as if damned.

  Anelzark, suspended by fish hooks in each nostril — screamed, hitting a note so piercing it reverberated in the very stones of the chamber itself. Sossomo pitched the machete into Anelzark's back, embedding it there for easy retrieval later. Anelzark's screams intensified, and he writhed in indescribable agony, but he remained conscious.

  Sossomo turned abruptly, and smiled, although it did nothing to lighten his expression. His look was sadistic, one of manic glee, and I felt I had to say something, anything, to break the silence between us.

  "What ... what did they do wrong?" I asked.

  "YOU KNOW WHAT THEY DID WRONG!" Sossomo said, grabbing me by the shoulders and shaking me vigorously. "You know what. You know when. You know why!’

  "That's why they're ... they're ..."

  Sossomo uttered a smug little chuckle, and given the gleam in his eyes, the cast of his face, it suddenly seemed jovial.

  "It wasn't the motive; it wasn't the reason; it wasn't even the plunder of the rewards," Sossomo said. Then, the entire chamber shaking with each word, he hollered like a petulant child, "IT ... WAS ... THE ... SACRIFICE!"

  And finally I understood — the river of blood in the chamber, it wasn't from these men. Sossomo seemed to recognize the understanding in me. He nodded, as if in acknowledgement of my comprehension, and his ever-present grin turned into a smirk.

  "Everything costs, man," he said.

  ~~~~~

  A knocking at the door roused me. A shaft of sunlight streamed through my bedroom curtains. I blinked, shielded my eyes, then dove for refuge under my pillow. My head felt cluttered, the way it does after a big night of drinking.

  The knocking continued.

  I trudged out of bed, put on a bathrobe, and answered the door. More sunlight flooded in, blinded me, and I held a hand up to block it. My visitor was just a silhouette, a shadowy wraith, and I gaped, thinking it must be one of the seven men coming to collect me.

  "Nice haircut."

  It was Elsie. Her face was hard, her eyes unblinking, but I could still see the winsomeness that had first attracted me to her. She held up a folded piece of paper, which she used to point at the fringe of my hair. I pulled at my fringe, only to find a lock missing.

  "You look terrible," she said.

  "Thanks."

  "I wanted to give you this myself." She thrust the folded paper forward.

  It was a summons. I sighed, lifted my gaze to Elsie. She must’ve expected I’d
be antagonistic in response, but I had nothing but emptiness. It all seemed so futile and purposeless, another endless cycle.

  "Okay, thanks," I said. I started to swing the door closed, but she thrust her foot forward to stop me.

  "You okay?" she asked.

  And there, for an instant, was the concern of the woman who’d once loved me, her face softening.

  "Want a cup of coffee?" I asked.

  Her eyes narrowed, but she nodded. I led her into the kitchen where I put the kettle on, wondering what to tell her, how I’d tell her.

  You'd think something so extraordinary would stay with you forever, but already I felt as if it was fading. Some things you aren't meant to remember. It's not just that the human mind has its own automatic mechanism for blocking these things out, or repressing them, but there are other things out there that don't want you to remember. And sometimes societies, normal everyday societies, like to forget — as a whole. It's their way of dealing with things. Of course, that doesn’t mean they’re gone.

  Really, it’s just like Sossomo told me.

  Everything costs, man.

  Les Zigomanis is a freelance writer/editor based in Melbourne, Australia. He’s had short stories and articles published in a bunch of places, both in print and online, and also had a couple of screenplays optioned. When he has time, he works on yet another novel (this one being the one — he promises it’ll be!) and blogs on his website about his football team, movies, and a bunch of random stuff.

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  The Trouble with Exopolitics

  by Michael Hemmingson; published September 13, 2013

  The alien vehicle came out of nowhere, turning a corner fast, and Hinemoa crashed her bicycle into the rear. As her body flew over the anti-grav transport, she got a good look at the Ankaran in the driver seat with its four arms, four legs, blue skin, and two mouths. Three eyes stared up at her in surprise.

  Hinemoa thought of her roommate, Solveig, as she flew through the air. When Hinemoa had rushed out the door that morning, late for class again, Solveig had been sitting quietly on the couch, getting high eating purple eggs and staring at images of island coasts on the wall screen.

  ~~~~~

  Hinemoa woke up in the New Berlin Medical Center, head throbbing, one arm in a cast, bandages around her torso; she was in pain. A robot nurse came in and did something with one of the three IVs connected to her. A moment later the pain went away. “It is a powerful and recently approved off-world painkiller,” the robot nurse said.

  She was floating.

  A real live human doctor came into the hospital room a few minutes later — or a few hours, she wasn’t sure. He seemed human enough; you could never tell with the robot upgrades these days, technology courtesy of a different alien visitor race called the Aldebarans.

  “How do you feel?” asked the doctor.

  “Better than when I woke up.”

  “Do you know your name?”

  “That’s silly. My name is ...”

  “Yes?”

  She had to think, remember: “Hinemoa Hawthorne.”

  “Date of birth?”

  “7-6-14.”

  “Age?”

  “Do the math, doc. I’m 19.”

  “Nationality?”

  “New Zealand.”

  “Your race is Maori?”

  “What gave that away? The color of my skin?” She giggled, the pain killers sending her aloft again.

  “Do you live in Berlin?”

  “Of course. In Mitte.”

  “Work here?”

  “Student. Universität der Künste.”

  “Major?”

  “What’s with the interrogation, doc?”

  “You suffered a concussion. I’m determining if your memory has been negatively affected.”

  “I know who I am and where I am,” she said.

  “Do you remember the accident?”

  “Yeah, sort of,” Hinemoa said, trying to recall. “I was riding my bike down Potsdamer and this freaking Ankaran comes flying out into the lane like a wombat out of Spook Town. Didn’t have time to swerve. Smacked right into its rear.”

  “Anything else?”

  “I remember flying, yeah, and then I woke up to this ... how long have I been here?”

  “A little over 48 hours.”

  “I’ve been out two freakin’ days?”

  The doctor signed some papers on a holograph pad. “I’m relieved you regained consciousness. You were in a coma.”

  She found that amusing. “Broken arm, broken ribs ... anything else?”

  “Aside from the knock on the head and minor scratches and bruises on your body, no. You’re lucky you didn’t break any other limbs. Or lose anything. I have seen much worse from bicycle accidents.”

  “My student insurance will cover this?”

  “Don’t worry about that right now.”

  “How long do I need to stay here?”

  “I want to run some tests, but no more than a week. You’ll be out by Monday,” the doctor said.

  He seemed to flicker in her vision — was the painkiller messing with her sight, or was this doc a hologram? She didn’t want to ask.

  “If I was out two days,” she said slowly, “it must be Wednesday.”

  “Yes it is.”

  “Can I ask you something personal, doc?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Are you human or android?”

  The doctor laughed. But he didn’t answer; he vanished the way holograms do. He was probably in some office on a different continent, telecommuting his work like many did these days.

  ~~~~~

  Hinemoa woke up at 7:30 p.m. in pain; she pressed the IV button and felt the warmth of off-world drugs flow through her blood like a summer river on North Island’s Rotorua, where she grew up.

  A man in a gray suit and white tie sat in the chair next to her bed. He looked to be in his early thirties with a head of thick curly brown hair. He held a briefcase in his lap.

  “Who are you?” she asked, thinking he must be from hospital administration, and there was something wrong with her insurance. She was sure she would receive a substantial bill she'd never be able to pay; her universal credit rating would be whacked.

  He handed her a business card:

  MALCOLM GANZ, ESQUIRE. INTERNATIONAL AND EXOPOLITIC LAW.

  “A lawyer,” she said.

  “How are you feeling, Ms. Hawthorne?” His accent was British, not German.

  “Okey-doke. How are you feeling?”

  He smiled. “Just fine, thank you.”

  “I mean, are you really here? Or you a hologram from Liverpool?”

  “I’m physically here,” he said, “to discuss your situation.”

  “What situation?”

  “Your accident.”

  “Is there a problem with my insurance?”

  “I don’t know. But there is a problem with certain laws, or lack thereof, which needs to be addressed, for all humans on earth and off planet.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Ankaran liability.”

  “I’m confused.”

  “The accident was the Ankaran’s fault.”

  “Wasn’t mine, that’s for sure.”

  “Have you considered the Ankaran’s liability in this matter? Should your student insurance not cover everything? Your missed days of classes, hours of work, pain and suffering?” Ganz opened the briefcase.

  “You’re an ambulance chaser,” she said.

  “Not exactly.”

  “You want to represent me in a lawsuit, yeah?”

  “An action, yes. A rightful action.” He handed her some paperwork. She didn’t look at it.

  She said, “Why not. I’ll sue that blue, three-eyed arse to LaLaLand.”

  “That’s the problem we face,” the lawyer said, “and the problem all of exopolitics is now addressing. Ankarans are not citizens of any country, they are not inhabitants of Earth, and each one o
f them is considered an emissary of their race.”

  “And so?”

  “They basically have de facto diplomatic immunity, making them impervious to legal action.”

  “Then why are you here bugging me?”

  “Their lack of liability is not black letter, only an assumption since very few instances of legal action against extraterrestrials have arisen the past five years that they have been here. I represent the growing number of exopolitical advocates.“

  “Who, what?”

  “Humans who wish to make the Ankarans — and any other visiting alien life form — fall under the jurisdiction of the World Court at The Hague, and then actionable in all nations on the globe, most certainly all of Europe, Australia, and North America.”

  “Has anyone tried to sue an Ankaran before?”

  “Twice, in London and New York. Both cases were vacated for ‘lack of jurisdiction.’”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  “Like I said, Ankarans are not earth residents or citizens of any nation, thus the courts in question had no jurisdiction over their — being.”

  “You’d think some crafty politicians would’ve covered those bases by now,” she said sarcastically.

  “We are working on it, Ms. Hawthorne.”

  “So again ... why me?”

  “You’re the perfect plaintiff to set legislation and precedent into motion. The two previous cases I mentioned—”

  “London and New York.”

  “... were corporate actions, matters of commerce.”

  “Gold and silver? Diamonds?” she said. All the goodies the aliens had used to seduce the governments of Earth.

  “With your case, we have personal injury liability. Ankarans do not even have licenses and insurances to operate their vehicles on earth! Things need to change, and you can be the catalyst for that change.”

  “Will I get money?”

  “You may find yourself quite wealthy from this.”

  “Those freaks do have a lot of bling-stuff.”

  “And then some. Aside from the money, think of the major changes in alien-human social action, integrity, responsibility ...”

  “Speaking of which, I have them — bills, rent, food.”

  “We will see to your basic needs until the case is resolved.”

  “Why not,” Hinemoa said. “Where do I sign?”

  ~~~~~

  Solveig was watching the wall screen and had no idea Hinemoa had been gone the past week. When Hinemoa got home, she was lounging half-naked on the couch, robe opened, tattooed from toe to stomach. “Oh hey, dahhh-ling,” Solveig said dreamily, playing with the ends of her multi-colored dreadlocks.