《The Isekai App》 Read the Permissions Before you Agree I am so tired of waiting, Aren''t you, For the world to become good And beautiful and kind? Let us take a knife And cut the world in two- And see what worms are eating At the rind. --Langston Hughes I¡¯d popped into existence and was shivering on the stone floor of what might have been a ruined cathedral. Just seconds before, I¡¯d been messing with my phone, installing the Isekai App. There had been a wall of text, then the obligatory ¡°Agree to terms?¡± And there had been a box on my screen. After checking it, I was here. I could still feel the ridges of my phone case against my fingertips. My phone was nowhere to be seen. Cardboard cargo containers were lined up against the worn, eroded gray walls. They contained clothing: white shirts, tan cargo shorts, boy and girl underthings. Cheap running shoes of all sizes. No glasses; I¡¯m nearsighted. Shafts of sunlight slanted from gaps in the distant roof. Dense vegetation spilled in: vines loaded with fluffy bunches of leaves and star-shaped white flowers. Bees bumped and buzzed, ignoring me as I picked out things to wear. Tall windows lined the building, each topped with a peaked arch. Jagged rainbow teeth lined some of them: broken remains of stained glass. A cool breeze filled the hall. It smelled of the ocean. I¡¯d grown up in San Clemente, and the ocean was always welcome. My breathing slowed. Wasn¡¯t this what I¡¯d wanted, even though I hadn¡¯t believed a word of it beforehand? VISIT ANOTHER WORLD! LIVE A NEW LIFE! The Isekai App by Harrigan Media Inc., all rights reserved, copyright 2026. So you give it your email and agree to the terms, and you get a coupon for a free chicken sandwich. I like video games, if they¡¯re good. I¡¯d thought this had been a new kind of game. Nope. Apparently all real. ¡°Huh,¡± I said. The cathedral wasn¡¯t just old; it had been through a fight. The stone walls bore many circular, smooth holes, each the size of a hubcap. Their spacing was random, as if made by a colossal machine gun. The walls at the other end of the long cathedral were blackened and charred. A wooden door, ornate and crooked, let in more sunlight around its edges. That door opened. It didn¡¯t swing open like a healthy door. Someone was moving it from the other side. A tall man awkwardly lifted the door and leaned it against the wall. He took a black rectangle from where it had been tucked under an arm: a tablet computer. For a moment he stood framed in the doorway by more of that sunlit jungle vegetation, then approached slowly, not looking up from his screen. I later wondered if he¡¯d have kept going if I hadn¡¯t already gotten dressed.Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. A tall, skinny face like Benedict Cumberbatch without the handsomeness, plus a layer of middle-aged fat to smooth out any unwanted charisma. Dark hair trimmed by a genocidal barber, pale skin, no facial hair. Well, those huge bristly eyebrows. Office casual, but with a rather grimy lab coat that had once been white. A paunch. A double chin. When he smiled, it wrapped tightly around his face like a bandanna made of teeth. Nasty little beady blue eyes gleaming from under those eyebrows. His gray smile didn¡¯t reach his eyes. His eyes were cold, bored, uninterested. I didn¡¯t like him one bit. He obviously didn¡¯t care. Not the cute elf girlfriend the App had hinted at, not at all. I hadn¡¯t gotten that chicken sandwich either. He sat on one of the cardboard boxes. It whooshed out a tired puff of air. That box had seen a lot of sitting, I thought. He¡¯d done this before, this exact thing. Many times. Everything he did was practiced, rehearsed. Theatrical. His eyes went back to his tablet. ¡°Owen Walsh, United States, Pacific Time Zone,¡± he said, in a smooth, quick voice. Ever see a medication commercial, and at the end the announcer rapidly reads a list of all the horrible things that could happen to you? Side Effects may include¡­ That¡¯s how he spoke. I didn¡¯t respond. He looked up at me, hoisted his eyebrow foliage in inquiry. ¡°Yes,¡± I said. Tried to. My voice was a broken whisper. He reached into the pocket of his lab coat and handed me a battered plastic bottle of drinking water. I drained it all at once, then nodded. Better. The water tasted funny, acidic. He sighed unhappily. ¡°Ordinarily I¡¯d hit you with a few questions. How do you feel about being part of a new world? Want to build a new society? How about making products and medications that could benefit your friends and family back home? But I already know how you feel, and it¡¯s not important.¡± These were all interesting questions. I had no answers yet; I would later. I could barely focus on his words at the moment. ¡°You and I have met before,¡± he said wearily. ¡°And this time it¡¯ll be chaos. I¡¯ve tried order, and I¡¯ve tried being nice and tried being nasty. This time anything goes.¡± I¡¯d met this guy? It seemed very unlikely; he was quite memorable in a sweaty, unpleasant way. Perhaps he¡¯d been a substitute teacher who¡¯d made me uncomfortable? I opened my mouth to apologize for not recognizing him. He cut me off with more of his rapid monologue: ¡°I advise you not to hurt anyone, or to get hurt. We don¡¯t have a hospital here. If I see you doing anything I don¡¯t like¡­¡± His cold eyes dropped to his tablet. He tapped the stylus against the screen. I¡¯ll describe this as best as I can. I lost my balance first, then my legs folded beneath me. My arms flopped loosely at my sides and my head leaned back with my mouth yawning open. I hit the floor: first my knees, then I leaned back and rolled on my spine against the floor. The back of my skull bumped the cold hardness of gray stone. I couldn¡¯t move. I found myself helplessly inspecting the ruined roof up there, with its vines and bees and pollen drifting in the sunbeams. I could focus my eyes. I could breathe, and I started panting in panicked gasps. But I couldn¡¯t move. I couldn¡¯t move. A click of his stylus and I regained control of my limbs. My palms and cheap shoes slapped the floor in a hectic, frantic dance. I said: ¡°Gah!¡± and scrambled to my feet, then rubbing the back of my head where I¡¯d struck. I looked up at him. I was awed and frightened. Awed. This was real, and awful in the literal sense of the word. He hit me with that expression of utter boredom. Bags under his diamond-chip eyes, a weary face that had seen too much, a face that was unimpressed with me, unimpressed with everything. ¡°I can do that anytime,¡± he said. ¡°So be good, Owen Walsh of Pacific Time Zone.¡± Something about his expression was odd. An amused flash of smirk. Be good, he¡¯d said. Be good. What was that, was it irony? Be good. He got up from his box and offered his hand to shake. What would you have done? In my defense, I was in shock from the entire introduction. I was in a new place with no memory of traveling there. I¡¯d just lost control of my person, then had it granted again. I looked at that hand, the soft, pillowy hand of this guy, no calluses, no scars. I shook it. Yes I did. I didn¡¯t slap the tablet out of his hand or try to shove that stylus in his ear. I was terrified of him. Awed. ¡°I¡¯m Dr. Jeff Harrigan,¡± he said. That smile again, the one that stretched around his tall head, with his thin middle-aged lips baring gray teeth to the world. ¡°Let¡¯s go see the camp. And call me Dr. Jeff.¡± Despite the fear, a bit of steel returned to my spine. I was grateful for it. Dr. Jeff? How informal, how friendly! I would not call him that. Not ever. And in retrospect, I know he could see it on my face. And he approved. Because I was going to get away from him, the first chance I got. Summer Camp What else was there to do? On the way out I even picked up that door and replaced it in the doorway as best as I could, to be helpful. I¡¯m not proud of it. And I saw the place the App had taken me. It looked like a very exclusive, expensive resort made of ruined stone structures and long white plastic tents. Lush, dense jungle bordered everything. A pleasant lawn carpeted the camp. Paths meandered between various tents and down to the sea. Because we were up on a hill with a view. The ocean filled the entire horizon: deep blue farther away, but for miles near us it was pale, shallow turquoise. Islands adorned the ocean like cupcakes: gray cliffs on the sides, fluffy, lush jungle on top. The breeze came up the hill, smelling of salt, cool and familiar. Fluffy white anime clouds drifted against a lovely blue sky. The sun was up and it felt like around 11am, the time I¡¯d loved to surf back home. I spun in place and could see the ocean all around; we were on one of those islands ourselves. Considering how weird this was, I don¡¯t mind telling you I went straight for the sci-fi I was raised with. Was this the sun I knew? Was this the ocean I knew? Was this Earth? I looked up at Dr. Jeff Harrigan, walking beside me and poking at his tablet. I didn¡¯t want to ask him these questions. Not anything, not him. Because wherever this was? Whatever this place was? It was okay. It seemed to me a person could vanish beyond that blue horizon and deal with whatever was there, for good or ill. No more of what I¡¯d grown used to back home. This was more like it. Unfortunately there were people here. Not just the repellent Dr. Jeff, but others. Like me. Packs of roving people, all in the same cheap clothing: cargo shorts, running shoes, white shirt. Like a summer camp. Or a militia. Or a cult. Everyone was my age, give or take a few years. I frowned. Young people are the worst. People in general are bad, but young ones are unbearable. Varying ethnicities, boys and girls. Strutting young men in groups. Women either in nervous clusters or cold-eyed, hostile squads, holding what might have been spears made from white plastic pipe. Despite the beautiful sea, the emerald jungle and the loveliness of the entire world here, nobody looked the least bit happy about any of it. They were grim of face, with the occasional flicker of fear or grief slipping past bravado. Nobody was heading for the beach with towels, boards and sunblock. Nobody was getting an expedition to the other islands together. Why? ¡°What do you think?¡± Asked Dr. Jeff Harrigan. ¡°Very nice.¡± I could speak clearly now. He scoffed in his double-chinned throat. ¡°What do you really think? I probably already know, to be fair. Hit me with it anyway.¡± ¡°This feels very, very sketchy. Criminal. Like a felony at the very least.¡±This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. He laughed an airy wheeze. ¡°At the very least, huh? What¡¯s worse than a felony? A war crime?¡± ¡°Yeah.¡± We were walking to one of the larger, longer tents. Through its screen windows I could see long plastic tables. Food? ¡°Will any of them go home?¡± ¡°It¡¯s certainly possible.¡± His mouth was droopy and petulant, no more big gray smile. Resignation, I thought. Frustration. Why was this man unhappy? His face was forming the universal human expression that meant ¡°Contempt.¡± One corner of his mouth was pulled back, and slightly upwards. His head was raised on its fleshy neck, nose elevated. He was aggrieved, entitled, and owed. Unhappy. Everyone was. Why was everyone here unhappy? Because everyone here had been abducted, that was why. They¡¯d downloaded the App and clicked ¡°Agree to terms.¡± We were all idiots, I think. I don¡¯t understand people very well. But it seemed to me I could have asked a lot of questions that might cause myself trouble here. Are you in charge? If not, who is? Who are you trying to please? Why do you get a tablet computer and everyone else is using spears and clubs? But I didn¡¯t want to ask him any more questions. Not this guy. He stopped and faced me before entering the tent. ¡°There it is. Owen¡¯s Eye of Sauron. You¡¯re blasting me with it again, seeing through everything I say.¡± He shook his head admiringly. ¡°And you love it here, I know that already.¡± He swept the plastic flap aside and strode in. I got tangled in it a little but followed. I don¡¯t have an Eye of Sauron. Only Sauron has that, and he¡¯s not known for sharing his stuff. And what did he mean by ¡°again?¡± What was happening here? Lunch, it turned out. ¡°The food isn¡¯t great,¡± he said. ¡°It¡¯s pretty lousy, actually. We¡¯re working on it.¡± I saw white plastic buffet trays lined up on white plastic tables. The tables looked old and battered. The tent too. While the floor of the tent was more of the ubiquitous white plastic, the poles and supports had vines growing up them. How long had they been doing that? Tall cans of food were stacked behind the tables: Patriot Plus Freeze Dried Beef. Other items of even more dubious quality, with labels that said MRE. Little foil pouches. I didn¡¯t know what MRE was but the food here wasn¡¯t enticing. ¡°Hungry? Probably not yet,¡± he said. He turned and gestured at the ten or so other young people sulking at the long tables. He raised his voice: ¡°We really don¡¯t get hungry our first few days, am I right?¡± He was jovial, chummy. Nobody looked at him or responded. Just concentrated on the gray paste of their meals. Nobody made eye contact with Dr. Harrigan or me. As I watched, three diners got up, threw their trays into a bin and left the tent, trying not to look like they were fleeing. ¡°Nobody likes the cookin¡¯,¡± groused Jeff Harrigan. ¡°You know what? Talk to Sean about what to do next. We need to become food-independent, that¡¯s our goal this time, and I don¡¯t feel like filling you in.¡± He frowned. The brow foliage sank to just above his unsympathetic eyes. ¡°Just do your thing, Owen, and you¡¯ll be welcome here.¡± He held up his tablet computer. A single crack went from upper left, zagged down to the bottom edge. But on the screen was a photo of my face. In the image I looked alarmed. I had no memory of him taking my picture. The image wasn¡¯t from my cell phone; it hadn¡¯t been taken by the Isekai App. I was in front of a forest, and the forest was burning. OWEN WALSH, was the label under my urgent, harried face. He grinned again, peering from around the side of his tablet at me, as if this made any sense at all. ¡°See? You¡¯re full of pep and can-do energy!¡± Then he spun with a purposeful swirl of his lab coat and swept from the mess tent. People outside saw him coming and gave him a wide berth: fanning out around his path or just disappearing into the jungle altogether. As he went back up his hill, he had a final message. ¡°Remember, the theme is chaos!¡± he called out. To me, or to everyone. Nobody responded. Okay. Time to perform the time-honored ritual of Trying to Fit In and Failing. Not good with people, even if I had the aforementioned can-do energy. Lets Go Swimming With the exception of the good Doctor himself, it seemed to be all young people here. Pointlessly cruel and bizarrely aggressive for no discernable reason. And now I¡¯d have to deal with them, trying to find out more about my situation. The cafeteria tent was empty; even the two miserable campers dishing out the food were gone. Jeff Harrigan could clear a room, I¡¯ll give him that. I left without eating. The trays of freeze-dried beef were safe from me. None of this mattered in the least, because I was already setting up the agenda. The evil plan, if you will. And it comes with phases, like all properly evil plans do: Phase one: Assume that leaving here will be met with resistance. Find the weaknesses in this place. If it was a genuine prison, how did one escape? Phase two: Leave. Phase three: Gloat. I already felt better, though my plan had a few holes. For example: I didn¡¯t want to take any of these ding-dongs with me, so I¡¯d be gloating to nobody, and the gloating part was pretty important. I found something horrific: a row of vine-covered chemical toilets. So very fragrant. Moving on, I discovered a shower tent, one for boys and one for girls. There was no gender neutral one; I suspected Dr. Jeff Harrigan had a baby-boom conservative view of gender politics and wouldn¡¯t lower himself to build a tent for something of that sort. Old people can be rough, just like young ones. There was a long, low tent for males, full of astonishingly flimsy and cheap cots. A little further and there was the girls¡¯ tent. And that was about it for the construction of the place: a few tents and some port-a-potties, all surrounded by jungle and stone ruins. If there were other things, like a storage facility or a place for Dr. Harrigan to cast his spells or do mad science or whatever, I didn¡¯t see them. A few observations:
  1. The tents were old. Vines crawled up the struts holding them up. Their white plastic weave was frayed at the lower edges. I saw a few vinyl patch repair jobs. Mud and scratches adorned the tents, as if they¡¯d been through storms or floods.
  1. The young people here seemed to be sorting themselves into traditional social groups. This group of young men were bigger and strutted about, chins in the air, looking down at everyone. That pack of young women were all conventionally attractive, cooly guarding their place in the social hierarchy. Everyone else, the normal-looking people, seemed to be scurrying about, trying to go unnoticed.
  1. A few people carried what seemed to be weapons: either white PVC pipes or branches taken from the nearby jungle. No firearms or knives. The armed ones seemed observant, watchful, anxious.
One tries not to judge; I¡¯m sure Dr. Harrigan had done his best. But his camp was a dump. A commotion near the women¡¯s tent. A beefy young man, swaggering and neckless, was demanding entrance. The girls yelled at him to go away. A few brandished their improvised plastic spears. He laughed and taunted. I couldn¡¯t quite hear what he said; does it matter? Not really; nothing new here. I took a step towards him, preparing to get severely beaten. The girls didn¡¯t need my help or want it, I¡¯m sure, but I really had no idea how to stop myself. The tent flap burst open. A short fireplug of a girl came striding out, full of purpose. Dark hair done up in two short pigtails behind her head. Bangs. Skin like coffee with lots of cream. She was interestingly chubby. Something about her was off. The necklace young man saw her coming for him. He laughed, and taunted. He pantomimed being afraid. The shelf of his eyebrow ridge rose in mocking fear, his grinning mouth gaped with mock terror. A cartoon character. I realized what was different about the short girl with the pigtails: she wasn¡¯t afraid. All the women were nervous, anxious. They were angry and embattled, but they were also cautious. Not her. Her eyes were narrowed, and her round face was marred with an irritated snarl. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. He looked like he was three times her size. She was in front of him, and he reached, slow and mocking, clumsy. Twiddling his short fingers. A quick spin and duck, she had him by an ankle. She twisted and was behind him, lifted with both hands. With a yelp and a bone-rattling thump he was on his belly, his foot in the air where she had his ankle. The girls jeered and screamed at him. The dust cleared, and I could see the guy¡¯s face: outrage, anger, fear. He was gasping. The fall had knocked the wind out of him. His assailant turned and began, with that purposeful stride, hauling him down to the beach. The big, big guy could do nothing. He scraped and scrambled in the dirt of the path. Kicking his free leg did no good at all. He couldn¡¯t get loose, and she dragged him easily, as if she was hauling a bag of trash. Up the hill a little was a pack of young men, looking stricken. One took a step forward; he looked determined to offer aid. His companions restrained him. Those big, big dudes were clearly terrified. One word kept drifting from their group: Mandy. Mandy. I returned to watching the fight, such as it was. The girl¡¯s pleasantly wide rump was disappearing around a curve through the jungle. The pleading face of her victim went with her. He was doing just that now: pleading. Begging. His cries faded. Well. I followed. Nobody else did. Not the girls in the tent, not the frightened men who might have been the big guy¡¯s rescuers. Nobody. The men fearfully retreated up the hill. The women swarmed back into their tent. I¡¯m sure they would have slammed the door if they¡¯d had one to slam. Forcefully zipping the tent close lacked the same oomph. I ran down the path. Ran is perhaps the wrong word; I sneaked with haste. I wasn¡¯t anxious to annoy the girl. The two had left tracks; not footprints, but narrow gouges in the hard-packed dirt. His fingers, where he¡¯d been clawing, trying to get away. Stripes of bark had been peeled from tree roots as he¡¯d passed. The beach was deserted. It was a nice beach; pale sand, water with amazing clarity. A vacation spot worth millions. The tall jungle-capped islands nearby should have been surrounded by the white pleasure craft of the wealthy. And would have been, back home. I followed the desperate tracks in the sand; they led from the trail and in a straight line from the forest to the sea. When they entered the shallows, the water current had smoothed them over so I couldn¡¯t follow any further. It wasn¡¯t a shore with high surf; it was more of a snorkeling venue. The water was almost flat. That lovely breeze ruffled my newly-installed hair. This place was good. It was really very beautiful. I sat under a tree in the white sand. The shade was nice. Everything was nice. Except for the fearful, nasty abductees who lived here. I wanted to see what happened with the people up the hill, but I also found myself alone on the beach. How far away were the other islands? Did anyone live there? Were they part of this? What would keep me from simply swimming off? The short girl was out there. I thought about it; she seemed like she was on the right side of things. Good enough. I started to kick off my shoes. Time to go. But then I remembered the crazy trick, that thing Harrigan could do with that tablet. He¡¯d zapped me, and I¡¯d lost all control of my muscles. What if that happened while I was swimming? Or even wading, as the water was clear and shallow enough for me to easily see the bottom? I thought of a favorite story: Edgar Allen Poe, and someone had irritated one of his protagonists. That guy had gotten walled up in a wine cellar by said protagonist. And he hadn¡¯t even been hit with some bargain-basement paralysis beam. Anything could happen to me here, anything at all. My plan needed work. Possibly more phases. I didn¡¯t want to drown. And then, possibly, be devoured by an otherworldly aquatic predator. I¡¯d have loved to see one, of course; a cool giant water monster to really prove this wasn¡¯t Earth. I just didn¡¯t want to be reduced to a meal. Okay. Time to work on Phase One instead of just jumping to Phase Two. I¡¯d have to skulk about, finding the way out of here. These guys would slip up; large groups always do. I had slipped easily through the school system with no real effort. This was no different. Become unnoticeable, then the watchdogs stop caring about you. And then festivities could commence in earnest. I wondered if I¡¯d be able to return home. Or if I wanted to. My readers may recall that I¡¯m not a fan of people. There wasn¡¯t much left back home for me. I wondered if I was unique in that. Where the others here going to be easily missed? Neither the short girl nor her burly victim came back out of the water. The islands out there called to me. Was there a mainland? Could I take anyone with me? Not that I ever would, unless gloating to someone became a prime motivation. But I had to get out of here. This world was begging for exploration and I was pretty sure this island was a prison. How to Neither Win Friends Nor Influence People I wandered around the camp. Nobody stopped me Nobody did anything but look nervous. Some observations: 1.There had been a fire. Several fires, actually, I kept finding more scorched areas as I investigated. Patches of the jungle were blackened, withered stumps. I found the remains of what must have been tents; the plastic pipes that had held them up were melted and bent. Rolls of the tent material were haphazardly piled near a stone wall. Was someone going to rebuild? 2.Worn orange wires criscrossed the camp. They led to outdoor lights lashed to trees with plastic zip-ties. I found a few of those, and also a loudspeaker that presumably one could bellow through to issue commands to underlings. 3.The stone buildings were very old; they were pitted and full of holes, and when the breeze kicked up they moaned like huge stone flutes. The architectural style was diet gothic; not a lot of the little ornamentation you see on gothic buildings, but the basic silhouette was the same. I wondered who¡¯d built this stuff and why. I found lots of places to hide. The ruins were full of crannies, and I found one fully-operational stone tunnel I could crawl in. And the jungle was dense, but it had passages one could duck, climb through and vanish into. Very nice. During one such expedition I lifted a nest of dried leaves and found a lighter like you¡¯d use on a gas stove or grill, old and a little rusted, and a dirty plastic bottle of Kingsford Odorless Lighter Fluid. I covered them up again so whoever had put them there wouldn¡¯t get suspicious, but I knew about them now. Very VERY nice. Three towers surrounded the island. They were rough piles of dark stone: tall, skinny pyramids. They looked out of place, very different from the other architecture here. The triangle they formed had the island at its center. Hmm. I found a baseball game. The young men ran about, throwing a worn-out-looking ball with loose stitching. When the ball was in the air its leather hide came partially loose, causing it to spin erratically. The players had an aluminum bat that had seen better days, but I wanted it for my own use. It seemed pretty high-school normal; there were even some girls watching and clapping on occasion, over there under the trees. They weren¡¯t playing the game themselves. Why were they associating with jerks? Why not play the game themselves? Typically incomprehensible behavior. ¡°Batter up, yeah? I bet you¡¯re wondering why nobody leaves,¡± said Dr. Jeff Harrigan, appearing beside me like a chess piece dropped onto the board. I looked up into his tiny ball-bearing eyes. He was a little taller than I was, and it was obviously something he enjoyed. I didn¡¯t say anything. ¡°They¡¯re devoted to my cause, that¡¯s why.¡± Big grin, inviting questions. ¡°What cause is that?¡± ¡°Making a new world, one mankind can move to when the Earth is finally depleted. What did you think?¡± ¡°I think you¡¯d have started doing that by now. I think you¡¯d be the richest guy ever if you did that. But here I am, and here they are.¡± I jerked my head at the game. ¡°And nobody back home knows. We¡¯re all missing, aren¡¯t we? Abducted. Nobody even knows about it, though. Do you have something going in on the media to keep it quiet?¡± He smiled a little, cold and smug. ¡°Always so direct. No, you haven¡¯t been abducted. This is all perfectly legal. You¡¯re still there.¡± ¡°I am? How?¡± I was falling back on the fiction I¡¯d consumed: movies, games, books. ¡°Is this a simulation, am I in a VR coffin, something like that?¡± He grinned. ¡°Nope. You¡¯re literally still there, walking around, doing tiktok dances and eating avocado toast, whatever young people do these days. You¡¯re just a copy. There¡¯s still an Owen moping around on Earth, just like there¡¯s one here.¡± He gestured expansively at the players. ¡°All of them, and you. All still there.¡± I processed this. It made sense; I remembered no transport here. No boat ride, no spacecraft or wormhole portal or anything cool and sci-fi. I¡¯d been holding my phone, using the App, and here I was. It had been instantaneous. It was also absurd for any number of reasons, of course. ¡°I bet you¡¯re wondering how,¡± he said. I watched him. He grinned. The grin faded slightly as he saw I wasn¡¯t going to bite. ¡°Call it Magic,¡± he said. ¡°I wanted to name it the Harrigan Force, but that¡¯s kind of egotistical. The physical laws here are different. Think about it; if magic were real back on Earth, it would be the basis of entire industries, entire civilizations. We can do that here, and make a new start. Think about it.¡± I swear this part is true: he faced away towards the horizon and gazed into the middle distance. ¡°We can save humanity.¡± If I¡¯d been afraid of him before, it was doubly so now. Dramatic speeches are a red damn flag. But I couldn¡¯t keep my dumb mouth shut. ¡°What¡¯s keeping people from leaving?¡± ¡°Leaving?¡± he said irritably. ¡°Don¡¯t you see the benefits of this?¡± ¡°I want to leave. Is there a job I could do to help your cause, one where I could get on a boat and explore?¡± ¡°No no, it¡¯s too dangerous by far. I¡¯d be an irresponsible leader if I let anyone go out there.¡± He looked to the left as he said it, not meeting my eyes. The mark of the Liar, looking to the left like that. But Harrigan was interested in our exchange, I could tell. Perhaps nobody else was snotty to his face; hooray for me. ¡°You owe it to us. You stole us, didn¡¯t you? Tell me why.¡± He scowled. ¡°Science is its own reward, Owen. But I¡¯m also going to save the world. Humanity can¡¯t keep going like it is.¡± ¡°An exploration team could find things to help humanity, then,¡± I said. There was no use, clearly, but why not badger him? Like I said: he seemed to like it. ¡°You say magic is a real item here. What if you explored and found a cure for cancer? Or another civilization? I mean, this is another planet, isn¡¯t it?¡±If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. ¡°Not quite. Close but nope.¡± He smiled wistfully. ¡°I¡¯d forgotten about this, with you. You just want to leave. I don¡¯t want you to die out there, Owen.¡± ¡°Appreciate it. So what¡¯s the goal? Trying to set up a colony here?¡± ¡°It could happen,¡± he said, warming to the topic. ¡°Do you want to know how?¡± It was a fair question. But I¡¯d read a lot of history on my own time. ¡°Who¡¯s already here? Who will we be exterminating?¡± His mouth drooped at the corners and his nose went up. ¡°Virtue signaling isn¡¯t welcome.¡± ¡°How about this: will everyone be able to come here? Every human being?¡± More mouth drooping. ¡°Well?¡± I pressed him. ¡°Everyone? Or just certain people? Certain types of people?¡± He turned with his decisive coat swoosh. ¡°It¡¯ll getting dark. You don¡¯t want to be out here; report to the men¡¯s tent.¡± And off he stalked. I wondered where his quarters were; I hadn¡¯t found anything that looked like the Boss Guy Fortress. I didn¡¯t want to sleep in the men¡¯s tent. Young men are dangerous, foolish and cruel. But it had to be tried; I needed to know a few things. And the tent full of murderous young ladies probably wouldn¡¯t welcome me. The strutting, preening men were led by one Sean, who had been mentioned by Dr. Jeff Harrigan as my point of contact. A middle-manager, perhaps. The tent was full of conversation I found perplexing: they were honestly trying to find ways to look fashionable in their cheap uniforms, finding ways to look good to the nearby murderous women. Or for one another. Nobody discussed escape or resentments or shared any prison craft, like sending secret messages or making a dessert with the meager supplies at hand. Because this was a prison. Nobody mentioned the disappearance of the aggressive fellow I¡¯d watched Mandy haul to the sea. It was simply not being discussed. Very firmly. Sean introduced himself to me. He was a burly specimen with a low forehead and a crewcut, mid twenties, a little older than everyone else here. Clean-shaven, muscular, pale of skin with freckles. Oddly familiar. Did I recognize him from something? Was this a reality show, in the end? Would he be complaining to a camera crew about this later? His face was unpleasantly handsome, with eyebrows handcrafted for cruelty and a weapons-grade chin. ¡°The Doc told you to ask for me,¡± he said. ¡°Let¡¯s get you on the fishing crew tomorrow.¡± He stuck out a hand. I shook it. I didn¡¯t like him. I faded away as best as I could; I didn¡¯t take the cot Sean had offered just yet. I sat on the rumpled plastic floor with my back to the wall of the tent and watched. They argued, joked and laughed. Pranks were played. Wrestling occurred. At one point the wrestling got a little more violent than it should have and Sean broke it up. He stood over the two panting combatants and angrily informed them they were gay, among other things he probably found insulting. Sean caught my eye. "Hey, new guy. Get over here." I hesitated, but his tone left no room for argument. As I approached, he slung a meaty arm around my shoulders. It was heavy and his body odor was making my eyes water. "Listen up, everyone," Sean barked. This is Brian. Brian¡¯s joining the fishing crew tomorrow. Make him feel welcome, okay?" Reminder to my readers: I ain¡¯t named Brian. Thank you. The other guys eyed me with a mix of curiosity and wariness. One of them, a lanky kid with brown skin and a mop of curly hair, piped up. "Fishing crew?" Sean''s grip on my shoulder tightened. "Part of the job is setting up gear. Armand, we talked about this." Armand quickly shrank back into the crowd. "Anyone else got something to add?" Sean asked, his eyes sweeping the room. Silence. "Good. Brian, you got any questions? Now''s the time." The crowd of young men zeroed in on me. Faces blank, or hostile, or haunted. Might as well go for it. ¡°How long have you guys been here?¡± Sean answered when nobody else would. ¡°I¡¯ve been here longest, about six months. The Doc brings in a couple new people every day.¡± He spoke loudly, to the entire room. They watched me and Sean. Mostly Sean. I don¡¯t know people very well, but I detected no fondness from the group. Sean was surrounded by terrified subordinates. ¡°Will we ever go back?¡± I really did want to know. Maybe returning home wasn¡¯t my thing, but what about everyone else? ¡°Is this where we live now, all the time?¡± All around the tent, eyes widened. The complete lack of eye contact was somehow intensified. I had my answer. ¡°I¡¯m going to leave,¡± I said matter-of-factly. I heard an indrawn breath from somewhere. Not quite a gasp. The arm tightened around my shoulder. ¡°Doc needs us here,¡± Sean said. Shut your mouth, he was saying. Quite clearly; the indications on his face, the thinning of his lips, the lowering brow. His pale skin was reddening, little crimson patches on his cheeks. I should stop asking questions in front of his peer group, that was becoming quite clear. He was regretting that he¡¯d asked me. Stopping this would be wise. I should sit back down. I asked: ¡°Who was the girl today? At the other tent. She took someone to the beach.¡± My voice was stronger now. I¡¯d thought everyone was quiet before. Now a genuine funereal hush descended. The group went hollow-eyed and despairing. I watched as adams apples bobbed, nervous swallows all around. No eye contact: not just with me or Sean. Nobody looked anyone else in the eye. The name of the girl had cast a spell. ¡°You¡¯re good for now,¡± said Sean. He shoved me away into the group. ¡°Time for bed, let¡¯s hit it tomorrow, Brian and everyone else.¡± He trudged off to the other end of the tent. ¡°Leaving,¡± I said again before sitting down. ¡°I¡¯m leaving and I¡¯m taking whoever else wants to go.¡± Silence again. None of them would look at me. ¡°Don¡¯t try it,¡± someone whispered. That was fine; I really didn¡¯t want to take anyone, as I have mentioned previously. My cot creaked and wobbled. No blanket. It got very, very hot at night. The jungle outside sent suspicious noises through the thin walls of the tent. Rustling, as if things were lurking about. A screaming noise, nonhuman. Like a hunting bat but much lower in pitch. I hadn¡¯t seen any animal life here during the day. A weird dream, or not: someone like Sean, outside the tent, pacing around in the dark. I saw him briefly, his face and arms. Gray, like he was sculpted from modeling clay, wet and shiny. He wore his absurd t-shirt and cargo shorts over it, briefly visible in the light of a bare flickering bulb outside. I sat up, causing the cot to creak alarmingly. Groans from the assembled gentlemen around me. Gone. I didn¡¯t think it was a dream. I thought it was real, that this place was crazy, that Sean was out there frolicking while covered in gray goo. I looked around: not in this tent. Fine by me, have a ball, Sean. Just stay out there, dumbass. I tried to go back to sleep. Four times I was slapped in the face. When I woke, someone had pooped in one of my shoes. Not a fan of people. Sean ¡°Here for tackle and fishing stuff,¡± I said to Sean. The sun was up, maybe it was nine in the morning. All the fishing I¡¯d ever done successfully was early, early EARLY. This was practically the end of the day, fishing-wise. He was on the beach, arms straight down, hands shoved into the roomy pockets of those cargo shorts. Master of all he surveyed, all muscles and sunburn. His feet were widely spaced, his shoulders back, standing tall and straight. It was a pose I¡¯d long thought of as ¡°douche stance.¡± He wasn¡¯t gray. He was sunburnt. What had he been doing the previous night? I didn¡¯t ask. ¡°Fishing stuff,¡± I prompted again. He didn¡¯t look at me. ¡°I don¡¯t have anything for you. Doc clearly said that our goal is food independence, so do that.¡± Sean watched the other campers as they milled about on the shore. ¡°Look at those idiots, I told them.¡± He shouted at the gaggle of young men and women for a while. I didn¡¯t like him, of course. Who would? Maybe other guys with personalities like his? Perplexing. ¡°I need some stuff for fishing,¡± I said yet again. ¡°You¡¯re in charge; where¡¯s the equipment?¡± He didn¡¯t look at me. ¡°I don¡¯t have anything for you. Doc clearly said that our goal is food independence, so do that.¡± Sean watched the other campers as they milled about on the shore. ¡°Look at those idiots, I told them.¡± He shouted at the gaggle of young men and women for a while. I didn¡¯t like him, of course. Who would? Maybe other guys with personalities like his? Perplexing. ¡°I need some stuff for fishing,¡± I said, hoping to clarify matters. ¡°You¡¯re in charge; where¡¯s the equipment?¡± Sean sighed elaborately. He still wasn¡¯t looking at me. "You want to eat? You gotta work. No handouts here. Unless you¡¯re cool with the slop in the mess tent. Want a fishing rod? Real alphas make their own gear. The forest has everything you need - bamboo, vines, whatever. Figure it out. That''s what separates the wolves from the sheep." Oh. One more try. ¡°If you¡¯re in charge of the fishing crew, it¡¯s my job to help you succeed. I don¡¯t see those people catching anything; what about if I made a fishnet with some of the stuff lying around?¡± He turned to face me; I¡¯d annoyed him more than the other people who had been annoying him. "A net? Real men wade into the water and spear fish with tools they carved themselves. You want to just sit around waiting for food to come to you?¡± I shrugged. ¡°Yes, exactly. Any bait?¡± ¡°Find it yourself.¡± he turned away again, resuming the dominant alpha-man stance. But I¡¯d never been a cool alpha dude, so trying to out-manosphere him wasn¡¯t a concern. What I had been was someone who¡¯d lived with rules; the rules said that the world protected guys like Sean from the people they irritated. No rules here. We were far from the rules. He had no idea how vulnerable his groin was to a solid kick when he stood that way. What laws were there on this island that would keep him from simply being beaten until he was better at middle-management? A group of us could handle that, if the will was there. I couldn¡¯t to that, not alone, and there was probably no point in it. And I was leaving. He turned again and saw me eyeing him speculatively. To his credit, he seemed to snap out of his dominance trance. His eyes widened, seeing me standing there, not hopping to obey. ¡°Problem?¡± He asked, an eyebrow rising in challenge. I didn¡¯t answer. I was deciding what to do with him; something needed to be done with him. How about giving him a chance to straighten up first? ¡°I¡¯m leaving. I was serious when I said that,¡± I told him. ¡°You should leave too. Let¡¯s get a mess of people and leave. Right now.¡± ¡°It¡¯s just too dangerous, Brian.¡± He sighed. ¡°I want to get out there and explore too. I do. But people die if they leave this island.¡± ¡°Die of what?¡± He frowned at being questioned by someone like me. ¡°Dangerous things are out there. Doc has defenses here that keep them away.¡± I snorted. ¡°All that manliness crap you spout and you¡¯re afraid. You¡¯re just a wolf in cheap clothing, Sean.¡± It was a lot to come out of me. I was surprised. But it was all true, as I saw it. ¡°Do you remember me?¡± he said suddenly. The boy inside, the kid, was visible. Not Sean the manosphere screwup. This was a person, peeking out from under all that.This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. ¡°I¡¯ve never met you before coming here,¡± I said. ¡°I don¡¯t know how I could have.¡± He swallowed. ¡°I remember you,¡± he said. ¡°I remember the fires. Nobody wants fires, Owen. Just go fishing, okay?¡± He was asking. Almost pleading. ¡°I don¡¯t know why Doc put you here but just¡­¡± he pointed at the water. ¡°Okay?¡± ¡°Okay, sure.¡± And off I went. I was confused and didn¡¯t know what to make of it. His lack of nastiness had short-circuited my two-volt brain. Fires? Fires, eh? Fires. Sean¡¯s fishing crew was inept. He had us go into the jungle and make baskets from palm fronds. Then he wanted us to stand in the water and catch fish with our baskets. It was a disaster. People ran around, waving whatever they¡¯d been able to weave together and call a basket. Sean supervised, shouting constructive criticism like ¡°Don¡¯t be a dumbass,¡± and ¡°Quit screwin¡¯ around,¡± or ¡°Food independence, people! It¡¯s not rocket surgery!¡± I¡¯m no rocket surgeon, but I¡¯d never caught any fish by pursuing them on foot. I trudged up the hill and found a roll of the ubiquitous plastic tent material. I poked holes in it with a tent stake until it felt like a possible fishnet. Since nobody was taking inventory, I grabbed a fistful of the stakes. They were the same worn-out plastic as all the rest of the gear, too dull to be used as a weapon. Then I found a spot in the shallows where I could wade in up to my knees, unrolled my makeshift net and waited. The fish might have been okay with getting caught in it, but the tarp kept drifting up and tangling with itself. ¡°What if you put rocks on the corners,¡± asked Armand; the only other guy who had spoken up the previous night. He was a thin, spidery dude with brown skin and that mop of hair. He had a ready grin and big hands. We put rocks on the corners and perched like gargoyles on the boulders nearby. ¡°Good idea,¡± I said. ¡°Do you have any bait?¡± He shook his head. ¡°The theme is chaos.¡± ¡°What¡¯s that mean, anyway?¡± ¡°No idea.¡± We made sullen small talk. I detected an accent and learned Armand was bilingual. I could hablar some Espa?ol, so that¡¯s how we ended up sharing the scuttlebutt. ¡°What happened to the guy from yesterday?¡± I asked. ¡°He¡¯s fine,¡± said Armand. ¡°He¡¯ll be back soon, if he¡¯s not already.¡± ¡°She didn¡¯t kill him, then. Why did everyone go quiet? Why won¡¯t anyone talk about this? Why don¡¯t we leave?¡± He looked uncomfortable. ¡°You¡¯re new. Not just new. Brand new.¡± He used the ingl¨¦s words: brand new. ¡°What does that mean¨C¡± ¡°Owen,¡± said a female voice, speaking English. ¡°Armand, what are you guys doing?¡± She was willowy, tall and blonde, big-eyed and thin. A yoga instructor, or perhaps a fashion model. Pretty and bony, exhausted-looking. She perched next to Armand, the third gargoyle in our group. She was graceful and lithe and nervous, pensive. Her voice went low, conspiratorial. ¡°You busting out?¡± she whispered, like a gangster in a black-and-white movie. Her dark eyes darted left and right, watching for them lousy coppers, one assumed. I should have asked how she knew my name. Armand let out a forced laugh, his cheeks flushing. "This is Cassie," he said, his voice a touch too high. "In case you didn''t know." I nodded, noting how Armand angled his body towards her, his gaze rarely leaving her face. Cassie watched as I dropped a plastic tent stake in the water. It sank a little, then floated. Very nice. I threw three of them into the ocean as far as I could. ¡°Littering?¡± She asked. ¡°Yeah, sorry.¡± As I watched, the tent stakes drifted slowly away from the shore. I wasn¡¯t surprised; the sea in general was pushing on the other side of the island. With no swell to move things back to shore, the current carried things off. Away from here. Phase one was underway. Cassie was hitting me with what Dr. Harrigan might have called the Eye of Sauron. Her gaze went to me, then to the tent stakes as they shrank in the distance. Mind your own business, Cassie. ¡°Hey look!¡± I crowed, then lowered my voice. Some fish, alarmingly purple but plump, were nosing their way into our ridiculous plastic net despite the lack of bait. I hoped they weren¡¯t poisonous. ¡°It¡¯s working!¡± She shouted. Then in a lower voice: ¡°Mandy was here yesterday.¡± ¡°I saw her,¡± I said. ¡°She just hauled that guy off.¡± She nodded. ¡°Dumbass Tyler, he wouldn¡¯t go away. He was bugging me and some of the others. He was new. Brand new, not a recent arrival.¡± I nodded. I had no idea what she meant. ¡°And there he is,¡± said Armand, pointing. ¡°Told you.¡± Because the neckless guy from yesterday, Tyler, was there on the beach with us, shouting along with Sean at the hapless fishing crew. Tyler looked fine; none of the horror I¡¯d seen on his face had left a mark. He was avoiding work by supervising, just like Sean. ¡°He looks¡­better,¡± I said. He didn¡¯t just look better. He looked cheerful. Like he¡¯d learned absolutely nothing from his disciplinary beatdown from the previous day. Cassie made a disgusted sound. ¡°There he goes again.¡± And sure enough, Tyler was laughing and looming over a nervous-looking young woman. Sean laughed with Tyler as well. Boys will be boys, right? Oh such fun. Cassie left us, running over to the girl, putting an arm around her shoulders and guiding her away. She shot a look over her shoulder at Sean and Tyler, a bolt of pretty-girl disgust that would have slain lesser men. The two guys laughed and made jokey noises of sadness. I looked at Armand. He was uncomfortable. He wanted to say something, I suspected. I waited. Finally, he sighed. Pointed at a spot on the treeline. ¡°Mira hacia all¨¢, entre los ¨¢rboles.¡± And he left our cool fishing spot, even though more purple fish were happily, unsuspectingly frolicking in it, ready to be scooped up. He went and started speaking with Cassie. Both of them turned and watched me. Be nice to him, Cassie. And be nice, Armand, or you¡¯ll end up meeting Mandy. I found it, where he¡¯d pointed. Concealed by bushes, partially buried in the white sand. A raft. Not much of one; it was three logs lashed together by rubbery ropes of seaweed. Kelp just like from home, where you could feel it brushing your feet under your board. The logs were old, sun-bleached. The lashings were newer. I found a design scratched into one of the logs, possibly with a sharp rock. A zigzag and a worn semicircle, like a letter C. A handsome, bold nautical adventurer could lay on this thing, paddling it like a surfboard, and head out with the aid of the recently-tested current. Okay. Okay. Getting somewhere. When would be the best time to sneak away? Nightfall. Nightfall. ¡°Be careful,¡± said Mandy. She leaned against a nearby tree, watching me from the shade. She wore what we all wore, but her outfit was visibly damp. ¡°If he sees you it¡¯s over again.¡± Diplomacy I froze. I remembered yesterday¡¯s encounter with this person. Mandy was dangerous. ¡°You gonna beat me up?¡± I asked. She grinned. ¡°No, that¡¯s for special occasions.¡± She was maybe five-foot nothing, and her round face was custom-built for smiling. Freckled cheeks. Asian eyes and full lips. Chubby. Curvy. An adorable little thing. ¡°I¡¯m Owen,¡± I said helplessly. Don¡¯t you look at me that way. My human readers will understand. And nonhuman friends: it happens, okay? I don¡¯t like people. At all. And that dislike is very, very well earned. But...well, I ain¡¯t dead. A cute girl can go right past all of that and turn me into as much of an idiot as anyone. Especially one who judo-flips evildoers and hauls them into the ocean. It¡¯s very difficult to get cooler than that. She looked at the raft. ¡°Don¡¯t do it until dark. He¡¯ll zap you and bring you back, and that¡¯s if you¡¯re lucky.¡± ¡°Yeah,¡± I said. Scintillating flirtation from me here. She frowned. ¡°Tall,¡± she said. ¡°Sorry.¡± She looked annoyed. ¡°Forgot about the tall. Look, you need to know something, maybe it¡¯s something you already know, but you¡¯re just really new. Brand new. The laws here are different, right? Magic? For want of a better word, magic. Harrigan¨C¡± Shouts of alarm rang from the beach. Women sounding the alarm, and that noise went straight into my brain, causing my legs to jolt into action. I was running towards the commotion before I noticed I was doing it. ¡°Guess I gotta go,¡± I said over my shoulder. ¡°I guess you do!¡± I saw what was causing the shouts. It looked like a sea monster. Or an art project. I ran straight for it. Sean¡¯s group of unskilled fisherfolk were either fleeing back uphill or standing frozen on the beach. A dark, pointy thing was coming from the water, maybe the size of a refrigerator. It gleamed dully. Brushed metal. Sean ran up, holding one of the ubiquitous white plastic spears. He shouted at it like a caveman facing some stop-motion monstrosity in an old movie. His foe didn¡¯t move. As I ran I scooped up a rock; it fit my hand perfectly and had an appropriately sharp point. A murderin¡¯ rock like Cain used on his wuss brother Abel. I splashed into the shallows in front of the metal thing, and I faced Sean. He peered around me like I was wearing a big hat at a baseball game. Then he looked at me, his tiny eyes widening in surprise. He glanced at murder-stone in my hand. I didn¡¯t have any catch phrases or taunts. I wanted him to leave the moving metal thing alone. And I think I would have been able to put my rock into that tennis-ball-sized skull of his. I stood there, feet apart in the water. Not much of a plan here. Lacking in phases. Sean swung his spear at me, not jabbing, just a swing. A cool guy would have caught it in one hand. A less cool guy would have dodged it. I¡¯m neither guy; he struck me in the upper arm, and the aged plastic pipe snapped into splinters. There were shouts and gasps from the spectators. ¡°Ow,¡± I said, though I hadn¡¯t felt a thing. Etiquette is important, after all. Sean was confused and, interestingly, looked like I¡¯d hurt his feelings. His expression flitted from wounded to betrayed, then back to the default setting: nasty.A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. I pointed up the hill. ¡°Go get Harrigan,¡± I said. Then I turned to face the visitor. It looked like a machine, but it wasn¡¯t, exactly. Its dark metal surface was sculpted in smooth art deco curves, lined with small, neat rows of rivets. Its top formed a single peak like an old-timey skyscraper, tall and with a needle at the top. But at its base, in the water, I saw a row of foot-long green and orange spikes fanning out around the base. Legs. They were unmistakably curved, organic, and they moved as the thing rotated in place. Scuttled. It ceased its turn and stopped moving altogether. I felt it inspecting me, though no face was visible. It was a crab or something similar. And it was wearing the metal building sculpture with all the rivets. Like a hermit crab with its own custom-built shell. ¡°We¡¯re cool,¡± I said to it. ¡°No harm done. But you should go.¡± And I gestured with one hand: shoo. Shoo, you art project sea monster, begone. I ordered an anime elf girlfriend, DoorDash done messed up. It rotated until the front end of the thing faced out to sea, then it moved with considerable speed, enough to leave a wake, away from the beach and off towards the horizon. Nobody had attacked it, and it hadn¡¯t hurt anyone. I realized I had a pretty good reason for what I¡¯d done. Readers, if you find yourself on another planet, and you see something moving that has metal incorporated into it, that thing is either smart or was made by smart people. So don¡¯t annoy your new neighbors by wrecking their art installations. ¡°Everyone okay?¡± I asked, watching it leave. I heard a few shaky yeahs. One person, I don¡¯t know who, said ¡°thanks, man.¡± As I turned back to the island, I was struck from behind, hard, by an unstoppable mass of bone and sinew. Sean had tackled me. My rock went flying from my hand. Sean shoved my face into the water, then into the sand, holding me there, shoving me down, down. I couldn¡¯t breathe. I flailed and thrashed, but he was simply too huge, a boulder keeping me in that shallow water, forcing grains of that perfect white sand into my eyes, nose and mouth. The edges of my vision filled with black checkerboards. Then Sean fell away with a splash. I¡¯d gone limp, lost control of my muscles. It must have happened to Sean as well. Dr. Harrigan had arrived. I heard his voice faintly through the water. ¡°Hold on a second,¡± he muttered. ¡°Here we go, Sean, you¡¯re up again, yeah?¡± Sean groaned. ¡°I had everything under control¨C¡± ¡°Enough for now,¡± said Dr. Harrigan in that fast medical disclaimer voice. ¡°Check on Walsh.¡± I found myself rotating in the shallows, and my face was just over the water surface. I could breathe, at least. Sean grabbed my ankle, just as Mandy had with Tyler the day before. He hauled me onto dry land. My shirt went up over my chest, and sand got into my shorts. I didn¡¯t have a panic attack this time. I really had to work at it, though. I could control my breathing, and I concentrated on slowing it down. ¡°I warned you about this, Doc,¡± said a woman¡¯s voice. I couldn¡¯t see. Mandy. Sean dropped my ankle in the sand. Gasps came from the other campers. One voice whispered: yessss! ¡°Oh,¡± Sean said. ¡°Yeah, oh.¡± Her voice shook as she started running. I heard quick steps, an impact: skin smacking skin. Sean said: ¡°Uh!¡± and I felt the ground shake as he hit. ¡°You¡¯re okay,¡± said Harrigan absently. I couldn¡¯t see anything; I was unable to move. Harrigan spoke up: ¡°Ms. Nakahara, you¡¯re no longer welcome. You don¡¯t have to go home but you can¡¯t stay here.¡± ¡°Gonna getcha, Doc.¡± I could feel the sand vibrate, she was running again. I don¡¯t know what happened. I assume something with that tablet. But I could see Mandy staggering near me, past me, and she stood facing Harrigan in the water. She looked pained, feral, deadly. Strange to see on that round face, that nice-girl face. She was murderous. And as I watched, the skin of her face, hands and legs became pale, then transparent. She was made of water, a girl-shaped aquarium wearing cheap, wet clothing. A little school of bright blue fish zagged inside the pure, clear sculpture of her head. Her hair, those pigtails and bangs, her eyes and teeth, all were part of the shape making up the glassy mass of walking ocean she¡¯d become. The sun sparkled hotly on Mandy. Her head tracked, turned to face Harrigan. Her mouth opened, and she spoke with a deeper voice that was losing coherence. ¡°See you tomorrow, Doc.¡± ¡°Same bat-time,¡± Harrigan said cheerfully. The mass of water that made up her body collapsed and flooded back into the ocean. Her garments floated on the surface. ¡°Chaos,¡± said Harrigan. ¡°So much more interesting this time around. Get up, Sean, help me with Walsh.¡± Order I was slung over Sean¡¯s side-of-beef shoulder. The good Doctor had not yet restored my muscle control; I was getting used to it. And I could listen. It was very informative. The three of us were in a dark, cool cave. I could see Sean¡¯s feet, his overdeveloped calves and tiny, muscular rump. He was carrying me down a long set of rough-hewn stairs, something we¡¯d been doing for some time now. Sean and the Doctor wore little LED headlamps; possibly obtained from Wish or Temu. I had so many questions: What was this cave? Who had built the stairs? What had happened to Mandy? What WAS Mandy? What kind of tropical island had a friggin¡¯ dungeon? Occasionally Dr. Harrigan would make a joke. ¡°Sorry all these rocks are down here, Owen. I wonder how that happened.¡± Or: ¡°Coming up on the right is one of my favorite stone formations.¡± He said it for every formation. I couldn¡¯t see what he was talking about. But once he got the comedy out of the way, the two of them were talking and I wouldn¡¯t have interrupted them if I could. ¡°What did you think you were doing there?¡± asked Dr. Harrigan. ¡°I was keeping discipline,¡± said Sean. ¡°You saw, you saw! He could have killed me with that rock, over a damn¡­monster.¡± ¡°The Makers aren¡¯t monsters. Walsh had the right idea. If you¡¯d hurt it we¡¯d have had real problems. And God forbid it was something like a copycat eel or an Ammonite Priestess.¡± ¡°He showed me disrespect! In front of everyone, and you said that the rules¨C¡± ¡°You would have gotten a lot of us killed. You need to think, Sean, and you never do, and you might have died.¡± ¡°Dad, you said¨C¡± ¡°Enough, Sean.¡± Silence fell. Dad. We went down, down into the dark. I could see that to our left was an unworked stone wall. A cliff, possibly. To our right was a yawning empty blackness. Huge. This cave was an enormous underground chamber. Warm wind would rise up now and then. Once we passed what had to be a roaring waterfall; the mist was cool, pleasant, and then gone as we went down. A sigh from Harrigan. ¡°This is all for you, Sean. I need you to become a leader, and to get these people together. I¡¯ve given you the framework here; but it¡¯s a free for all, theoretically. You have obstacles I can help with. If Mandy comes back again, call me sooner.¡±Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. Nothing from Sean. He did bump my head against the cave wall, though. Hilarious. ¡°Dad.¡± Sean was thinking. I could almost hear the thoughts struggling through the meat of his brain. ¡°Dad. Do you really want me to be in charge?¡± ¡°Of course. You wanted to publicly punish insubordination, so here we are. I¡¯m trying to help.¡± More thought on Sean¡¯s behalf. ¡°Because sometimes it seems like¡­¡± He trailed off. Dr. Harrigan didn¡¯t prompt his son for more. We kept walking. It went on and on. And then, finally: A crow cage. You see them in movies that feature castles and oppressive feudal governments. Usually there¡¯s a skeleton in there. It¡¯s a way to show that the local bad guys mean business. The stone stairs continued down into the dark, but we were stopping here. I¡¯d never seen one in a movie that looked like this, though; it was adorned with pearls, arabesques of silver and a lovely swirl added to the bars of the cage so the whole thing seemed to be a mere piece of fancy decoration. Odd to find that down here, but I guess Doc Harrigan works with what he has. The circular door was open. Sean plunked me in, shut the door. My legs stuck out of the cage, swinging, and I could feel the stone floor beneath my cheap shoes. I could see upwards, thanks to my floppy neck. A heavy silver chain was attached to the top of the cage. It went up and up, disappearing into the dark. I fought to control my breathing. Take it easy. Don¡¯t give them anything. Listen, watch. Doctor Jeff Harrigan held up his tablet computer. On it was an image of my face, the one where I stood in front of a forest fire. The text read OWEN WALSH. Jeff Harrigan did something with his tablet and began making a video. I saw myself, loose and gangly, sprawled in the cage. Then he flipped the tablet and presumably the camera. ¡°This is Owen Walsh; he¡¯s here because he attacked and tried to kill another camper. The theme here is chaos; that doesn¡¯t mean violence is allowed. It means we find our own way to independence and success as a group¨C¡± ¡°Then you should have told us that,¡± Sean said, to my surprise. ¡°You didn¡¯t tell anyone. How are we supposed to¨C¡± ¡°Quiet, Sean. Not in front of him. Now I have to start over. We¡¯ll have a talk about the kind of organization you should be forming, but not now. Dammit¡­okay, I have to restart the app, it crashed.¡± We waited. After a bit, Harrigan started recording again. He made the speech about violence. He concluded: ¡°Owen will be here when we get back. I guarantee he¡¯ll be more of a team player, and that we¡¯ll all benefit from what he has to say. Good luck, Owen.¡± He elbowed Sean. ¡°Good luck,¡± groused Sean. Doc Harrigan brought out an absurdly ornate silver key. He stuck it into a confusingly decorated lock on the cage. A metallic click rang out, echoing through the cavern. Locked. Harrigan pocketed his key. ¡°Okay, not recording any more,¡± said Doctor Harrigan. ¡°You¡¯ll be able to move in about an hour, Owen. And don¡¯t take this personally.¡± He made eye contact with me. I poured all the anger and outrage I had into that look. If he was devastated by the psychic assault, he didn¡¯t show it. And the two of them turned and went back up the rough stairs. Their lights got smaller, their bickering fainter. I was here, in a cage, in the dark, and that was that. The Dark How, that¡¯s the question. How. Not ¡°How to escape,¡± no no no, not that. There was no escape. Not ¡°How long will I be here,¡± though that was a damn fine question. No. How was I going to get those guys? You don¡¯t do this to people. You don¡¯t do this to people. What if this was happening to someone besides me? Readers, forgive my sexism, I¡¯m sure it¡¯s barbaric: what if this had happened to one of those poor terrified girls? Without Mandy to beat people up for them? Outrage filled me, quickening my pulse. I was furious. And paralyzed. And surrounded by a huge, huge darkness, stuck in a fancy cage. I don¡¯t know how long I was there, fuming. Okay. Let¡¯s reason this out, I said to myself. This isn¡¯t a death sentence. This is just a thing you do in social groups. A hazing. Once I go through it, I¡¯ll be one of them, right? Accepted. I¡¯d have belonging. I¡¯d be part of the group. It¡¯s just Human behavior. Not interested. In what turned out to be a general trend towards mobility, my upper lip curled in disgust. Not interested at all. Soon I could move. My hands flopped at the ornate bars. Then they could grip more precisely. I tried prying out what must have been one of the pearls; no dice. The cage had no screws or fastenings I could tamper with, of course. It was simply designed to keep me here. I deeply, deeply missed having a smartphone. Not only would I have been able to use it as a light source, but I also could have used it to read or listen to audiobooks or any number of things. And If I¡¯d somehow had connectivity to the internet, I could have read manga. Isekai manga even. But audiobooks, podcasts, something I can listen to while my hands do things. Very important. As you might suspect, sounds became quite the thing. Once I heard dull flaps, as if someone were waving a heavy blanket in the air. Imagination in overdrive, I knew it was some ghastly monster that flew and ate idiots in cages. It went away, flapping off and downward. A breeze would occasionally ruffle my hair. It came from different directions each time. A low moan would sound sometimes when that happened. Once it said a sentence in a language I didn¡¯t understand. I didn¡¯t say anything in return. I didn¡¯t yell or whistle or call for help. Bad idea. This whole thing was about making me want to do that, and then scary things happening. Was there a camera somewhere around, with night vision? Watching me? And then the Harrigans would say: ho ho ho, we showed him who¡¯s boss. As if this weren¡¯t enough.Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. I got to know my crow cage. It had been made with a lot of care, and felt like a pretty high-tech thing. Nothing hand-made about it. The lock wasn¡¯t anything I could pick, of course; a fist-sized box of metal that grew from the rungs of the cage. It had an odd warmth to it. My fingers wouldn¡¯t fit into the old-fashioned keyhole. What was the warmth? Was this magic? I¡¯ve been avoiding the word. Magic. The rungs of the cage pressed into my back and legs. I took off my shirt and used it for a cushion to sit on; that helped a little. Unlike the lock, the metal never warmed, no matter how long I leaned against it. Always cold against my skin. It went on a long time. I got loopy. I was hungry and thirsty. I hadn¡¯t had a single meal since coming to Harrigan¡¯s island. Not even that free chicken sandwich. I think I slept; hard to tell when things look the same whether your eyes are open or closed. The things down here kept on with their lives. Once I was overwhelmed with a spectacular, powerful cinnamon smell, intense enough to make my eyes water. It was horrible. I love cinnamon rolls, and cinnamon desserts. This was such an overpowering stench that I might never want those things again. Whatever was making the scent also emitted heat, like a bakery was floating by in the dark. The smell and heat faded, which was a relief. I know at one point I fell asleep, because I was jolted awake by motion. Something had set my cage swinging. I never saw what it was. And I did have the opportunity: my cage went into long arcs of motion, and scraped against the vast stone wall. It swung three times, and sparks flared into life when the metal of the cage ground against stone. My eyes weren¡¯t ready for light. It was like the sun exploded into my head each time. I caught glimpses of the cave wall. The first two times I saw rough stone. The third time I saw designs carved into the wall, odd sigils and shapes, mosaic patterns of multicolored gems. They formed a design, maybe a mural, dozens of meters high¡­then I whooshed away again, into the dark. I tucked my arms and legs into the vehicle, like they say to do in theme parks, and grabbed the top rungs. I couldn¡¯t see where I was going, and the motion was making me want to throw up. Eventually the swinging stopped, and I felt safe putting my feet back out of the cage. The soles of my shoes tapped reassuringly against the stone once more. Home sweet home. Thirst was becoming a real issue. I mean, it had been already, but suddenly I was crazy desperate for something to drink. I picked up my shirt and started sucking on it, savoring the salt of my sweat. It helped a little. I stopped. Someone was coming. Pat pat pat, the sounds of something coming up the stairs from the limitless dark below. This world had things in it that weren¡¯t even remotely human. I¡¯d seen that crab in the water, and I knew that¡¯s not what one would sound like coming up stairs. Would they even be able to use stairs like these ones? But for the life of me, it sounded like a smallish person, pat-patting towards me. I pulled in my legs once more. I said nothing. The footfalls, if that¡¯s what they were, stopped. Then they started again, coming straight for me. I braced. I wanted to be ready if this had been what caused my cage to go careening through the dark earlier. The Bone ¡°Oh look, Owen Walsh making friends again.¡± It was a woman¡¯s voice. Familiar. ¡°Mandy?¡± ¡°Yeah, like the song. How are you holding up here?¡± She didn¡¯t sound winded from climbing the stairs. ¡°Eh. Hungry, thirsty. Bored.¡± ¡°Hold out your hand.¡± The smooth, cool ridged plastic of a water bottle brushed my fingertips. I grabbed it and drained it in seconds. ¡°Thank you,¡± I said when I could breathe again. The cage vibrated as she grabbed the bars. ¡°I wasn¡¯t expecting an artifact from the Iron Conclave,¡± she muttered. ¡°Those people can build. Watch your fingers.¡± She strained: not a big yell, or even a groan. But I could tell she was trying to rip the door from the silver cage. ¡°Hup,¡± she said at one point, trying again. No response from the cage. Not even a groan of bending metal, much less a clang of breaking bars. ¡°Don¡¯t¡­ah¡­don¡¯t get hurt,¡± I said lamely. ¡°This is the strongest me I can make. Okay, it needs to rest up. Talk to me, what did you find out?¡± ¡°Sean is his kid.¡± ¡°Ohhhhh.¡± She sighed. ¡°That¡¯s interesting. That¡¯s starting to make some sense. His dumb kid, and he¡¯s¡­what? Punishing his kid by forcing him to be here?¡± ¡°Training him, I think. They argued but Sean was definitely not the boss. He said he wants Sean to be a leader.¡± I heard her hands rubbing together in the dark. ¡°What¡¯s your take on that?¡± ¡°It really doesn¡¯t hold up,¡± I said. He¡¯s not helping Sean in any way I can see. What¡¯s his big plan, does he even have one?¡± ¡°I was hoping you¡¯d be able to tell me that. You¡¯re observant, and people don¡¯t try to kill you or run screaming when they see you like when I visit. Do you remember me at all?¡± ¡°No. I¡¯d remember an avenging superpowered shortstack.¡± I heard the smile. ¡°That¡¯s me. I was the first one to get in his face about all this. He made me take what he called the Big Dive.¡± The Big Dive. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. ¡°This world¡­are you cool if I say the word ¡®Magic¡¯? Things get magical here. I took the dive, and then I ¡­ something happened. This isn¡¯t my body, it looks just like it though. My actual body is far away, and these are animated remote Mandies I make. With magic.¡± ¡°Mandies. Like¡­drones.¡± ¡°Yep. I¡¯m sort of a water monster, I guess. This world wants people to do certain things, that¡¯s my theory anyway. It picked me for¡­do you know what an Undine is?¡± ¡°No.¡± I couldn¡¯t help myself. ¡°Are you in pain? Do you hurt? What happened to you? I mean¡­not that¡­¡± I trailed off. This girl didn¡¯t need sympathy from a doofus in a cage. ¡°Well, it¡¯s me, an Undine. There was a big voice, a lady yelling at me: RISE, MIGHTY UNDINE, AND DEFEND! Stupidly dramatic. Harrigan is something else. He¡¯s the first of us, the first human here. He brings in one person at a time.¡± ¡°Why? How?¡± I was getting mad. Mandy had been hurt by Harrigan, seriously hurt. All the idiot manliness hormones in my system were raging for vengeance. ¡°Why I don¡¯t know. But how? He¡¯s got magic, like me, but he¡¯s not a water-controlling sort of¡­mini kaiju. His thing, okay, ready? It¡¯s gonna get rough.¡± ¡°Rougher than this?¡± ¡°Good point. He can make people from nothing, from out of the empty air. I¡¯ve seen him do it. But he has to start with an existing recipe, he can¡¯t just whip someone up. That¡¯s the point of his Isekai phone thing. It¡­records a recipe. It allows him to make a copy.¡± I suddenly wanted her to hold my hand. Without my asking, her short fingers found mine and I wrapped both my mitts around hers. She was cold but it felt good. ¡°How did you find this out?¡± ¡°He went on a kind of supervillain rant about it. He made himself sound like the good guy, of course. Who doesn¡¯t? And I saw him bring a Cassie in. Bones and meat and skin and hair, all laid on, layer after layer. It was pretty gross, frankly.¡± Cassie. She was the yoga instructor that Armand was into. ¡°Does he¡­the girls¡­does he¡­¡± ¡°I wouldn¡¯t put it past him. I brought something you need to see. So to speak.¡± Something hard tapped at the bars. I felt for it. It was smooth, a long cylinder with knobs at either end. Organic. ¡°A bone.¡± Maybe two feet long, a little less, about an inch thick. I tapped it against the bars, tink tink. ¡°A human bone? A femur?¡± I remembered Mom¡¯s medical books. ¡°A femur.¡± ¡°Down there are tons of human bones. Piles of them. And a few water bottles, I guess.¡± ¡°Definitely human?¡± ¡°Oh yeah.¡± Steel was in her voice. Jeff Harrigan had the power to make people appear. Out of nothing. With magic. A nasty, nasty thought hit me. It wouldn¡¯t go away. ¡°You say he recorded recipes for people with the Isekai App.¡± ¡°Yes, I¡¯m pretty sure. He bragged about it.¡± ¡°And a recipe is just a list of instructions. You can use it as many times as you like.¡± ¡°Yes. Yes, Owen.¡± ¡°Whose leg bone is this?¡± But I knew. ¡°How many times has this happened? How many times has Harrigan made us in this place?¡± ¡°I¡¯m so sorry.¡± ¡°This is from me. My leg.¡± ¡°Yeah.¡± A Feat of Strength I thought. I held that femur. My femur. ¡°So can I eat it?¡± She snorted a surprised laugh. ¡°What? No!¡± ¡°But it¡¯s mine. It¡¯d be like¡­biting your fingernails. Not cannibalism at all.¡± ¡°That Owen Walsh wasn¡¯t you. He started out just like you did, with all the memories you had from Earth. But his life here was different, and had different experiences.¡± I turned the idea over in my head. ¡°A different guy.¡± ¡°Definitely. I mean, I never met this one. But I can tell it¡¯s yours. I¡¯m starting to be able to see what Harrigan sees, there¡¯s¡­a mark, kind of. This is the femur bone of an Owen Walsh, no doubt about it. Take it from Magic Monster Girl.¡± ¡°Did you know me before? I think¡­I think some people did.¡± I considered how Cassie had known my name. How Armand had seemed pretty familiar with me. And Sean, politely requesting that we avoid fires this time. I thought about Doctor Jeff Harrigan, telling me how I¡¯d feel, how he understood how I¡¯d feel. And he had, hadn¡¯t he? Sure. He knew me. Do your thing, Owen. That¡¯s what he¡¯d said. He¡¯s picked me out to do something, to fit here in some way. ¡°How many times has this happened?¡± I asked. ¡°A lot,¡± she said. ¡°There are layers of bones. I can see several dead versions of people I know down here, people walking around up there right now. Versions of me, too.¡± She took hold of the bars again, I could feel it. ¡°Trying again.¡± Another grunt of effort from her. This time something shifted; was I imagining it? No. The bars groaned, just a little, from her effort. Then she stopped. ¡°Dammit, dammit.¡± I heard her flapping her hands in the dark. ¡°Really tough, the Conclave, those jerks and their craftsmanship. Anyway, I knew you before, a little. An earlier version that wasn¡¯t brand new.¡± ¡°Was I nice to you, at least?¡± ¡°You could say that. I didn¡¯t know you very well, you really weren¡¯t talkative. But Harrigan announced I¡¯d be taking his big dive and you got crazy mad. You set the camp on fire. You charged around causing serious damage. You had passages through the forest, and in the ruins, and the big guys couldn¡¯t catch you.¡±Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. I heard her sit on the steps, resting again. It sounded the same as her footsteps had. Like skin. I wondered what she was wearing but didn¡¯t ask. ¡°They¡¯d try to get you to fight them, and then you¡¯d just disappear, leaving something burning that they had to deal with.¡± I thought about this. ¡°Did I have any cool lines? Jokes, like Spider-Man?¡± ¡°No. It was pretty creepy; it was like you¡¯d given up on everything. They were getting really scared. Then other people started following you, doing what you were doing. Making torches from the fires you¡¯d started. It wasn¡¯t something Sean or his dad were ready for.¡± I could see that happening. Me flipping out, I mean. Mandy was¡­really great. She deserved to have people rioting for her. ¡°Didn¡¯t keep him from getting you, though.¡± ¡°No, but it was a good try. Doc ended up killing you and all the others who rioted. He can do that; you should know. I watched as you and your hooligans just ¡­ burned up as you charged Sean. Green fire. Only black bones left. Sean was coated in black ashes, and he started coughing. Then my turn, as the survivors watched me fall. I didn¡¯t burn, I did something else.¡± She was quiet for a while. ¡°He made them sing my song.¡± I didn¡¯t know what song she meant. But anger, so much, filled me. Shaking the bars like an ape occurred to me; I rejected it as overly dramatic. I sat back against the cage. This was not going to fly. Cool wind blew from the dark. It calmed me, a little bit. I thought about that raft up there, the one on the beach. I remembered the zigzag and the semicircle carved into it. It hadn¡¯t been a semicircle. It had been a worn letter O. And the zigzag was a W. My initials. A message to myself. I¡¯d built it that raft. An earlier version of myself had made it, and left it there for¡­ I¡¯d get out. I¡¯d get away. And I¡¯d start some trouble, better believe it, Doctor Jeff Harrigan. ¡°I gotta hurry,¡± Mandy said, standing. I could tell by the position of her voice. She dusted her palms together. ¡°Company¡¯s coming, and it¡¯s my job to stop it.¡± ¡°It is? Who?¡± ¡°The House of Fists. They¡¯re noticing what Harrigan is doing, and they want in, or something. They suck.¡± She took hold of the cage again. She strained mightily, silently. It went on and on. The bars groaned faintly, then loudly, then a screech of metal on metal¨C ¡°Dammit!¡± Mandy shouted. Cold water splashed me. A little flew into my mouth: salt. ¡°Dammit dammit¡­¡± ¡°What happened?¡± ¡°I¡­I cut off some of my fingers,¡± she said. She sounded embarrassed. ¡°The bars are too strong and they just sliced through.¡± ¡°Oh crap, oh no¨C¡± I panicked. She had been trying to help me. I started breathing too fast, I buried my face in my hands¡­ ¡°Easy, easy. I¡¯m not hurt. But this Mandy is done for. It¡¯s bleeding out pretty bad.¡± I could hear water pattering on the stone. ¡°I can¡¯t get you out this way,¡± she said. Her voice was growing fainter. ¡°I¡¯m so sorry, Owen. If he comes down again¨C¡± But then she stopped speaking. I called for her. Gone. The Green Radio I¡¯m not ready to talk about what happened next. It was a long time with no food or water. Or sanitary facilities. Just the cage and the dark. It was designed to break me down. It did. The world consisted of the cage. I slept a lot. Everything hurt. I was very thirsty. Dry mouth, lips and tongue. When I felt my face, my eyes seemed wrong. I kept fainting. I know because I¡¯d bang my head against the bars. Dizziness and aches, all the time. I hallucinated. My mom in her nursing scrubs, demanding to know who did this to me and filling the air with Spanish-accented threats on my behalf. My dog from when I was a kid; the best dog, my other self. I was able to pet her again, feel her warm fur through the bars. I sang to her, silly songs like when she¡¯d been alive. She kissed me with her slobbery tongue. Both visitors had been dead a long time. There were times when I was lucid. Intellectually I knew this was just a routine Harrigan was running to keep people in line. It wouldn¡¯t work if I died. Not as well, anyway. I¡¯d be brought up to the camp again. The other campers would see my misery, drink it in and say: well at least I ain¡¯t him. Better keep my head down so I never go through what Owen did. Or Mandy. Then what? I¡¯d taken to tapping the femur bone Mandy had given me against my teeth. Not chewing on it. Then what? One day in the dark I woke up and was feelin¡¯ blue. And I saw a light. It was probably a tiny, tiny dull glow, a yellow spot on the stone wall near the stairs. But to me, after so long in the dark it was like a magnesium flare. I actually held up a hand to block the blinding brilliance of it. A voice spoke, loud and inhuman. Clicks, whistles, groans. Then in another language; this one was a lot of gongs and hoots. Then in another language, and another. A loud pop, like a gunshot. A real one, not a movie one; real ones sound like a handclap. Stone cracked around the yellow light. More pops. Something was coming through the rock around the light. Vines, leaves. A rush of them, growing and twisting, Tearing the stone away. A flat, artificial surface beneath. It was glossy, wooden. The light now came from a little window, I could see, with numbers and a single vertical line within. A silver knob beneath. The stone fragments fell away, pattering on the stairs as the vines tore and grew. There was a sense of violence, anger, urgency to the work. The vines grew until all of the wall I could see was covered with a dense foliage, green and furious in the dark. This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. A burst of stone. A glowing circle, perfectly shaped and smooth, about the size of a dinner plate, had appeared above the window. Its surface was a cloth, fancy and golden. Suddenly music blared from it. It was an audio speaker. I was looking at a radio, surrounded by vines and blasting from a cave wall. As the sound boomed around the cave, big, colorful flowers exploded from the vines around the radio. Angry, angry flowers. The air filled with acrid perfume. Stone tore, huge chunks of it began falling, shattering on the stairs. I¡¯d heard the song before, somewhere. It was a famous, old old song, old when my mom was born. I later learned it was called Moonlight Serenade by Glenn Miller. A sleepy, joyful song, no words. Not an angry song at all. But it fit, and I don¡¯t know why. This was no hallucination. This was mine. MINE. I felt it in my bones. Mine. Mandy had some kind of water thing she did. Dr. Jeff Harrigan had his let¡¯s-make-people-and-kill-them thing. This was me. Mine. I could feel it. The music entered my veins, filling me with energy, or at least pulling me from death¡¯s door. Imagine being at the edge of sleep, and a bucket of ice water hits. Not pleasant, but you¡¯re awake. Very awake. And pretty angry. An icy bucket of water is no joke, after all. I was still locked up, however. The radio hadn¡¯t gotten me out. I shook the bars with new energy. No result, of course. I knew, somehow, that whatever had happened hadn¡¯t made me strong like Mandy. That¡¯s not what this was. But energy surged through me. I was full of it; whatever dehydration had been doing to my body was all over, yesterday¡¯s news. What had happened? I remembered that Mandy had said something about becoming¡­what she¡¯d become. That the world here wanted people for certain things. That Harrigan had something, and Mandy did too. Magic. Was that me? Is that what had happened just now? Was I like them in some way? But I hadn¡¯t gotten super strength or shapechanging or the power of cage disintigration. I had a radio in a rock wall, surrounded by vines in the dark, where no sun would ever shine on their leaves. Moonlight Serenade came to an end. And a voice came from the speaker, urbane, male, polished in an old-fashioned way. ¡°Our friend Owen Walsh was in a bind. But he knew that help was on the way!¡± There was a pause. It went on. I tried to speak, to say I didn¡¯t know, but I couldn¡¯t talk. My throat was full of dust. ¡°Tuning in to the Green Radio will put the reet in your pleat, the drape in your shape, the zoot in your suit! Suddenly Owen knew that Sean Harrigan was on his way down here to get him out at this very moment!¡± Really. ¡°That¡¯s right, good old Sean. His father had made him do it and Sean was in poor spirits. He planned on taking his frustration out on whoever he rescued today, and he was expecting a weak or unconscious sad sack. Did that sound like Owen?¡± I shook my head. I clutched that femur bone. It creaked as my grip tightened. Batter up, yeah? Seans Chore He came down, dragging a stretcher behind him. It went clunk, clunk, clunk, hitting every step. He had his headband with the blazing LED light on it. He did seem to be unhappy, the poor dear. I waited, slumped against the back of my cage. I was full of trembling, furious energy. The Radio had fallen silent. Its light had gone out. Sneaky, both of us. ¡°Sup,¡± Sean said morosely. He sighed when I didn¡¯t answer. ¡°I gotta put you on this and haul you all the way back up. Don¡¯t suppose you can walk?¡± I didn¡¯t answer, and he sighed again. ¡°Worst day of my life,¡± he muttered. He reached into one of his cargo pant pockets and there it was: the fancy key. My eyes widened. He saw it and grinned wearily. ¡°Want out?¡± He tapped the key against the bars. ¡°I could ask you to do stuff,¡± he said. ¡°If you really wanted out.¡± He pantomimed undoing the button on his shorts. Then he stopped and looked around nervously. ¡°I really just want to go back up, though. Not good with the dark.¡± He brought the key over to the big lock. ¡°Plenty of scared chicks up there anyway, don¡¯t gotta slum it with some starved screwup who can¡¯t respect the chain of command.¡± Click. The door swung open. He sighed and reached for my wrist. I hopped out, full of pep and can-do energy. He goggled. I think he was surprised that I could move at all; he must have been used to finding people down here in a different state. I had his key, instantly. Like taking it from a toddler. His face went into a gape of terror. I pushed the big knob of the femur bone against his chest. Sean sat heavily in the cage, which swung and rattled. His legs poked out neatly, like mine had. I shut the door, turned the lock. Snap! Easy. The Green Radio blazed to life behind me. It played a fanfare, loaded with trumpets and a cymbal clash: Ta Daaaaaah! ¡°Oh no,¡± Sean said, suddenly much more engaged with his work. His eyes beneath their headlamp were wide, teary. I should clarify something: this wasn¡¯t some kind of super-powered cool maneuver. This was just me being in better shape than I¡¯d been in days. And Sean being an idiot, of course; can¡¯t forget that part. He grabbed and pulled the bars, shaking the cage so it rocked and swung in place. His voice got high, cracked. ¡°Dad¡¯s going to kill you for real! Permanently!¡± I held up the key. Sean froze. I thought about tossing the key into the infinite dark. Would there be a way to get Sean out of the cage if I did that?Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. The Green Radio narrated once more. ¡°Owen, with sudden clarity, knew that Sean would die in the cage if the key were lost. There were no tools that could cut that metal, not here, not posessed by Sean¡¯s father.¡± Sean and I stayed like that, frozen. I thought about pretending to throw it, like one might fake out a dog when playing fetch. I didn¡¯t. Dogs don¡¯t find it funny and Sean probably wouldn¡¯t either. I placed the key in the stretcher Sean had lugged down here. If he was relieved, he didn¡¯t show it. His breath was coming in short, quick gasps. Like mine had when I¡¯d been paralyzed. He¡¯d brought a pile of the scuffed-up drinking water bottles. I downed two of them. I¡¯d read you¡¯re supposed to take little sips after suffering severe dehydration, but I had no problems. I held up the femur for him to examine. Sean went very quiet. ¡°Tell me what you and Dad are doing,¡± I said. It took me a few tries to form words; I hadn¡¯t spoken in a long time, but he got it eventually. ¡°Building a new world. A new civilization.¡± His voice shook. I looked at the radio. ¡°Well?¡± The Radio spoke in an urgent, hushed tone, like a good storyteller. I realized there was a bed of tense background music, a decently-sized orchestra. ¡°Sean Harrigan, desperate and fearful, had only the vaguest inkling of his father¡¯s plan. And Owen knew that Sean would say anything to get out of this predicament, anything at all.¡± ¡°Does Sean have a set of bones down here like I do?¡± The Radio gave a dramatic musical sting. ¡°If only Owen and Sean knew the grim truth! Sean had been created and destroyed more times than any other human in this slice. Sean¡¯s father had been working on this project for years.¡± ¡°What is that,¡± Sean finally said, staring at the Radio on its cave wall. The light from his headlamp scanned up and down, left and right. The wall was all twisting vines, thrashing leaves. The plants made a rustling, straining sound, squeezing into the rock. The many flowers, all types and colors, moved, following his lamp. I thought a moment. ¡°Radio, tell me what Dr. Jeff Harrigan is doing with all of us, please.¡± A song came on. A big band, rousing, a marching song. Hmm. I thought about my time in the dark. Carefully, I pulled the stretcher through the vines and left it just out of Sean¡¯s reach. I took three more water bottles and put them in the pockets of my cargo shorts. Four left; I arranged them and the key artfully, so he could see them with his headlamp whenever he liked. He¡¯d never be able to touch them; his dad would have to hand them over when he came down to get him later today. I waved farewell to Sean Harrigan. Pointed at him with the femur. ¡°Wait,¡± he said. ¡°C¡¯mon, bro! Dude, nobody has to know!¡± As I went up the stairs, marching, actually, to the music, He lost it.. ¡°Oh no no no NO GOD PLEASE NO I¡¯M SORRY PLEASE I¡¯LL DO ANYTHING NO GOD PLEEEEEEEE¡ª¡± his voice broke. He began coughing, making other noises, throwing up, possibly. On the Radio, a vocalist joined the marching song, an old-timey soprano. ¡°Seventy-six trombones led the big paraaaade¡­¡± As I ascended, the Radio would tear its way from the wall ahead of me, vines and flowers, the little tuning dial, the speaker. As I marched past, leading the big parade of one, the Radio would rip itself out of the wall ahead of me again, keeping me company, giving me light and marching music. I could hear him still, his screaming, as he found his voice again. Faint but not for lack of effort. He sounded pretty upset about things. ¡°For the love of God, Montressor,¡± I said. Up. And up. Commercial Break Every twenty steps or so I¡¯d pass the radio. As I ascended the stone stairs it would provide light from its little tuning window. I peered at the numbers within: I didn¡¯t recognize the symbols. The warm yellow light was nice, though. The vines would thrash out of my way as I carefully navigated the rough steps. If I ever felt I was losing my balance, I grabbed them on the wall to keep from falling into the dark. ¡°So tell me about yourself,¡± I said. ¡°Owen had heard the announcement and knew he was now Steward of the Observatory, and therefore had the aid of the Green Radio.¡± I passed the Radio, which was now playing a familiar military-sounding tune. All jaunty whistling. As I went up, it would tear itself from the wall ahead of me and then, presumably, fade away as I passed, then do it all over again. ¡°Announcement? I didn¡¯t hear that. Wait, there was a lot of stuff in other languages. Was that you?¡± ¡°The Green Radio was unaffiliated with any beings who make such statements. However it could confirm that the Radio was here to help, even if Owen Walsh himself was perhaps not the best choice.¡± ¡°Uh huh. What do you do?¡± ¡°Entertainment and enlightenment. And now, Arte Shaw and his Orchestra, performing Frenesi.¡± A breezy, playful song echoed through the cavern. ¡°I have questions. Why am I no longer weak from dehydration?¡± The Announcer spoke over the music. ¡°Owen was more now than he¡¯d been. He had survived the Forlorn Encystment, which is a feat highly regarded in this Slice. He had joined a very select group, one with only three members.¡± ¡°Me. Mandy, and Jeff Harrigan, correct?¡± ¡°Correct. The Undine and the First Human. Owen had gifts comparable to theirs.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t appreciate being told I¡¯m a Chosen One. I hate when the movie has a Chosen One. It¡¯s dumb. Maybe it¡¯ll be okay because I¡¯m not the only Chosen One here, but I hate that crap.¡± I walked past the radio, yet again. It was playing something almost hilariously dramatic and serious: a huge string section and a clashing piano. ¡°Can you change the station please?¡± I asked. The numbers in the little window spun. The announcer spoke again. ¡°Dr. Jeff Harrigan sat pensively in his meager laboratory, complaining about his son.¡± A swell of background music: a full orchestra, a melancholy tune. ¡°Always so slow,¡± said the voice of Dr. Jeff Harrigan. ¡°BLEEP kid, alway so BLEEP slow, no initiative.¡± A sigh. The Radio had censored his swear. ¡°Doctor Harrigan poked miserably at his cracked tablet,¡± the announcer narrated. ¡°From the available evidence, a deduction could have been made: Harrigan had sent Sean to fetch Owen Walsh some time ago, and hadn¡¯t heard from him all afternoon.¡± ¡°Are you spying on him?¡± I asked. ¡°Are you a sort of¡­crystal ball?¡± Dramatic sting of violins. The announcer spoke quickly. ¡°Harrigan¡¯s head jerked upright! He scanned the room, eyes narrow.¡± ¡°Who the BLEEP is that,¡± Harrigan¡¯s voice came through the speaker. He was nervy, angry. ¡°Who said that just now?¡±Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. ¡°Change the station,¡± I said. ¡°Are you worried about hand sharpness? Friend, may we offer you Vingey¡¯s Hand Sharpener? Remember: Sharp hands are happy hands!¡± A woman¡¯s voice spoke; she sounded old-timey herself, just like the announcer. ¡°My broodlets just love having sharp hands for the Night of Screams, and as their mother it¡¯s my job to make them their lethal best!¡± It was a commercial, a sort of alien advertisement. Sharp hands are happy hands. A song began. I think it was a song; it was a series of noises that could have been someone wrecking electronics in a metal dumpster. There were words, I think, but I wasn¡¯t sure. I asked, ¡°Can you look at me? Can you see the stairs, can you see if any trouble is up ahead?¡± ¡°Owen Walsh, the resentful and whiny Steward, stomped up the rough-hewn stone stairs carved thousands of years before by the Ari Maspai. He looked stronger than he had before coming down here. He still possessed an indefinable quality of low intelligence and lack of ambition, however, and inarguably low moral character. Occasionally he would pass his good friend the Green Radio, a presence of true magnificence and wisdom. Owen knew he should be inspired by such an ally.¡± ¡°That¡¯s good,¡± I said. ¡°How¡¯s Sean? Can you look at him?¡± ¡°Sean Harrigan was calmer. He¡¯d ceased his weeping and was currently trying to reach the key to his cage before his headlamp burned out.¡± I stopped. I turned and faced the long stairs down into the dark. This was wrong. I wasn¡¯t anywhere near as angry as I¡¯d been and this was wrong. But I had plans. The femur in my hand was cold. My femur. I couldn¡¯t take the risk of getting Sean involved. I couldn¡¯t. I¡¯d end up like this, like ¡­ bones, and another Owen would come after me and another and another¡­ ¡°But he doesn¡¯t deserve this,¡± I said. ¡°Nobody deserves this.¡± ¡°Owen Walsh not only survived it but gained a soul.¡± I faced the speaker and the glowing yellow tuning window. ¡°Explain please. In terms a dumb guy like me can understand.¡± ¡°Owen was now the Observatory Steward. Only a being with a soul can take that office.¡± ¡°A soul?¡± I¡¯d never really been into the idea of souls, religion, afterlives. Everyone is meat. ¡°I have a soul? I didn¡¯t before?¡± ¡°No Human had ever had a soul before the arrival of Doctor Jeff Harrigan, the First Human. Then Mandy Nakahara, the Undine, through her ordeal, gained a soul and terrible power. Now Owen Walsh, the Steward of the Observatory Sapientiae, is the third Human to ever be granted a soul.¡± ¡°Uh huh. This feels sketchy. Is this a game, after all?¡± The music stopped. ¡°No.¡± The Radio¡¯s voice was suddenly cold, ringing, firm. ¡°Not a game. Not a game. The goal of the Radio was to get Owen to his Observatory. Then the real work would begin. Continue, Owen Walsh.¡± I didn¡¯t move. I listened; I couldn¡¯t hear Sean¡¯s cries any longer. But the Radio had said he¡¯d stopped that anyway. ¡°Will his dad come get him out?¡± ¡°The Green Radio has few limitations, but seeing the future is among them. Dr. Harrigan had been down here many times. It was likely he would return if he knew his son was here.¡± ¡°His son whose bones help fill a mass grave.¡± I thought. While I did, the Radio played one of the most maudlin, scratchy old-timey songs I have ever heard: Friends may forsake me Let them all forsake me I still have you, Sonny boy ¡°Oh god, stop that. All right. I¡¯ll make sure Dad Harrigan knows. If I get Sean out myself he¡¯ll try to beat me up or throw me off this cliff.¡± I began ascending again. ¡°Look ahead, if you can.¡± ¡°Far up the stairs, past the waterfall formed in the Molecular Conflagration of the Celestial Sisters, the cavern¡¯s exit opened into a lush nighttime jungle. A party was in force nearby, the doomed, miserable campers of Harrigan¡¯s Island dancing to decades-old music supplied by their captor.¡± The sounds of a desultory gathering. An oldish song played: a male vocalist. ¡°It cuts like a knife! But it feels so right¡­¡± The announcer continued. ¡°The suspicious women were dancing mostly with one another, and the males were egging each other on.¡± Ugh. Parties are the worst. ¡°How long till we get there?¡± Character Sheets It was an hour before I got to the top, according to the Radio. The huge cave suddenly had a ceiling instead of blackness. The Radio had mentioned it would be night outside, so I didn¡¯t get any daylight filtering in. But brightness seeped from above, bouncing off the stones as the stairs twisted around sweeping curves. The exit was covered in dense vegetation. It was surprisingly small; I had to squeeze through in parts. I hadn¡¯t remembered that on the way down. Gaps in my consciousness, perhaps; I didn¡¯t know what Harrigan did with his paralysis zap or how it worked. The cool night air was lovely. The sky was full of stars and what had to be the Milky Way, and fireflies spiraled slowly in the trees. It was good to be out of that cave. Out of that cage. Distant classic rock thumped away to my left; Van Halen lamenting the woes of being Hot for Teacher. That would be the party, and I would be avoiding it. Or would I? How would I be able to get Sean help, down there in the dark? Leave a note on a post-it? ¡°Dear Doc H: Locked your kid in a cage five miles underground my bad LOL.¡± Doctor Harrigan had seemed to hear my voice when the Radio had been watching him; could I get at him that way? It seemed dangerous to let him know I was free. Bad idea. I simply had to leave. The ocean stretched out ahead beyond the trees. It was shimmering under an absurdly huge moon, one that had some unfamiliarity but still seemed like the moon I knew. I could sneak down to the beach, get that raft and belly flop on it, and if I got paralyzed the current could carry me away until it wore off. So many assumptions. Was there a range to the paralysis effect? What if Harrigan just decided to fry me instantly with his green fire, as Mandy had described? I asked the Radio, which had torn itself from a handy carven stone column. ¡°The range of Harrrigan¡¯s Acetylcholine Receptor Antagonist Pulse was limited to a single kilometer, according to witnessed usage. Its effect is limited to seven hours maximum. This was what the Radio observed on his tablet, and was currently observing as Harrigan watched his partygoing campers.¡± I held a finger to my lips, trying to ensure that I didn¡¯t somehow transmit my voice again. ¡°Owen was currently off the air.¡± ¡°Mandy would mess this place up, I think. She¡¯d help us get out. Is she around?¡± ¡°The Undine is currently in a days-long battle with the House of Fists. She is in combat with the The Venerable Trichinella Vanguard, and while she seemed to be prevailing the outcome was uncertain.¡± I was on my own. ¡°So I need to get a kilometer away at least without Harrigan knowing.¡± I could do that. I could do it easy. I looked at the shining ocean. It was inviting, calling me, begging me. Come out here, it said, and get that anime girlfriend. And maybe the chicken sandwich, finally. But Sean was my responsibility. Did it matter if, as the Radio had said, he¡¯d died many times? What was one more death-and-rebirth, really? He¡¯d be back the next day in a better mood than I¡¯d left him in. I frowned. It mattered. I made my way through the jungle, past the ruins, to the thumping classic rock. I found myself in narrow tunnels of foliage. I passed a familiar spot: the patch of dead leaves concealing the lighter and that white plastic bottle of Kingsford. Things that Dead Owen had left here, I suspected. That guy got around. Did I want to take those things? Start a barbecue, as the bottle had advertised, with odorless, easily-lit property damage? I did not. It hadn¡¯t worked last time. And the Owen who¡¯d done it hadn¡¯t seemed particularly optimistic. Let¡¯s try something new. The Radio faded behind me, and didn¡¯t seem able to follow if there wasn¡¯t a suitable stone surface. Or maybe it didn¡¯t come along because it was a jerk. Some superpower. Finding the party wasn¡¯t difficult; it was loud and bright. The gathering wasn¡¯t as much of a bummer as I¡¯d thought; there were dozens of people dancing and waving their arms and performing courtship behaviors. Dancing was the important part. The girls shook their breasts, the boys punched imaginary foes. Good lord. It was in a large clearing, and Harrigan had mounted a tinny speaker up in one of the trees. A huge bonfire blazed. Everyone was outlined in blazing orange and red. It all seemed appropriately festive-or-satanic, depending on what you were looking for.Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. I looked for someone recognizable. A guy from the tent, maybe the stand-up fellow who¡¯d crapped in my shoe, whoever had done that. Or Armand, he¡¯d be okay. Or whatsername, the yoga girl, she seemed decent. Cassie. There she was, standing on the edge of the crowd with one of the ubiquitous recycled water bottles. She had zeroed in on me somehow as I lurked in the treeline. She gaped at me, then looked aggressively casual. She sidestepped over, inconspicuous as a road flare. I wanted her to go away; she was pantomiming indifference so hard I almost laughed out loud. She¡¯d done her hair up as nice as she¡¯d been able to here; and the shirt was knotted over her flat belly. Shorts rolled around her waist to show more skin. Her eyes were wide; she was excited, hopeful. ¡°You¡¯re trying again,¡± she shouted over Van Halen. ¡°Take us with you!¡± ¡°How would I do that?¡± I pointed my extra femur at the mass of twitching, writhing dancers. ¡°Too many! I don¡¯t have a damn cruise ship!¡± I don¡¯t know why I was surprised. Did she know the previous Owen Walsh who¡¯d tried this had been burned up and remade? It seemed unlikely, but this wasn¡¯t the place to discuss it. She pointed at me, making an absurdly stern face, her big eyes bugged out and her mouth an angry line. Then she raised that finger in a gesture that said: you just wait here one moment, mister. And ran off. God dammit. People again. However. Perhaps it could be done. I latched on to the idea. I could sneak some people out of here, past the kilometer limit of Harrigan¡¯s zap. I could help. Come back, get more. Had Mandy been trying that? Si puedes ayudar, hazlo, hijo m¨ªo. Time and again, that¡¯s what Mom had said. If you can help, do it. Or face the chancla, kid. That philosophy had killed her. However: okay. As Cassie moved in the crowd, I saw a single point of light, a dot, in a color I couldn¡¯t name. More-than-purple. It sat inside her skull, shining through it. As I watched it expanded. No, it didn¡¯t expand, that¡¯s not right. It contained more information than just a single pinpoint of color. As I watched the point of light, things popped into my head. Imagine seeing a book on a shelf. It¡¯s got cover art that catches your eye; in this case a fit, skinny blonde girl. Now imagine the book flies at your face and opens its pages. It¡¯s full of words and illustrations. I¡¯ll put it into text here, but it was much more efficient in reality. Bolts of crystal-clear understanding stabbed into my brain. Like remembering something you hadn¡¯t thought of in months. And here it was: Cassie Erica Nillson. Age at time of recording: 19. Atlantic time zone. Level one human. Life expectancy 79-85. OCEAN breakdown: Openness 30 Conscientiousness 60 Extraversion 80 Agreeableness 40 Neuroticism 30 Iteration 43 Iteration age 979.30 hours More kept flooding into my head. I didn¡¯t understand a lot of it. Her favorite foods, her emotional triggers, Cassie¡¯s family history. I jerked my face away from her and squeezed my eyes shut. The flood of data halted. What. I looked at another of the dancers. The glowing dot appeared in his head. And the same download began again, but this time from him: Joshua Seth Benowitz Age at time of recording: 17. Atlantic time zone. Level one human. Life expectancy 70-81. I closed my eyes, cutting off the flow of young Mr. Benowitz¡¯ life story. I didn¡¯t want to know. Each of them, on inspection, had the all-knowing blinking star of personality traits and information. A summary of their personalities in cold jargon. If I looked too long, I got a lot of information I didn¡¯t comprehend in the least. Things like a Body Mass Index. Likelihood of Addiction. Familial Strength Matrix. Ambition Delta Wave. Sleep Deprivation Tolerance. Attention Span Duration. Impulse Control Measure. Depressive State Induction Likelihood. Information Retention Rate. Introversion-Extroversion Balance¡­ On and on. I didn¡¯t want it. It was too much, too invasive. I turned away. And of course, Doctor Jeff Harrigan was there, gaping at me. He was lit by the bonfire, flickering in the shadows of the dancers. The screen of that computer bathed his skinny face in blue light. He gave me the gray smile. ¡°How? How did you do it?¡± His voice was full of wonder. He tucked his cracked tablet under his arm and offered me a hand to shake. Pulled it back, and I swear he did a little dance of joy that spun him in place. ¡°Do you know how long I¡¯ve waited for one of you to¡­¡± He spun, shot a fist into the air, almost dropped his computer. Laughed. He was overjoyed. The smile was sincere, possibly for the first time I¡¯d seen it. Eggs and Omelettes He himself didn¡¯t have the all-knowing dot. Instead he radiated, blazed with the more-than-purple color. His body was limned in the glow, which cast no shadow, but still hurt to look at. I waited for the load of information to flood into my head about him, what he was up to, why he was doing this. About damn time. Nothing. The glow dimmed, clamped down. A slammed door. Nothing. ¡°Can¡¯t see me, yeah?¡± He laughed with genuine happiness. ¡°But you can see them! Not me, them!¡± And I can¡¯t see YOU anymore!¡± He shook his head in wonder. ¡°All this time and it was you, not Sean, not any of them! The problem child! The goddamn ARSONIST!¡± Again with the happy laughing, the sheer joy. That joy wasn¡¯t contagious. I remembered Phase Two: Leave. The extra femur was cold in my hand. A dead human. A dead me. ¡°Whatever this is has to stop,¡± I said. ¡°Whatever murderous dumbassery you¡¯re doing.¡± He frowned melodramatically, clownishly sad. ¡°Aw, man, when you say that stuff ¡­ it cuts like a knife!¡± Then he grinned, the glee back. ¡°But it feels sooo right.¡± He danced with unfettered happiness. ¡°I don¡¯t see the shine on you, like it is on me. It¡¯s like with Mandy Nakahara, she has one but it doesn¡¯t show when she¡¯s around.¡± I didn¡¯t know what to do. I looked back at the dancers. What would they do, if alerted? ¡°You can see the dots on them, yeah? The little data nodes? That¡¯s mine! I call them Quantum Biometric Resonance Tags,¡± Harrigan gushed. ¡°The QBRT, yeah? The App grabbed them from your phone, right? And then¡­oh, Owen! We need to TALK!¡± ¡°Owen I found him let¡¯s¨C¡± Cassie stopped, saw me and Harrigan facing one another. ¡°Ho boy,¡± she concluded. She was hauling Armand by the hand, and he looked deleriously happy about it. Then he saw Harrigan and his eyes stuck out like doorknobs. Armand Elizondo Fonesca Level One Human Pacific¨C I looked away before I could get distracted by the infodump into my head about Armand. ¡°We¡¯re leaving,¡± I said to Harrigan. ¡°Meet me there, Abajo junto a la balsa, Romeo.¡± Armand grinned goofily and ran for the raft, Cassie springing after him like a gazelle. ¡°You think I care about NPC losers?¡± Harrigan demanded. ¡°They can do whatever the hell they want! We have YOU, Owen, and it¡¯s all we need!¡±If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. I held up the femur, my spare femur. Props can be more effective than a cool line. I didn¡¯t point at him or brandish it like a wizard staff. I did wiggle it, though: looky here, Doc. He shrugged. ¡°Eggs and omelettes, man! Stay with me, we can work it out, we can find out how it happened!¡± He took a step forward, suddenly grave. ¡°We can do it again, for more people. For Sean.¡± I remembered why I¡¯d come to the party. ¡°Sean is¨CSTOP!¡± Because he was grabbing for his stylus, and bringing it to that tablet, the one that made people lose muscle control, that would allow him to plop me back in the cage again, in a mad science lab, into a jail cell, anything at all. Whatever he wanted. What followed was not a balletic, cool battle like in the movies. It was two klutzes flailing at one another. I got a pretty good hit in to start with: I wildly swung the femur, the leg of Dead Owen Walsh. I¡¯d been aiming for the tablet but I got his stylus instead, and it went flying. Harrigan¡¯s jaw dropped. His gaze followed the stylus as it spun into the bushes. ¡°You little¨C¡± He spun to face me again. He took the tablet in both hands and swung it at my face. A pro-wrestling move people ordinarily perform with a folding chair instead of office equipment. That tablet conked me on the top of the head. It hurt. I lashed out and pushed the tablet away, and it flew from his grasp, landing face-up in a patch of soft leaves. Now that screen bore two cracks; it flickered in a wounded, busted manner. ¡°Oh you son of a ¡­¡± Harrigan left me alone to fret over his machine. Then he stood up straight and faced the bonfire with its dancers. ¡°Hey, campers! HEY CAMPERS, EMERGENCY!¡± His voice got high, screechy, impossible to ignore. ¡°EMERGENCY OVER HERE!¡± They stopped dancing and started coming over. A mass of young people silhouetted against the bonfire. People with glowing stars inside their skulls. Would they have sided with me, instead of him? I didn¡¯t know. I turned and scrambled into the jungle. ¡°Help me find it! Help me or¨C¡± I didn¡¯t hear what he threatened them with. I fled through my jungle passages, batting branches aside as they slapped my face. Something was startled, a little screeching ball of black fur that scurried up a tree and might have yelled alien curse words at me, I don¡¯t know. I crashed from the jungle and found myself on the path, the only path here. I ran for the beach, ran faster than I¡¯d ever run, trying desperately to keep from tripping and tumbling down the hill. As I went down the path I saw collections, constellations of the blazing information dots. The Quantum Resonance Tags, or whatever he¡¯d called them. But the party was uphill, and the tags there were jumping and wiggling. Dancing, conversing, looking for a stylus lost in the bushes. These dots were motionless. They were in clusters, tight groups. Stacks. The info-dots weren¡¯t five-or-six feet above the ground at head height. There were decidedly not dancing. They were underground, just under the trees. Names flooded into my brain until I pulled my eyes away: Adeline Marie Beaumont. Ethan Cole Donovan. Naomi Jade Chen. Sean Jeffrey Harrigan. Mass graves. Containing people who still lived, some of whom were grooving up there at the party. There were patches of the things, all up and down the hill on either side of the path. The island was full of them. As I looked out to sea, I spotted more clusters of the formerly human markers, the little stars that had been people. Underwater, under the sea floor. Hundreds. Thousands. Yeah, time to go. Phase Two Armand and Cassie had already dragged the raft out. Moonlight gleamed on frantic splashing as they pushed it to the open water. I knew it was them, because I could see their tags gleaming inside their skulls. Who else would it be, really? I set foot in the water and hit the raft running, adding to their efforts. ¡°Push push, go go go,¡± I said. ¡°A kilometer away, we have to get far away!¡± ¡°From the zap? It won¡¯t work?¡± Armand asked breathlessly. ¡°How do you know that?¡± ¡°I¡­¡± I have a radio that told me that, I didn¡¯t say. Where was the Radio? What would it have done, anyway? Played Benny Goodman with lethal force? Advertise to our foes with surreal commercials? The water was cool, almost cold, and I didn¡¯t care. I¡¯d slapped my spare femur on the narrow, rather pathetic raft. The bone had a glowing dot, a tag deep inside. Owen Mateo Walsh, it helpfully told me. Our feet dug into that white sand and soon we were floating, feet unable to reach the sea floor, clinging to the raft that bore my initials. Only our heads and hands were above the surface; the rest of us were paddling, pushing the raft. Heading out to sea. ¡°The current, gotta catch the current,¡± I muttered. Cassie punched Armand¡¯s shoulder. ¡°I told you he was doing that!¡± ¡°With the tent stakes? I didn¡¯t argue with you, don¡¯t be like that¨C¡± I looked back at the island. ¡°Here they are,¡± I said. Because I could see the path leading from the top of Harrigan¡¯s island was filling with the Quantum Resonance Tags of people. They were coming down fast, not aware they were passing the mass graves filled with identical-but-dead versions of themselves. They ran down to the beach and fanned out into the forest splashing a little ways into the sea, shouting and laughing. They called my name. Mockingly. Owww-eennn, where aaaare youuu? Just having fun on the beach at night. Hunting for someone. I¡¯d known it would come to this. If they caught me it would be bad. Not because they hated me or even knew me. But because they were afraid, and they weren¡¯t in trouble themselves. Not at the moment. People. Always such a treat. Among the little stars of the Resonance Tags was a blazing sun. Doctor Jeff Harrigan himself, sounding a little out of breath. His voice echoed from the beach. ¡°Owen, come back. We can work it out, I promise.¡± Then, lower, to someone near him: ¡°Is it booting up? Oh, good job. Hurry.¡± ¡°Faster. Faster,¡± I said. The raft picked up speed. ¡°I thought I¡¯d broken his tablet.¡± ¡°How did you do that?¡± Armand demanded. ¡°Nobody¡¯s ever¨C¡± ¡°With the top of my¡ªwait¡ªSEAN!¡± I shouted, seized with inspiration. ¡°YOU STILL HAVE TIME TO SAVE SEAN! HE¡¯S IN THE CAGE, HARRIGAN!¡± Voices drifted from the beach. ¡°Sean?¡± ¡°What cage?¡± Confused campers. ¡°Sounds like a good place for him, wherever it is.¡± Shushing. Fearful laughter. ¡°HE¡¯S IN THE DARK! HE¡¯S SCARED AND ALONE AND YOU HAVE TO SAVE HIM!¡± My voice broke. ¡°Sean is fine,¡± Harrigan called. He sounded thoughtful. Calculating. ¡°Sean will be just fine, Owen. Come back.¡± Then, to his underlings: ¡°Go out there, some of you, bring them home.¡± Reluctance from the campers; they didn¡¯t want to go swimming at night in an alien ocean. Sounded reasonable to me. Someone said copycat eel.The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. Cassie was panting. ¡°How far is a kilometer, anyway? When¡¯s the current going to pick up?¡± ¡°How would I know? I don¡¯t even have a damn Radio!¡± They looked lost and confused at my answer, which was fair. But we all kept paddling, kept pushing the raft out to sea. Harrigan¡¯s voice sounded weary again. The earlier glee had drained out of it, and now he was back to dealing with tedious young people. For the hundredth time, possibly; the same foolish young people, over and over. ¡°It¡¯s time to come back. Don¡¯t make me use the Pulse. You could drown. Your friends could drown.¡± The three of us responded simultaneously: ¡°NO!¡± Armand added ¡°Leave us ALONE, man!¡± ¡°Suit yourselves,¡± Harrigan called. The people surrounding him made giggling, ominous noises. Ooooooo, they said, and dun dun DUN. The blazing not-sun that was Dr. Jeff Harrigan did something. Silence fell from the crowd. All the people on the beach fell over, flopped onto the sand or into the water. The sound of their impacts was comically loud. Thumpthump whump slap slappity slap. It sounded like a burst of polite applause. ¡°Dammit!¡± shouted Harrigan. ¡°Wrong setting. Hang in there, everyone, this will be over in a moment.¡± ¡°Can you guys move?¡± I asked. They nodded, grinned manically. Cassie whooped, leaned in and kissed Armand, who then whooped himself. We¡¯d made it out of range. Harrigan¡¯s Pulse couldn¡¯t get us. The Doctor¡¯s voice drifted over one kilometer¡¯s worth of water. ¡°Owen. I need you to come back. I don¡¯t want to do this.¡± He began shouting. ¡°I don¡¯t want to, Owen! Come back and I¡¯ll treat you well! I¡¯ll put you in charge, I¡¯ll give you whatever you want! Women! Her, you can have Cassie Nillson! You can have whoever you want, Owen, just come back!¡± ¡°I can have Cassie Nillson, guys.¡± Armand and Cassie, in the water, in each other¡¯s arms, laughed and kissed again. ¡°I¡¯m giving you to the count of three, Owen! THE COUNT OF THREE I SWEAR TO GOD OWEN! I¡¯LL HAVE TO START AGAIN WITH YOU BUT I¡¯LL DO IT!¡± He sounded genuinely hurt, in actual agony. ¡°I¡¯LL DO IT! I HAVE TO! COME BACK!¡± We said nothing. ¡°ONE!¡± He called. ¡°What he doing?¡± Cassie asked doubtfully. ¡°TWO!¡± I remembered too late. I looked at my spare leg bone, the femur of Dead Owen. The range of the Pulse was a kilometer, the Radio had said. But what about¨C ¨Cwhat about¨C ¡°THREE! OWEN! THREE!¡± A scream, raw in that fat middle-aged throat. ¡°THREEEEEE!¡± The current was carrying us away at a good clip. I felt it around my toes. I looked at nervous Cassie, at triumphant Armand. My comrades, my friends. The water blazed green as the two of them burst into flame. The green flame, the fire Mandy had told me about. I don¡¯t think they even knew it happened. The sea boiled around us and the raft rocked away from them. Ash burst into the air, embers swirled into the sky. Black clouds billowed in the water around us. Their bones, black and stony, began a slow, drifting path to the sea floor below. The little stars the two had kept in their heads now burst into dozens of smaller ones, little, dimmer Tags. They swirled and danced around within clouds of each other. Mixing. Cassie Erica Nillson. Armand Elizondo Fonesca. Over and over again. Cassie Erica Nillson. Armand Elizondo Fonesca. Cassie Erica Nillson. Armand Elizondo Fonesca. Drifting down, spiraling into the dark. I grabbed at their remains. They were still hot enough to burn my hands. I fumbled with their bones and sucked in lungfuls of their ashes, coughed them out again. I shouted in horror. I pounded on the raft with impotent little fists. Gone. The sea floor was littered with stars that held their names, but they themselves were gone. The raft was scorched where their hands had been. My hands were blistered where I¡¯d grabbed for their bones. Embers drifted over the sea, winking out one by one. I found myself standing on that raft, not swimming. I faced Harrigan. There he was, a distant torch on a beach, surrounded by helpless young people. And I knew he watched me as well. ¡°Owen!¡± he called. ¡°It didn¡¯t work on you like it doesn¡¯t work on her! It¡¯s because you have a soul now! Like me! Like her! A soul! Please, my son needs a soul, come back! I can bring your friends back if you just help me!¡± I inspected him, he inspected me. At least I assume so; I still didn¡¯t have glasses and he was a distant blur now, that smear of color for which I had no name. Eventually the current carried me far away, curved around another island, blocking my line of sight. Gonna getcha, Doc. Tales of Brave Ulysses I lay on the raft face-down as the sun rose. I¡¯d passed out with my nose in the scorch marks; the aroma of burnt beech had filled a fitful sleep. My arms trailed in the water alongside the raft. The cool helped with the burns on my palms. This wasn¡¯t a situation where I woke up and was confused about being in a strange place. I¡¯d had a rough night and was fully aware of being on a shoddy raft in the middle of nowhere. Cold, miserable grief filled me over Cassie and Armand. I get what you¡¯re saying, Reader: You barely knew them. True. But I don¡¯t make friends easily, not anymore, and they were cool and loyal to one another and cute together, and they hadn¡¯t deserted me by stealing my own lame raft, which I suppose might have been quite easy for them if they¡¯d tried it. I¡¯m sure Harrigan would have gotten them somehow, but still. And watching anyone burst into flame, anyone at all, right in front of you, is not something I recommend. The pain of their loss was keenly felt. And finally, finally: so was hunger. I don¡¯t know how many days I¡¯d gone with no appetite, but it was back in a big way. I found myself grabbing at absurdly small fish as they cruised in the shade beneath my raft. Turns out you need skill to catch ¡®em that way, skill I don¡¯t have. The rising sun was already starting to cook my skin. The skin that wasn¡¯t already char-broiled from the previous night¡¯s festivities, of course. I¡¯d thoughtlessly neglected to pack sunscreen. I sat up on and surveyed the world. I¡¯d fought to get out here, and I¡¯d done it. It had cost lives. I saw nothing on the horizon. No islands, no clouds. Just flat, clear water, turquoise seafloor and a lot of hangry. Phase Two was rough. And we can rule out Phase Three; gloating service was unavailable at this time, please try again later. The wind kicked up and the current moved me along; I could tell by watching the sandy sea floor roll by beneath the raft. The little fish had learned to stay away, possibly from pity. Just water and sand down there. I flopped off the raft into the cool. Hiding underneath the scorched logs bought some relief from the sun. This plan had seemed a lot more feasible back on the beach. I wondered where the Green Radio was. Did I only get access to it in the dark? I¡¯d met it in the cave. I¡¯d seen it just before Harrigan¡¯s nighttime classic rock rave. Since then, nothing. This superpower sucked. Speaking of which: I was acquainted with a very charming water monster. Mandy had tried to help me. I wondered where she was. She¡¯d been fighting with someone, as I recalled. Probably fighting for her life. My problems were nothing compared with that. Okay, let¡¯s take inventory. Water. Raft. My filthy clothing: shirt and shorts, underwear, cheap running shoes. A thigh bone from a guy who thought of himself as me. I checked my pockets and brought out what had to be finger bones. Little inch-long bones. Proximal phalanges, Mom¡¯s medical texts had said. They were blackened and felt heavy, like rocks. I must have grabbed them last night, maybe found them on the raft after Armand and Cassie had¡­burned, and then pocketed them. I don¡¯t remember why; give me a break, it had been a rough day. Tiny Quantum Tags hid in their centers, trying to tell me the names of the owners. Cassie and Armand. As if I¡¯d forget. That was all I had. Now to take that stuff and build a helicopter! A speedboat! An aircraft carrier! The sand was getting a little bit more interesting down there. Rocks were sprinkled about, pale gray and round. As the current took me past, I saw more of them. Not rocks. Bricks. Paving stones. More and more of them. Finally I could only see the stones, no sand.If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. They formed a solid surface, one that seemed to stretch for miles. They were mechanically precise squares until they weren¡¯t. A design broke the monotony: a huge sculpted curve made of many stones. I recognized it as a spiral shell, a bas-relief, or frieze, or whatever you call it, a flat sulpture. It was a huge design, intricate and detailed. I floated over it for twenty minutes before I reached the punchline of the shell where the critter inside can pop out. It was a carved tentacled mass, the coils curling and elegant. Two sculpted, stony eyestalks peered from within the shell. Each eye was represented by a smooth blue gem the size of a bowling ball. This carving, this construction, had been important. Someone had put a huge amount of effort into it, long ago. I tried to remember the name of it, the creature that had been carved there. A Squid with a snail shell. Trilobite? No, Ammonite. Ammonite, that¡¯s the thing. I could swim down and try to grab the huge blue gems. They glowed with refracted sunlight. In this aquatic desert of emptiness, the gems were enticing beyond words. Swirls of sky blue and aquamarine. Back on Earth they¡¯d have allowed me to buy myself a city block. They were close enough for me to tap at them with my toes, if I wanted. The sea was just shallow enough. What a rotten idea. As if I¡¯d never played a video game. I left it all alone. It was impressive as hell, admirable, and incomprehensible to a dumb guy like me. How big was this design, was there more to it? Who had built it? Why make such an obvious trap in the middle of nowhere? Dangerous, Sean had said. Things are dangerous out here. Maybe to someone like Sean, who would have grabbed those jewels like they were made of ham. I watched them pass beneath my raft. I heard something, felt it: a shifting vibration in the water. A click of stone. Something was moving beneath the sea floor. Something that felt disappointed. It¡¯s possible I was projecting. But yeah. Disappointed. Sorry, obvious trap monster. Some other time. I had bigger things on my mind. Such as: how to fix this. How to deal with what seemed to be a one-man genocide machine. Or a one man clone factory. Both? I wished the raft was more stable, so I could pace importantly, thinking deep thoughts. Let¡¯s break it down.
  1. The Great Doctor Jeff Harrigan was doing something that was flatly impossible. He was making, then killing, the same batch of people over and over again.
  2. He didn¡¯t leave that island. In retrospect it was obvious: old equipment, overgrown tents. The place was a haunted house of the living-then-dead-then-living-again. Was that one location his place of power?
  3. ¡°Place of Power,¡± right. We¡¯re talking about magic or game rules or sci-fi something-or-other, so I felt okay using melodramatic titles. Harrigan stayed on that island and so did everyone else, with the exception of Mandy, yours truly and my incinerated friends. The corpses, well, the ¡°tags¡± I¡¯d been able to detect with these new eyes (still nearsighted, by the way) were all in clumps around the one location.
So what did that mean for me? Dead friends notwithstanding, I¡¯d gotten away. He didn¡¯t have the capacity to burn me to ash, apparently. And I was too far away for him to use his paralysis zap on me. I could just hit the high seas, never return. Find that anime girlfriend promised by the app. Just leave Harrigan alone. After all, I¡¯d won, right? I¡¯d escaped. I¡¯d left him screaming on the beach in frustration, surrounded by his unwilling backup dancers. I had what I¡¯d wanted: freedom. Solitude. Solitude. Because my friends had burned up. They should be here, and I should be gloating to them. We should have been gloating collectively. But he¡¯d killed them. Had it been preventable? Sure, if they¡¯d stayed away from me and my crazy. They¡¯d still be on that island, holding hands and sneaking kisses. That one stung. I could just disappear. Maybe convince Mandy to let me hang out with her, we could fight evil and stuff, right? Well, she could. Between battles I¡¯d rub her shoulders. Or, you know, rub whatever she felt like getting rubbed. No. No. I was disgusted with myself. No. Would someone like Mandy, who had tried to rescue me from a dungeon beneath the earth, who fought monsters, or whatever she fought, and who had faced off against Harrigan herself more times that I knew about, would she want to go anywhere near someone selfish enough to just leave? To just run away, when people needed help? Mom always said: If you can help, do it. Or face the chancla. She¡¯d never actually used the chancla on me, but the chancla was fearsome nonetheless. I had to think. Also to get food and water; those things were rather important as well. I scanned the horizon. Nothing but pale, shallow ocean and blazing sun. And I heard music. Entertainment with Infrequent Commercial Breaks It burbled up through the water. As I passed over more of the flagstones it got louder, clearer. Old-timey big band music. A male vocalist kicked in, singing with gusto: Over the sea, let¡¯s go men! We¡¯re shovin¡¯ right off, we¡¯re shovin¡¯ right off, again¡­ ¡°Hey!¡± I shouted, climbing back up on the raft. ¡°Radio! Where are you, HEY!¡± The song kept playing, an underwater tribute to nautical travel. ¡°Are you kidding me¡­¡± I looked around, frantically, this way and that. I boarded the raft and used the higher vantage to see if I could find the Radio. There. Underwater, flat against the paving stones. Facing upward in its nest of vines. A round speaker, a knob, the little tuning window. The flowers bloomed underwater in waves of different colors, blooming and contracting, over and over in different patterns. My raft was drifting right towards it. I ran. Well, I took a long step, anyway, straight off the raft and splashed frantically for the Radio. When I was over it, treading water, I tried diving down to touch it. This was my radio. It wasn¡¯t a trap, it was mine. Mine. The music boomed from the speaker. My fingers brushed the tuning knob. The Radio finished its song. I surfaced to gasp in a breath. ¡°Where the HELL you been?¡± Drifting up from the bottom of the sea: ¡°Owen realized, with icy clarity and a feeling of deep shame, that taking that tone with his good friend the Green Radio was unwarranted.¡± ¡°I need help and it¡¯s your job to get it!¡± ¡°Entertainment with infrequent commercial breaks is extremely helpful. Owen knew this and yet still found the energy to complain.¡± ¡°I need to get food and water, to get out of the sun, and I know you can do it.¡± ¡°The Green Radio was glad to see Owen Walsh too, rudeness notwithstanding.¡± ¡°God DAMMIT. They died! They died getting me out here, Radio, and don¡¯t you make a mockery of that! I don¡¯t know what rules you follow but THERE¡¯s a new one, the prime directive!¡± Long silence now. The raft drifted past me. The one with the thigh bone on it, you know, that one. The Green Radio¡¯s vines contracted, the flowers closed. The light in the little tuning window dimmed, went out. ¡°Yes,¡± the Radio said, booming up through the water. The vines curled up, vanished into dust, billowed away. The Radio was gone. ¡°Jerk,¡± I said, and swam to the raft before it floated away from me entirely. The heat of the day didn¡¯t last. Clouds boiled up, seemingly from nowhere, or perhaps I¡¯d fallen asleep. But the sky was full of black thunderheads that pelted me with stinging rain. It was easier and more comfortable if I hid underwater; otherwise the rain hit hard and was unrelenting. The storm kept going. It must have been hours, because when the clouds finally parted the shafts of sunlight were slanting from an entirely different direction. They shone on the ocean ahead of me. Something was moving in that spotlight. Dramatically lit, that was certain. Very artistic. Something waving, a flag? I triangular flag. No, dummy. A fin. A fin as tall as I was. I scrambled up onto the raft. I grabbed my bonus femur. The surface of the water vibrated. A tone like a tuning fork. That tone went high, low, then more complex. It made a sound. Words. ¡°They died.¡± I jumped. It was speaking, whatever it was, the noise was forming words. Vibrating on the water. Tiny, intricate curved ripples danced on the surface. The thing came closer, that six-foot fin. Beneath was the body: long, gray, like a flat school bus, longer. Tiger stripes, subtle coloration, slightly darker and brighter than the rest of the thing. The stripes moved, like one sees on cuttlefish in Youtube videos about how interesting cuttlefish are. Forming patterns. This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. ¡°They died,¡± the water said again. It was the thing, the animal beneath, speaking. It had to be. ¡°Food.¡± ¡°Howdy,¡± I said. Because we¡¯re all friends here. ¡°Nice day for a swim.¡± It didn¡¯t circle my raft like a shark would. It was big enough to make an entire circle with its body, all by itself, like a colossal eel. That fin flapped and waved. The stripes on it flickered and danced. ¡°I need help. Food. Prime directive.¡± ¡°Things are tough all over.¡± The easy, lazy swimming thing coiled around the raft, maybe twenty feet away. It was all awful, soft length, heavy and muscled and covered with faint, pale scars. I was at the center of a circle it had made with its own body. It was all gray flesh, gray and smooth, with flickering stripes. A long, flat ventral fin brushed the flagstone beneath the thing. Something bumped the raft. I didn¡¯t see what it was; I was surrounded and didn¡¯t know where to look. Another bump. The raft rocked wildly. ¡°Howdy,¡± said the water. Its voice was my voice. My heart was knocking in my ears. I¡¯d been in the water with sharks before, surfing back home. We¡¯d called them Men in Gray Suits. Hilarious, right? This wasn¡¯t a shark. This was a long way from a damn shark. Sharks just wanted to be left alone, and to score something to eat, and they could get confused about their meals. Sharks didn¡¯t trash-talk. ¡°I need help. Food.¡± An eye. A single compound eye like an insect¡¯s, green and iridescent, regarded me, gliding past. Vertical eyelids with a pale nictating membrane tucked in the bottom corner. Was that its head? Did it have a head? Okay. Okay. This was an opportunity. This was an alien intelligence. Probably. We could work it out. The crab-person, the Maker, had been reasonable on the beach that day, right? ¡°I don¡¯t want you to eat me,¡± I said. ¡°I want you to talk to me. Tell me about yourself.¡± ¡°Yourself food.¡± ¡°I¡¯m aware of that. Let¡¯s see if we can work together. What have you got to lose?¡± ¡°Lose food,¡± it said reasonably. The circle had been slowly tightening. Five feet away from the raft. Another bump and I was clinging to the scorched logs with my arms and legs. Rough bark abraded my skin. ¡°Go away, please.¡± Another bump. Bigger, more force. The raft almost rolled over. ¡°Nice day for a swim.¡± Something hissed. With a loud, meaty THUNK, a black cylinder sprouted from the center of the fin. It leaked sparks like a firework, bright and hot and fierce. It hissed and burned. A runnel of blood stitched down from the thing. A wound. Then the cylinder exploded with an unimpressive pop. Blood sprayed my face. The air filled with a smell like rotten eggs, and gray smoke puffed around the fin. The tuning-fork water voice warbled and ceased. The tall gray fin now had a bloody circle neatly punched through its center, perhaps two feet in diameter. Its edges were black and sparkled with dying embers. It reminded me of the holes in the walls of Harrigan¡¯s cathedral. More hissing. A bolt of something hot and angry shot by my head, leaving a trail of yellow sparks. Another. More of the things thunked into the body of the being circling my raft. They exploded, leaving gaping wounds, or they didn¡¯t explode for whatever reason, and just hissed and sparked, burrowing deeper with the force of sparkly rocketry. Heroic, cinematic music boomed from the sea floor. It was a piece I recognized: the William Tell Overture. Then it switched up: the Ride of the Valkyries. The radio was interrupting its own songs. The un-shark-thing uncoiled, slowly fleeing. It was too long to escape in a hurry. More rockets hissed by. They fizzed through the water, somehow, leaving trails of boiling bubbles, and pierced the vast gray body. Pop. Blood bloomed in the water. Pop pop, huge ugly wounds, water filling with billowing red. A needle was bobbing above the surface of the shallow sea, like a walking miniature skyscraper. It gleamed in the sun: dark metal with rivets in art-deco curves. Other shadowy masses filled the water around it. Crazy shapes and colors on the things, no two alike, all different, all individual sea monster art projects. And all firing those vicious little rockets. They arced above and through the water. Not at me, apparently, but one mustn¡¯t take these things for granted. The stately gray beast moved off like a subway leaving a platform, slowly picking up speed. It was wounded, and the new porthole in its fin seeped blood as red as my own. Sorry we couldn¡¯t work things through, bro. The Green Radio, somewhere, taunted with another of its old songs: Oh, the shark has pretty teeth, dear, And he shows them pearly white I looked at the Makers. I adjusted my vision, looking more closely: they blazed with the more-than-purple light, as Jeff Harrigan had. Souls. I turned and gave the same stinkeye to the thing they¡¯d chased off: That light was blazing from the long gray body. Souls for everyone involved this afternoon. Hooray. The gang of Makers approached. The tall needly one came closest. An impact shook the raft: chunk. A kind of iron hook, a sort of jointed chicken foot, was now gripping the center log of my vessel near one end. Its shiny fingers tightened with a clicking ratchet sound. The needly art-deco Maker scurried off. A metal chain unreeled from its brushed-metal shell, unwinding from a little hatch. The art-deco crab began moving along the sea floor. After a moment tension in the chain twanged and the Maker began towing me at a decent rate of speed. All the rest of the Makers in the group flanked us. We¡¯re shovin¡¯ right off for home again! sang the Radio. To Greg or Not to Greg We passed quite a few islands. The hermit crab people, the Makers, stopped at none of them. They were ignoring wonders. A perfect pink castle, like one might find at the bottom of an aquarium, surrounded by a fairy tale forest. Its moat was fed by a clear, delicate waterfall. White sand and pink reefs. A rainbow framed the entire arrangement. Very nice, very suspicious. A leafy island with a huge, organic membrane stretched over something spherical at its center. The golden skin of the thing was veiny and scaled, held in position because it was stretched over bony pinions. Folded wings, possibly, covering ¡­ what? A Godzilla-sized living being? It wasn¡¯t moving. It could have been a disturbingly realistic statue. Probably not. Dangerous, Sean had said. Let¡¯s give Sean a little credit on this one. A forest of palm trees and bushes, wildly thrashing in an unfelt wind caused by a nonexistent storm. They flickered in the blaze of unseen lightning. The island was under siege by a terrible hurricane I couldn¡¯t see or feel. The sky was clear and blue, but everything past the shore was darkened by nonexistent clouds. A tiny shack rattled and shook among the trees, its door banging open and shut in the wind. Golden light in the window defied the silent storm. Someone was in there, a moving shape, watching me pass. I waved but got no response. We just kept going, passing island after island. Sometimes I wanted to stop, just to explore. I was an explorer now, right? I owed it to Cassie and Armand. But we never stopped. Not until the Big Ring. One of my many classes in Mira Costa Community College had been art history, in which I had been awarded one deluxe B Minus. I¡¯m not trying to belittle you or brag here; just pointing out that I''m an expert on this stuff. It was a huge hovering stone structure, assembled with arches and columns, little alcoves full of ambiguous statues. Classical. Greco-Roman. Speaking of which, imagine the Colosseum in Rome, right? Like that, a little. But it was topped with vibrant jungle, trees whose gnarled roots gripped the carved stone and twisted down, down, to sip at the salty sea. And that was a long way, because the whole thing was just hanging in the air. It floated up there, motionless. I don¡¯t know how high up¡­ten stories, maybe? Too high for me to get up to it. I suppose I could have tried using the roots, if I were brave enough. I was not. I was feeling pretty small and delicate by now, thank you very much. Seeing what this world had to offer was what I¡¯d wanted, and it was intimidating. I was still an explorer, don''t misunderstand; just a very cautious one. The Makers kept going. We went under the thing, passing through the immense roots and right under the central ring. I could look up and see clouds through it. And we stopped. My raft kept drifting forward until the chain halted its motion, and I drifted in a slow clockwise turn beneath the floating building. ¡°Radio,¡± I said, and swallowed nervously. ¡°Hi-de ho!¡± came the announcer¡¯s voice, booming up beneath the raft. ¡°What¡¯s happening here, please.¡± ¡°Owen realized he was in the presence of the Aegis Medelae. He was being confronted by another Power.¡± ¡°Doesn¡¯t sound great.¡± I leaned over and shouted at the Makers. ¡°Hey, start the car!¡± But the raft didn¡¯t move. I could see the Makers through the few feet of water separating us. They weren¡¯t moving. The Art Deco one, the guy with the needle on top of his shell, was stuck in a pose. Three of his many legs were mid-stride. Frozen in place. The others that I could see were in the same state: a Maker with a colorful living reef on its back was stuck. The moray eel that lived there was similarly paused in place, its mouth partially open. The same with the one I¡¯d come to think of as Cannonball, a black metal orb with crab legs poking out from the bottom. Everyone was motionless. Paralysis again, of a type. ¡°What¡¯s it want?¡± ¡°The Aegis Medelae was seeking a steward, one with a soul, but Owen had already been named the Steward of the Observatory.¡± I waved at the Makers. ¡°How about one of these guys? They seem cool.¡± ¡°The Makers had never been granted a stewardship, as they feel it is beneath them. The Aegis had found a way past the defenses granted the Steward.¡± Here the Radio sounded a trifle nervous.The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. ¡°Oh swell.¡± I shouted at the Big Ring above us. ¡°Let us go, please! And leave my friends alone!¡± A voice boomed from the thing, the Aegis. It wasn¡¯t a human voice. It was clicks, hoots, gongs. The kind of thing you¡¯d get subtitles for in a Star Wars show. It was familiar; I¡¯d heard it in the cave, in the cage just before I¡¯d met the Radio. It went on for a while. ¡°Can you translate it?¡± ¡°Verily, by divine authority and sacred insight, it hath been revealed that thou art not ordained for this holy office, and thy spirit resonates not with the sacred duties herein entrusted.¡± A low drone buzzed from up there, and it rose in pitch, higher and higher. I didn¡¯t like it. ¡°Stop!¡± I shouted, not knowing exactly why. One of the Makers burst. I didn¡¯t see which one; it was off to my left, behind the raft. The water filled with red and blue, an instant quick-blooming flower of viscera. Plates of metal and shreds of shell drifted in the current beneath me. Another dead friend. Helpless fury flooded my veins, and I shouted at the thing in the sky. ¡°Hey! HEY! You want to fight? We¡¯ll fight!¡± I stood on my swaying raft, glaring at the Big Ring. ¡°Translate for me,¡± I said, and the Radio began speaking alien lingo from the water beneath my feet. ¡°You up there! Owen Walsh, the Steward of the Observatory speaks to you, dumbass! Cease fire or accept eternal WAR with the Observatory!¡± The buzz didn¡¯t quiet down, but it did stop rising in pitch. More of the clicks-and-gongs. ¡°What do they say?¡± ¡°Message as follows with idiom added: ¡®Speak thou in an official capacity as Steward?¡¯¡± ¡°Better believe it, scumbag.¡± Blood pounded in my ears. ¡°Might get all of us, but if you don¡¯t get ME¡­¡± The buzz went silent. Then the alien speech again. ¡°Verily, we seek no discord with the most esteemed Observatory.¡± ¡°Too late!¡± The Radio spoke in its announcer voice. ¡°The Aegis had lost control over the Makers. They were suddenly able to move and function.¡± I shouted: ¡°It killed one of us! MESS IT UP!¡± and pointed at the Big Ring overhead. Rockets hissed from the water, twisting by the dozens, up and up to the Aegis, where they popped with the same unimpressive detonations that had driven off that big shark eel thing. But they made holes. Clean, perfect holes with molten edges when they hit stone, burning edges when they struck one of the many trees on the thing. The same holes in the side of Harrigan¡¯s ruined cathedral. Soon the Aegis was peppered with wounds. The alien voice popped and gonged. ¡°Truce,¡± The radio translated. ¡°Truce. Truce.¡± ¡°Oh you say that now. You always say it at this point, don¡¯t you?¡± I was shaking, not looking at the floating ring. I was watching the cloud of multicolored blood and guts that were slowly dissipating to the left of my raft. Dead and gone. Again. I felt crazy in a way I hadn¡¯t for some time. This was overdue, wasn¡¯t it? Time to go a little crazy, like in the bad days right after Mom. Right? Never really a bad time, right? And let¡¯s take inventory: underground imprisonment. Paralysis. Murdered friends. Mad scientist with a vicious idiot son. Surely my schedule had space for a little indulgence. What would it accomplish, though? I remembered Greg, in the dirt on the way to school, screaming that I¡¯d cheated, cheated, as blood framed his eye and dribbled into his sobbing mouth¡­The horror on the faces of his huge bully friends as they fled, abandoning him...the fear and disgust from Greg''s intended victim as she watched me... Not that again. Cool your jets, Jasper. Another world. This place wasn¡¯t Earth, obviously. Different rules. Let¡¯s assume that there are different rules here. That for some people, it was okay to blast a stranger to bits. Let¡¯s make excuses for people, in other words. But it¡¯ll be the last time. ¡°Cease fire, please,¡± I muttered. And they did. Why I don¡¯t know. I jumped in the water and inspected the remains of the Maker who¡¯d been killed. I couldn¡¯t see well beneath the surface, but the location of the corpse was clear. Not a lot left: a heap of metal, some green crab legs just standing there, as if they could start walking on their own. A soul. Complex, ornate, intricate, a sort of ball, pulsating and reforming. Moving away through the clear water, off to the sunset. It went faster and faster until it was gone. The last one. This would be the last one who died because of me. The Makers clustered around their fallen comrade, doing something I later learned was collection of metal. ¡°Let¡¯s go, guys.¡± And off we went again. I still had no idea why these people would listen to me. ¡°The Aegis Medelae was requesting a confirmation of the truce.¡± ¡°No.¡± The Signed Painting Travel. The Radio was playing its old-timey songs. Occasionally it would blare a commercial for an impossible product or service, such as photosynthetic tendril ointment (¡°Why bother with ingestion?¡±) or probability manipulation odor control (¡°Understanding notwithstanding!¡± a slogan I still don¡¯t get). Some observations: I was getting used to the idea of magic. Magic is a word people use when they don¡¯t understand something. In my feeble way of thinking, things work because they work. And yet I¡¯d seen some things here. Magic things. Undeniable crazy magic, and Harrigan had even linked some of it to his busted-ass PC, to my knowledge a previously unexploited feature of Windows 7, or whatever ancient operating system he used. Irksome. Things should work sensibly. Halfway to sunset, the Radio¡¯s playlist, or whatever it was, underwent a change. It was the same song, over and over again. It was was catchy, and had a rhythm to it that hooked into my head. It wasn¡¯t a song I¡¯d ever heard before, and it wasn¡¯t a language I understood. It sounded like a big band was behind it; the vocalist sounded like a human woman who would occasionally scream at the top of her lungs, EEEEEAAAGH, then keep singing as if everything was just dandy. I asked the Radio to put on something else. It ignored me. That song, over and over again. With limited commercial interruptions, of course. Island after island was ignored. The Makers had another location in mind. And we finally got there. They stopped, and my raft drifted to a halt. I squinted my still-nearsighted eyes at it our destination. What a mess. It wasn¡¯t a natural formation like the other islands I¡¯d seen. Long, rusted steel superstructure bent and twisted and sunk beneath the water. Trees festooned the whole place, clinging and taking root in metal, somehow. The whole thing was absurdly overgrown with vines and what might have been Spanish moss, hanging down in nasty gray curtains. It was stuck in a sandbar, or perhaps it had been an island once, as it had a sandy beach and a bit of jungle. Or perhaps the island had grown around whatever the metal parts were. Tropical birds filled the air over the place, circling like Technicolor vultures. A single structure rose above the dirty peak of the thing. A metal dome, rusty and cracked. It looked an awful lot like a run-down, ruined astronomical observatory. Observatory. ¡°Oh,¡± I said.If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. The Radio started with a hearty male vocalist lauding a place he repeatedly named My Blue Heaven. His song was clearly about being happy at home. It was a tumbledown haunted mansion dump. That big, rusty-ruined structure, the sand bar, the tangly, unruly jungle. The broken-down Observatory. The Radio welcomed me: Turn to the right, there''s a little white light Will lead you to my Blue Heaven The Makers dropped me off in a cluster of tide pools. With a lot of clicking and rattling, the metal talon released my raft. And the gang of oceangoing sculpture crustaceans fanned out in different directions, disappearing into the sea. With the exception of the Art Deco Maker, the one I¡¯d started thinking of as, well, Art Deco. He stood in a tidepool, facing me. Art was a menacing figure: a dark steel spiked box with a ring of curved green spiked legs fanning out around the spiky base. Art was seriously Metal. I didn¡¯t know how that gleaming shell had been made, but it was solid work. I thought of him as He because, I suppose, monsters that launch exploding rockets at things seem quite masculine. They were simply missing the words Watch This! before doing something dangerous and stupid. I liked the Makers. I later learned that all the Makers you see are male, that they have a Queen deep, deep underwater. The Radio spoke from a nearby stone, one now covered with its leaves and vines. The speaker, tuner and tuning window were larger than I¡¯d remembered, glowing more brightly. Home sweet home, I suppose. ¡°The Maker glyphed to Owen: ¡®Introduction: Cognitive buoyancy indicates confusion. Item presentation can recalibrate.¡¯¡± ¡°What? It¡¯s talking to me now?¡± ¡°The Maker was communicating as best it could, forming glyphs. It wanted Owen to come closer.¡± So I did. I wasn¡¯t afraid of the being; if he¡¯d wanted to hurt me he could have done so many times. I knelt in front of it, at what I imagined was eye level. The shell had no opening or window, just a flat dark surface. ¡°Direction indicated: Base structural component of fabricated exoskeleton demonstrates proof of encounter. Suggestion: Analysis of foundational layer will provide verification metrics.¡± That seemed clear enough, some of it. A little of it. I leaned in and examined the front of the Art Deco shell more closely. I could see the clean construction of it, the rivets forming swooping lines in the ¨C I blinked. Stamped into the steel shell were the words: DEAR O.W. ART IS COOL YOUR PAL O.W. LOL My jaw dropped. In Comic Sans, no less. Art rotated in place, scuttled hugely from the pool and headed out to sea without another word. Or glyph, whatever that was. ¡°Radio? Did you see that?¡± It played that song. Eee-yagh. Clouds were rolling in. Rain? A storm, possibly. ¡°Radio, I need to get in there, please. The big building.¡± But it wouldn¡¯t let me in. I couldn¡¯t even see anything resembling a door. An Actual Clue Fine, be that way. I started looking around the place. It was my place. Kinship buzzed warmly up my legs with every footstep¡­it¡¯s hard to explain. Like coming home from a hard day at school, a lousy day at work. Those places were mean and unfamiliar; this place wasn¡¯t familiar or nice, but it was mine. My Human readers won¡¯t get it. The Tenders of True Hive understand, though I hadn¡¯t met them yet. Maybe the Amniotic Sea could explain it better. I¡¯m just a dumb Human, through; MINE. I don¡¯t know how else to put it. The fact that the Observatory was rather nasty and unkind? Like I said: mine. There¡¯s a lot to be said for maintaining one¡¯s brand. This place had been deserted for some time. Harrigan¡¯s island hadn¡¯t been well-kept, with manicured topiary animals cut from shrubs, or neat lawns and white statues of naked ladies pouring stuff into things. But I¡¯d been able to tell people had been living there a while. Not here. I¡¯d read a book called Robinson Crusoe as a kid. I hadn¡¯t liked it much; a guy lands on an island and fumbles around a while until a local he names ¡°Friday¡± saves him from dying of exposure and starvation. The hero spends the rest of the time bossing Friday around: build me this, feed me that. I always wanted Friday to go back to his wife Wednesday and their kids Labor Day and Arbor day, let Robinson deal with life himself for once. But I had this big building here¡­ ¡°Radio, do you read me? Over.¡± ¡°This was the very Ether Box in question, Voice of the Slice, pounding brass and ready to spin some static for you!¡± It was blasting from within the treeline over there, just past the beach. I picked my way through the jungle and found a monolithic black stone, irregular and tilted. The Radio was firmly planted into that stone, and its vines weren¡¯t present. That top speaker was huge now, the tuning window blazing. The Radio looked like part of the architecture, so to speak. Home sweet home. ¡°What am I supposed to be doing, please?¡± ¡°Our dodo needed to hit the ground and do some ground-level recon. Owen had to find a way into HQ, and the Radio was here to help as always.¡± ¡°That¡¯s nice of you. What¡¯s safe to eat here?¡± It described some of the fruit hanging off the trees, as well as some dark green melons on the ground over on the other side of the island. It was the first meal I¡¯d had in this body, and it was the best thing I¡¯d ever tasted. Absurdly sweet and juicy; the melon was yellowish inside and the fruit was like a Hawaiian Punch in solid form. After making a heaped pile of rinds and pits, I felt a lot better. I hadn¡¯t realized how hungry and thirsty I¡¯d been. ¡°Thanks, Radio.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t sweat it, Jackson. But Owen was well aware that he needed to get in, and that program was beginning as of NOW.¡± It began playing that odd song, the one where the woman sang words in a barky language and would screech EEEEEEYAAAAGH at the end. ¡°Change the station please.¡± ¡°Owen knew he had to hold his horses. This was just the way the ball was bouncing.¡± And it started that song over again. Eee-yaagh. Over and over again, that song. After a while I tuned the song out, and the Radio wouldn¡¯t answer my questions. Just that song. Eee-yaaagh, the lady sang. Screamed, whatever. Some observations:
  1. I found a tiny pool, a spring, maybe, with a trickling waterfall. I didn¡¯t know what a spring looked like, but it wasn¡¯t salty. I drank without boiling the water, as I had no way to make fire. I¡¯d left my arson toolkit on Harrigan¡¯s island for the next Owen Walsh to go full Godzilla if he needed to.
  2. A sobering thought. If I didn¡¯t make it, for whatever reason, there¡¯d be another Owen Walsh. And I hadn¡¯t done anything for him.
  3. Because I¡¯d be the last one of us, that¡¯s why.
The structure itself was a mishmash of things: old metal that wasn¡¯t rusty at all, but was pitted and weathered. Black stone. A huge network of tree roots that infested the whole thing and I thought might have to be burned out. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. With further observation, I realized that they were holding the whole thing together. More inspection revealed that the stone and metal elements were built AROUND the tree; it served as superstructure for the entire complex of buildings. The tree roots were important. That central dome taunted me. I suspected the thing hadn¡¯t been built by humans. No offense, Human readers: this kind of thing is beyond you. It was a ruin, but it had been futuristic and cool once. The entire curving roof was built of the black stone with the occasional forbidding gothic spike, like you get in downtown Mordor. It did have windows: regularly-spaced square gaps in a row around the high-up dome¡¯s base. No glass, just dark rectangular pits. I shouted up to those windows. Calls to enter. Requests for aid. ¡°Friend¡± in Elvish. No response. I threw a rock up there, got it right through one of the dark rectangles first try. I heard it strike something: CLANG, and then a tinkling of breaking glass. The Radio stopped its music. ¡°Owen, with a sudden thrill of alarm, realized he was far from any medical assistance. He also suspected that the Observatory had automated defenses that would strike him dead, Steward or not.¡± Then that song again. Eeeh-yaagh. To either side of the dome were two sweeping metal structures, symmetrical with one another. They didn¡¯t have rooms or windows that I could see. Sort of a jetty setup to create a harbor, perhaps. The island or building, whatever it was, had some size to it. Walking from one end to the other took what felt like a half hour. It had a nice, clear lagoon in the center between the ¡°wings.¡± There was a beach on one side of the place and by God that beach had waves one could surf. Good waves. Great shape, nice drop. I was all business, though, and did not partake. I had to get in there. It was my damn Observatory. Also no surfboard, just that burned raft with my initials carved into it. Night was coming and I couldn¡¯t get into the Observatory. ¡°Radio, pause please. I need to sleep and not be killed by jungle creatures or other local citizens. Got any hints?¡± ¡°Owen knew he could build a simple shelter with the items found in the central lagoon,¡± it said, and kept playing that damn song. Despite further attempts I got no other help from the Radio. The items in question were there, all right. Tucked under dense bushes and very old. This metal was light and formed curved surfaces, held together by tiny rivets, like that Art Deco Maker. Rotting wood struts crossing at right angles supported the metal. The shape was strange, familiar. I leaned it against a rock. Long, maybe ten feet, torn and eroded at the edges. ¡°Is this a wing?¡± I shouted to the Radio over in the jungle. No answer. Well, eeh-yagh, of course. Another fragment I could use for a roof, perhaps, was in the jungle. This one was even more confusing: a flattish wall of the metal-and-wood, light enough for me to hold overhead and carry to the shore. When I leaned it against the other piece I saw an honest-to-gosh painting there. A buxom woman with a chunk of early twentieth-century dark hair, painted in profile. She wore an evening gown, red, probably, though the sun had faded most of the color. She was showing a lot of leg and a her dress barely covered her forties-style breasts. She held a microphone, mouth open in song. Beneath her were the words THE BIG BROADCAST. Behind the entire design was a comically large wooden cabinet, one with a big ornate speaker, a tuning window and a silver knob. The Radio, over there in the trees on its big stone, stopped the scream song and blared a commercial loudly enough to frighten birds into the air: "Are those Kraut nests giving you the heebie-jeebies? Spot those enemy hidey-holes and we''ll mop ''em up faster than you can say ''hot diggity dog!'' How, you ask? With the Douglas B-18 Bolo, the new eager beaver of the skies! This sweetpuss used to be just another bomber, but now she''s an ace at playing I-spy! "Tune in to the Big Broadcast of 1941, it¡¯s a honey and so is SHE!" A chorus of wolf-whistles. Then back to the other song, the one I was heartily tired of. I was about to grumpily turn away when I heard a yell. A moan, an honest-to-god ghostly wail. It was coming from the windows of the dome. ¡°Hey!¡± I shouted. ¡°Uh¡­you okay up there?¡± It cut loose again with another despairing howl. A man¡¯s voice, one that had a fuzz of static at the edges. ¡°You need help, dude? Let me in and we¡¯ll help you!¡± ¡°Nnn,¡± it said. ¡°No, no no! NO! Dark! No! Help, help me God, help!¡± I kept hollering to open the door and I¡¯d help, but no dice. Just shouting and wailing from up there. Finally I stomped over to the Radio. ¡°Do be a dear and tell me who¡¯s screaming in my Observatory, Radio old pal.¡± ¡°The Green Radio detected no living being in the Observatorium Sapientiae.¡± ¡°So what are we talking about? It seems to me we¡¯re discussing, like, a g-g-ghost, Scoob. Cough it up.¡± ¡°Owen knew he had a visitor who needed his aid, approaching the lagoon. Security measures would allow the visitor herself but no external cantrip, augur, enchantment or curse,¡± said the Radio, ¡°No magic aside from what the Steward permits.¡± And went back to playing that song I hated. ¡°What?¡± But I was already hitting the beach. A Damsel in Distress I¡¯d spent the day learning paths and shortcuts and got there fast. Who needed help? Was it Mandy, she of the round smiling face and round smiling body that I couldn¡¯t stop thinking about? I¡¯m on the way, Mandy, you sexy pumpkin. Skidding to a halt in the sand, scanning the horizon. No Mandy. Nothing on the sea. Just the sound of surf¡­Wait. A column of smoke on the horizon, rising from a dark object. Something burning out there. It seemed far but I thought I could make it. I had that raft still, didn¡¯t I? But that wasn¡¯t what the Radio had been talking about. I could see movement, closer to the shore by far. Almost here, actually. Something swimming. A lot of splashing and flailing. A visitor who needed aid, the Radio had said. I did the trick with my vision, the one that allowed me to see bonus content. The swimmer had a soul, one that was fluffy and friendly and vicious, with nasty eagle-talon shapes popping from it on occasion. The actual physical body was whitish, a kind of long neck periscope situation from the shore. The soul meant it was a person. Just not a human one. I splashed into the shallows, then swam straight for the intruder. The white blur stopped thrashing its way to shore. Two wary black eyes watched my approach. A visitor who needed aid. I got close. I held out a hand. ¡°Come on, it¡¯s cool.¡± It took my hand with one of its small, complex-looking forelimbs. It looked at me, unblinking, as I pulled it to dry land. It wasn¡¯t heavy, but it was dense with muscle. I could see why swimming was a problem. It stood on the beach, shook like a dog. Looked up at me, black nose quivering. It sure wasn¡¯t a guy named Friday. Imagine an itty bitty velociraptor the size of a turkey. Okay, the real ones were the size of a turkey, but I¡¯m assuming you¡¯ve got the ones from the movie in mind. Anyway a velociraptor, but it¡¯s a mammal. This one was covered with dirty white fur, but otherwise it was like a little dinosaur: the long waving tail, the grabby hands, the absurdly muscular legs that ended in nasty curved claws. A longish neck.This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. And a face that was long and pointy, like a dog¡¯s, with a dog¡¯s long mouth and knobby black lips, a black nose. It had external ears that raised and lowered, big batlike ears, very expressive. The eyes were dark and round. Ears were currently laid back against the long skull. It had a soul. So¡­what did that mean? An intelligent being? Could I speak with it? ¡°Welcome to¡­¡± I gestured vaguely. ¡°This.¡± It made a sound. I saw its chest compress as it exhaled. ¡°Oh. Wen.¡± It¡¯s mouth didn¡¯t form shapes as it made the sounds, any more than a parrot¡¯s does. But it was saying my name with a high, rather girlish voice, almost like a bird call itself. ¡°That¡¯s me,¡± I said. ¡°Do you speak English? Are you injured? Could I¨C¡± The ears went up and it shimmied excitedly in place. The eyes were big and soulful, the ears up and aimed right at me. It began hopping in place, little goofy jumps. ¡°Owen. Owen!¡± I didn¡¯t think it would hurt me; it wasn¡¯t a Human, after all. So I dropped to my knees, held out my arms. ¡°Hi! C¡¯mere.¡± It ran in an excited, joyous wobble and it took hold of me, swarming its way up to my shoulders and wrapping that small, dense body around my head. The black nose sniffed busily and loudly at my hair and into an ear. It clutched my skull with those crazy hands, and the long, straight tail thumped against my back. Wagging, I think, though I wasn¡¯t sure. The dog comparison only goes so far. ¡°Owen,¡± it said again. ¡°Not died. Good.¡± The voice had a slight hissing echo to it, possibly from being generated somewhere inside the creature¡¯s body instead of up near the mouth. How much English did it speak? Who had taught it? Well, clearly I might have done that. Before. I was getting used to the voice. It was really odd, inhuman in a way that gave me goosebumps, but it was understandable. And it had a kind of accent I couldn¡¯t place. ¡°Fire Owen, yes. Good. Gave food for us. Boat ride!¡± ¡°I¡¯m a different Owen. I look like your Owen.¡± The critter jumped from my shoulders and easily landed on those two bouncy legs. The ears went droopy, eyes mournful. ¡°Owen burned. Boat burned. No¨C¡± and it said a word that I would later learn meant something like ¡°magic.¡± No magic. I put my hand out and the critter charged into my palm, rubbing against it, rubbing its entire body against my hand. I tried not to laugh and failed. It swiveled that long face at me. ¡°Help with Hunt, stuck on water. Cage boat fight.¡± Whatever that meant sounded like a dangerous and foolish thing for me to be doing; I was already exhausted from this bizarre day. I said: ¡°let¡¯s go right now, then.¡± The Moon in Your Guts I still had nothing better than that raft, but our objective wasn¡¯t far so off we went. The Radio accompanied us with that lousy song and ignored all questions. Some observations:
  1. Her name was Schmendrick. Fire Owen had given her that name, she said. I wondered why; Schmendrick was my favorite character from my favorite book; he was a hapless magician who became the greatest in the world. But it wasn¡¯t easy for her to pronounce: Shmen Rick. I knew who she meant.
  1. Schmendrick was a lady. She was going to have babies in twenty days, or as she said it: ¡°viente dias,¡± and asked if I had a nest she could use to care for them. I told her of course I did, who wouldn¡¯t have a nest? Such a silly question.
But I hadn¡¯t broken into the Observatory yet. No nest. Better get on that. Her fur blazed white in the sunset. Quite a handsome creature, even dirtied up. She kept lookout while I kicked and paddled. She looked down at the Radio through the water as it followed us in its intermittent fashion. ¡°What word,¡± she said. ¡°Radio. It helps us.¡± Sort of. ¡°Radio. Radio. Dead Fire Owen no Radio.¡± She sniffed the air, then my face as I huffed and puffed. ¡°Dead Owen no guts moon.¡± Guts moon. Something that is inside a person that blazes like the moon. ¡°I have that now.¡± Her head reared back like she was a cobra. ¡°Owen burned gone. Regres¨®?¡± ¡°No, I¡¯m so sorry. I¡¯m someone who¡­I¡¯m not, but I look like him and have part of him in here.¡± I tapped my forehead.¡± She flopped to the narrow deck. After a while she lifted her snout to the darkening sky and howled. It wasn¡¯t a single clear note like when a wolf cuts loose. It was a lot of yapping and and wailing, like a coyote. Unbearable. I scooped Schmendrick into my arms and cuddled her against my chest. I couldn¡¯t have stopped myself if I¡¯d wanted to. She was a bony, sinewy little thing, weighing maybe as much as a big housecat. I stroked her and rocked her. She stopped howling but still whined and muttered sad noises, umf umf. I didn¡¯t tell her it would be okay, because that¡¯s always a lie. But I did shush her, gently, and hum a song my mom had made up when I was little. She started humming the same song, though I had never sung it to her. Not this me. A different me. Finally she looked up at me, ears rising around her pointed face. ¡°New Owen.¡± ¡°That¡¯s right. We can think about the Owen who was your friend. We can talk about him. I¡¯ll try to be like him.¡± ¡°Smell worse.¡± ¡°Oh, I¡¯m sure of that.¡± Drifting over the water: howls. Just like hers had been, but a lot more of them. We¡¯d arrived. And it really was a cage boat fight. Okay, readers, Human ones especially. You''ve been so patient with my account and I genuinely appreciate it. This next part, though? I wouldn''t blame you for getting squicked out by the weirdness. Let''s dip our toes in: First of all, dense smoke. It was a clear evening but there was something causing a huge mess of gray, impenetrable fog, a nasty tower of it that reached high into the air. The wind was blowing it our way. The cloud held dim moving shadows that were hard to read in the setting sun: blobs? Bony limbs? A huge wreck of some kind, shaped vaguely like a rocket ship made in the fifties. It was a pointy black cylinder, elaborately decorated with silver swirls and arabesques, shining metal stars and suns. Curved fins from the top and sides, the ones I could see. It was something I¡¯d seen recently, something familiar. Not this thing, but something like it¡­This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. Ah. The cage in the cave. It had been built with this same florid style. What had Mandy called the people who had made it? The Iron Conclave. That sounded right. The Rocket Ship, if that¡¯s what it was, was half-sunk in the shallow sea. It looked new; shiny and well kept, except for the hole blown in its side, something from within the thing had blasted outward. The black, silver-trimmed panels of the hull were torn open to form a ragged metal flower. The smoke flooded from that hole. The occasional flicker of indigo light would light everything up in there. And yes, through that torn metal I could see what could only be cages. Familiar ones. The whole thing looked dangerous. Dangerous and really fancy, artistic. It looked expensive, and whoever it belonged to? They¡¯d be here to get it. Atop the crash was a gang of people like Schmendrick. White ones and orange tabby-cat ones, all roughly the same size. They hopped and howled and barked. I couldn¡¯t hear some of what they were saying; I could feel the harmonics of their alien cursing but it wasn¡¯t a frequency I could pick up. The Schmendrick creatures were plenty riled at something in the cloud of smoke. The blobby shadows. One of them would venture near the pack, just at the border of the fog, and they¡¯d bark and scream at it. The thing would go away before I could get a look at it. I paddled my raft to the wreck. ¡°Hey!¡± I shouted. ¡°What are you guys doing?¡± Just like a damn kid seeing friends working on a tree fort. Can I play with you guys? Some rescue mission. Those pointy noses swung my way. Ears went up, long tails waved. Yelling barks ensued. Schmendrick barked back. I thought for a moment the whole gang of them would jump into the water and climb aboard; they were bouncing excitedly in place and whining, wiggling. Something dark and small arced from the cloud, an egg-sized thing. It struck the hull of the ship and went BANG! A flat puff of ominous yellow smoke drifted away, mingling with the fog. None of the Schmendricks were anywhere near it, whatever it was. ¡°Time out, we don¡¯t use mustard gas!¡± I shouted. I reached the side of the wreck and found plenty of handholds in the ornate metal trim of it. My raft bobbed as Schmendrick swarmed up the side with me. When she rejoined her pack, all of them glared up into the cloud, bared their white fangs and spat a single word in unison, one that raised my hackles and filled the air with heat. A burst of the not-purple light flared hugely inside the cloud. ¡°Whoa, cease fire guys!¡± I stood in front of the pack, between them and whatever they¡¯d just blasted. Slowly, their teeth were sheathed again, they looked at me, the scary expressions fading. Some of them started crying, like Schmendrick had. Then they charged. I couldn¡¯t stop laughing. They were just so glad to see me! I got a welcome from them like they were my dogs and I was returning from a long tour of duty. Whining, barking, crying. I knelt on the hull and they frantically nuzzled my face and tried to climb on my head. They pushed me down and buried me with their bodies, yipping joyfully. They had a distinct smell; a little like Cool Ranch Doritos. ¡°I¡¯m glad to meet you,¡± I said. ¡°I welcome you to¡­those logs.¡± And gestured grandly. ¡°Ll¨¦vanos de este lugar, Owen,¡± shouted one of them. Schmendrick said something to them in their yappy language and they snapped to attention, sort of; their ears fanned out, necks straight up. As a single mass they ran down the side of the downed ship and either leaped for the raft or into the water nearby. It was obvious some of them simply couldn¡¯t swim, and were aided by their comrades. They started to calm down once they were all aboard. I counted twenty of them. They were curling into legless loaf shapes all up and down the logs, their heads darting about like periscopes with ears. No room was left on the raft for Owen, but that was just fine. I was the motor. ¡°What happened?¡± I called down to Schmendrick. ¡°What¡¯s this thing that¡¯s burning?¡± ¡°Cage air boat,¡± she snarled. ¡°Hunters hurt it. Got out.¡± She turned to her family and screamed in Ingl¨¦s: ¡°The HUNT!¡± They all turned to her and screamed it right back: ¡°The HUNT!¡± in perfect unison, except for one who said ¡°la CAZA!¡± ¡°So who else is here?¡± I pointed at the cloud. ¡°Who are those guys?¡± ¡°Gardener,¡± sneered Schmendrick, her thin black lips curling. I scanned for bonus info. Each of the Hunt here had a soul, a fluffy, huggable soul with dangerous spikes and thorns. The cloud was full of souls as well. Tranquil ones, for the most part. Placid, meditative. Perfect spheres, not a lot of thrashing or intricacy. Wait: one was a crackling mass of sparks and spiteful lightning. I knew that was the guy I¡¯d end up talking to, and he¡¯d probably been the one throwing the damn bombs. I lost count of the souls in the cloud at around twenty-five. They moved about, mixing and swirling with one another. They were airborne, all up there in a tall mass. None of them were anywhere near touching the craft or the water. Flyers. I stood atop the wreck; it was warm against my bare feet, like that lock had been in the cave. Magic. Or a fuel leak, perhaps. Finishing this quickly would be ideal. I stood on the edge of the fog and waved my arms. ¡°Hey! I¡¯m an emissary from the Observatory, and I¡¯m here to help if you¡¯ll let me.¡± The soul I¡¯d noted earlier, the nasty sparky one, slowly descended. It came closer to my dramatic perch on the smoking wreck and emerged from the fog. The Gardening Tool Imagine a weather balloon, but alive. A mottled, spotted thing with patterns and veins that look a little like a butterfly¡¯s wing. This one was a deep blue, with a pink spiral pattern. The sphere of its inflated body was maybe six feet across. It felt big and mean, but also quite fragile. A soap bubble that threw grenades. At the bottom of the creature, where a balloon might have a gondola, was a reef of blue marbles: eyes. They were haphazardly placed all around the flat, round body of the creature. A few of them were on the edge of the gondola, if you will. Most were aimed downward. I didn¡¯t know which of the eyes to meet, so I stuck with a decently-sized one aimed more or less at me. Arms. It was all thin, knobby arms after that. Five of them, distributed evenly around the gondola. Folded elaborately like the grabbers on a praying mantis. Each arm had a belt and a pouch, or holster. Tools poked out. The hands were very simple but looked terribly strong: three fingers each covered by shiny, shell-like material. Stranglin¡¯ hands. Three-fingered Ninja Turtle hands, if you¡¯ll pardon the comparison. The being was a living balloon. With tools. The Radio piped up from the shallows. ¡°Owen knew the Gardener was inspecting him. It spoke in its language, a series of whistles that Owen could not hear. It declared that Owen was a monster and foolish. It was speaking to its fellows, because Owen was beneath notice.¡± So not only was the balloon living, it was also a jerk. ¡°Radio,¡± I called. ¡°Is this the Iron Conclave? Is that what I¡¯m looking at here?¡± ¡°The folk of the Iron Conclave looked nothing like this person. These people were known in most languages as Gardeners or Foresters.¡± ¡°Were they prisoners like the Hunt? In this vehicle here?¡± ¡°There were prison cages for many beings. They contained evidence that the Hunt and the Gardners been ncarcerated within.¡± I turned and shouted to Schmendrick. ¡°How did everyone escape?¡± ¡°Killed it!¡± she crowed. ¡°KILLED IT!¡± The rest of her pack screamed in chorus. ¡°Did you let these Gardeners out?¡± ¡°Claro que s¨ª.¡± I turned back to the Gardener. ¡°So what¡¯s the problem? Radio, can you ask it?¡± A pause. ¡°The Gardener refused to accept aid from monsters. Its people are a proud and ancient race and it demanded to be returned to the world-of-trees.¡± ¡°I can¡¯t do that. I don¡¯t know where it is or how to get there.¡± ¡°The Green Radio was aware of Owen¡¯s numerous limitations.¡± ¡°Why don¡¯t they just float away? Leave here? Please ask.¡± ¡°The Gardeners were mighty and had nothing that could thwart them, but they were reluctant to simply drift over the sea with no means of stopping. Their world-of-trees was nothing like this terrible place and they demanded to be returned home. This last was stated with some emphasis.¡±Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. ¡°Can you get them to come with us? I have trees that need tending, and fruit that needs to be harvested. Just until a way home is found for them.¡± Which could be never, of course. But I couldn¡¯t just leave them out here. ¡°If they stop throwing grenades, please.¡± ¡°They vehemently refused. They were disgusted at even hearing the offer from such a lesser being as Owen and his wise, offended friend the Green Radio.¡± But the balloon being extended a hand and slowly approached. It cautiously held my hand in one of those alien mitts. Hard shell, cold. One of its other hands was extended towards the fog and another balloon person emerged, taking hold. It was monarch butterfly orange-and-black. One after another they made a chain. I was able to get them to the raft. ¡°Schmendrick, clear the deck so they can hold on to the lashings there, please.¡± ¡°Gardener not stupid now?¡± Schmendrick asked, as her pack cleared the way. ¡°I don¡¯t know. Why were you fighting earlier?¡± ¡°Gardener not want kill monster.¡± She posed, rather majestically. Gazing into the middle distance like Harrigan had. ¡°Dead monster.¡± ¡°Yeah, all right. Fasten your seat belts.¡± So I had a chain of bitchy weather balloons holding on to my raft, and twenty members of the Hunt. I myself had no room aboard, so I pushed and kicked. The pack tried to help from aboard the raft, kicking and scooping water. The Gardeners did absolutely nothing. Thunder boomed and the stars were hidden by huge clouds. Flickering glows nestled in there. Not lightning. They blinked in patterns with discernable rhythm. The Hunt felt it too. ¡°Run fast,¡± said Schmendrick. She was looking around the sky at the new clouds. The chain of Gardeners rose up straight and a little behind us. A string of wiggly rainbow pearls. I suddenly worried about a lightning strike on one of them, way up there¡­ The Radio excitedly rushed through another translation. ¡°The Gardener expressed concern that the slain monster would draw others, and that all present were doomed due to the incompetence of the human person present. Also the monsters who wrecked the ship, they were to blame as well.¡± ¡°Is it sending a distress call?¡± Because the clouds had covered the sky entirely. More thunder. The pack of Hunters crouched low and whined. ¡°Surprisingly, Owen was correct; a signal was bringing the 101st Celestial Ascendancy Division. The signal was not automated. The pilot was simply no longer dead.¡± ¡°How nice for him.¡± I kicked, and kicked, and the raft moved so slowly. ¡°Tell me about who¡¯s coming here. What do they want?¡± ¡°Listen up, Jackson - even the ether box ain''t got the moxie for mind games. But here''s the dope: we spy (like the old days) three vessels. On the level." ¡°We need to get back to the Observatory. We need help.¡± I was still gamely kicking, trying to push the raft. ¡°Call 911.¡± ¡°The Green Radio began to ring Doctor Jeff Harrrigan through his security measures¨C¡± ¡°Not him! NEVER him! Tell me about the machines used by the Iron Conclave.¡± ¡°The Green Radio hesitantly offered to try reaching the Undine¨C¡± ¡°Not her either. You know what, forget it.¡± I was Steward of the Observatory. I didn¡¯t know what it meant, but after a certain point you just get tired of things. You get tired of not handling it. So let¡¯s handle it. ¡°Tell me about their machines.¡± ¡°The Conclave used very primitive devices whose purposes and mechanisms were augmented by what Owen would call Magic, but was known by a variety of other names, such as Cognitive Manifestation, Entropic Inversion, Bioelectric Amplification¨C¡± ¡°Will their stuff work without it?¡± A long silence from the Radio. I splashed and kicked. Closer to the shore, closer¡­ ¡°No,¡± said the Radio. To my relief, my feet dug into sand. I shoved the raft ashore. The Hunt fled into the jungle like ghosts. The string of Gardeners drifted helplessly, but the wind was with them. They made it to the trees and latched on like multicolored Christmas ornaments. I turned and saw what was coming. Cheese Grater Three of the Rocket-Ship-looking craft were cruising slowly over the sea. One slowed and stopped, then began nosing at the downed, burning wreck. A burst of pink flame and fragments showered the water; something inside the crash had exploded. I stood on my beach, in front of my observatory. I waved. ¡°Go away,¡± I called to the machines. Two of them kept coming. ¡°Radio, do they speak a language? Can you translate for me?¡± ¡°Owen was assured he could speak to them and be understood, translated by the helpful Green Radio.¡± What to say¡­I didn¡¯t have a fiery speech ready. ¡°Okay, please translate the following.¡± I cleared my throat and said as loudly and clearly as I could: ¡°We don¡¯t abduct people, guys. And the ones I brought home are now under my protection. Hit the road, Jack.¡± The two machines were getting closer. The Radio made a series of ghastly gargling and whistling noises, all using that Announcer voice. The invaders kept up their stately approach. They dropped a little in altitude, and were cruising just above the water surface. A sound came from them like perpetually tearing cloth. Engines? Magic engines. Everything here was magic and I had no idea how magic worked. No response to my announcement., just the continuing approach. They were loud, and emitted a lot of heat. A strong aroma of cinnamon was carried by the wind. Schmendrick took fifty damn years from my life by scrambling up my leg, along my back and perching on my shoulder. ¡°Jesus Schmendrick, you scared the crap outta me¨C¡± And the Radio translated it, of course, so the Conclave ships could understand. Schmendrick was snarling, ears back. ¡°Kill more monster,¡± she said. The Radio helpfully fed her threat to the Conclave ships. It didn¡¯t stop them. The vessels were close enough to land. I didn¡¯t back away. Schmendrick stayed on my shoulder, a vicous pirate parrot, claws digging but not breaking the skin. We watched as ornate landing gear, three for each vessel, slowly unfurled from the undersides of the things with jets of steam. ¡°Last chance,¡± I said. The Radio translated, horribly, with gargling and spitting. Schmendrick starting winding up one of her destruction word things; I could tell. That bonus content purple swirled around us, setting my hair to standing on end. Her fangs were out. She hissed and screamed in her language. Nothing happened. The invaders weren¡¯t wreathed in explosive flame, as I¡¯d seen with Schmendrick¡¯s magic over by the wreck. Nothing. She looked confused. Ears up, fangs put away. She looked at me in doggy dinosaur dismay. ¡°Fill her in, Radio.¡± ¡°Security measures allowed no external cantrip, augur, enchantment or curse,¡± It said. ¡°No magic aside from what the Steward permitted.¡±Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. With menacing grace, the two ships passed over the waterline. Their metal ornamentation gleamed, the black hulls polished and beautiful. The moon cast their shadows on the white sand. Then the noses of the things collapsed and fell to the sand, leaving gaping cross-sections that revealed ornate silver intricacy within. They kept coming forward, and as they did, more leading slices of their structure groaned and fell, landing with a clang and crash in the sand. My sand. The effect was as if they were being pushed into an invisible cheese grater. The ships started slowing, but it was too late: pops of lightning flared within the machines, more and more of the craft fell inert to the sand as it passed over the Obervatory¡¯s invisible border. Flames began raging in the huge dark interior of one of them. ¡°Radio, allow Schmendrick and her guys to do their stuff, okay? And now please translate.¡± I cleared my throat. ¡°I warned you, dumbasses.¡± As the radio relayed this helpful information, the two ships finally found a way to start backing up. Something that might have been an alarm started blooping and hooting. But it was too late. First one, then the other of the ships shuddered in the air and splashed into the shallows near my beach. They both shed plenty of parts; it was like watching a steel onion get julienned right in front of me. With a loud gonging clang, they collapsed. Whatever had been holding them together had been lost. Metal panels, girders and the frilly decorations all tumbled to bits. Schmendrick screamed something. Her pack was instantly at my feet. She made a horrific sound, a snarling hiss¡­ And all of the Hunt vanished. No: not vanished; the air around them flickered with a nightmarish distortion. But it was enough. I still felt Schmendrick on my shoulder, then she jumped. The pack, what I could see of it, charged into the wreckage. They fanned out into the surf; I could tell by the splashes their feet made. The Radio boomed from the forest. ¡°The 101st Celestial Ascendancy Division offers you the option to surrender.¡± ¡°I regretfully decline.¡± Hair-raising whispers filled the air. It was familiar, a little yappy. It must have been Schmendrick and her pack, communicating while in inviso-murder mode. Another sound: a lowing mooing thing. It howled and, weirdly, squealed like a pig. I couldn¡¯t really see what was making the noise. Ah, there. A humped mass of something, lurching hugely in the surf, crawling from the wreckage of its ship. It was covered by the leaping, flickering mass of the Hunt. The big thing rolled and staggered into deeper water, where the pack of Schmendrick¡¯s people dismounted because they couldn¡¯t swim well, or at all. I wanted to get a better look at it their victim, but it was already fleeing, wallowing for the third undamaged ship, the one that had wisely remained at a distance. I glimpsed the other pilot as well, already halfway out of town, on the way to rescue by the remaining craft. The final flying machine cruised over and scooped up one, then the other of the Iron Conclave pilots. It stopped in midair facing the Observatory. ¡°Something to say?¡± I called. The Hunt flickered into visibility again at the edge of the water, all at once. They began barking and yowling at the ship. The Iron Conclave craft slowly turned and began flying off towards the horizon. I couldn¡¯t think of a funny line or taunt, and that¡¯s probably for the best. The day still wasn¡¯t over. I had guests. Change the Station The tide had come in. My little shelter I¡¯d built with the Big Broadcast plane parts was a foot deep in the lagoon. I didn¡¯t have any light. I was hungry. I stank. My feet hurt. I was marooned on an island. The island was on another planet. I had a crush on a sea monster. A balloon was mad at me. But let me tell you: watching the Hunt frolic around those piles of metal made me feel okay. I¡¯d helped someone. For today, anyway, I¡¯d escaped the chancla. So I moped a while in the jungle near the base of the Radio, where it blasted someone named Hoagie Carmichael at me, singing about a Buttermilk Sky. There, at least, was light from its speaker and tuning window. ¡°The Gardener wished to offer gifts.¡± ¡°No kidding?¡± I sat up from my itchy almost-bed of grass. ¡°The Gardener has the right damn idea.¡± Alarmingly, there it was, the blue balloon, descending from the trees. It was very delicate, but the grabby arms and huge empty mass of its body was startling. Scary, even. It was holding a mess of cords, and on the cords were strung a rainbow of glowing things. It reached eye level and stopped descending. One of its hands held out a cord made of grass, and a large berry had been threaded onto the cord. It glowed pale blue, not like a halogen lamp or anything but bright enough to see with. Bioluminescence, or more ¡°magic,¡± whatever that was. I made a show of putting it around my neck and bowing. ¡°Please convey my thanks to the Gardener.¡± ¡°Done,¡± said the Radio. ¡°It wished to speak with you directly, as your hospitality indicated you deserved that honor.¡± ¡°I¡¯m Owen. What should I call you?¡± ¡°Your speech is ugly,¡± it said through the radio. ¡°And my name will be permanently made ugly by you speaking it.¡± I stifled a smile. I thought about cartoons I¡¯d watched as a kid, and for some reason came up with a snail, one with pink-and-blue coloration. Like this guy. ¡°I¡¯ll call you Gary.¡± ¡°Foolish. All wear these items. It is required.¡± And it handed the mass of glowing necklaces over. I yelled for Schmendrick. She¡¯d been asleep, curled up behind the radio, and was instantly there with us. I knelt and showed her the glowing necklaces. In response she held out both of her monster hands and screamed. I tied one around her neck and she bolted into the jungle. Soon I was surrounded by the Hunt, and they were all screaming for the necklaces. I tied one around each. There were exactly twenty-one of them total, one for all of us. The jungle filled with leaping, sprinting multicolored sparks. ¡°They love it, thank you,¡± I said to Gary. ¡°In this way we can track the location of all monsters here. You will not catch us unawares in the dark and slay us.¡± ¡°That¡¯s heartbreaking.¡± ¡°You are a fool!¡± And Gary rose through the trees, clambering among the branches around that big balloon body. I noticed that there were strings of the lights all over the place, all colors. The Gardeners had been renovating. ¡°How are they, Radio?¡± ¡°They did not require shelter. Nor did the Gardeners. Only Owen did.¡± ¡°So let me in the Observatory, you criminal.¡± The Announcer voice was strained. ¡°The rules¡­cannot¡­there is a password¡­¡± and to my shock, the glowing speaker tore. The rip was maybe a half-inch long, but red blood dripped from it, running in a swift stream down the speaker and along the Radio¡¯s wood-and-stone exterior. ¡°Whoa man!¡± I smacked a palm over the wound. ¡°Don¡¯t do anything that hurts you, dummy!¡± ¡°Owen was¡­¡± it said haltingly. The speaker vibrated under my hand. ¡°Owen knew that¡­his¡­the¡­¡± ¡°Stop! Change the station!¡± Then a voice, familiar, cold. ¡°Nice of you to call me, Owen.¡±If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. I said nothing. I admit to being caught by surprise. ¡°Where is he?¡± Harrigan asked. His voice was ice. I remembered being afraid of him before, back on his island, where it had been all fun and games. No longer: he sounded tired and desperate. I shouldn¡¯t have, but I responded. ¡°Where¡¯s who?¡± ¡°Who do you think? Sean! Bring him back or I swear¨C¡± The radio¡¯s narration took over. ¡°Doctor Harrigan¡¯s eyes narrowed in contempt. His little office was a mess; furniture had been thrown, a window broken. Harrigan himself looked as if he had not slept in a long time.¡± Indignation took over. ¡°I don¡¯t have Sean, I told you where he was! You saw me leave alone!¡± ¡°You said he was in the cage. The cage was empty, Owen. Just his clothing was in there. Did you strip him naked? Is that what you do?¡± ¡°Change the station!¡± Music. The familiar, awful song that ended in ee-yaagh. Harrigan was no longer on the air. I carefully removed my palm from the Radio¡¯s speaker. The bleeding had stopped. The tear was there, but noticeably smaller. ¡°Radio, don¡¯t do anything that hurts you. Stick to whatever rules you have, but you¡¯re too important to do that kind of nonsense.¡± A long pause. ¡°Yes.¡± I lay in the grass, looking up at the stars. I couldn¡¯t see the constellations; no glasses. But it was safe to assume I wasn¡¯t on Earth; that particular puzzle had been solved by meeting three kinds of ¡­ aliens? Nonhumans. And Sean? Sean had been what? Kidnapped? Raptured? Maybe something in the cave had grabbed him. Just plucked him from that cage for a snack, then put his clothes back as a request for a refill. His dad had seemed upset about it. What did that mean? If Sean had been killed and reborn as many times as the Radio had described, a dead Sean Harrigan should be no big deal to dear old dad. But it was. I fell asleep thinking about it. Sean and Jeff Harrigan, my least favorite people. I woke with the entire Hunt cuddled up to me, laying on top of me, inadvertently cutting off my oxygen. They snored. I had to pet all of them and tell them they were good before I could get up. The sun was high, late-morning-early-afternoonish. I¡¯d been exhausted last night after rescuing some dog-dinosaur murder-wizards and sassy balloon aliens, then repelling an alien invasion with what amounted to harsh language and luck. But the sleep had really helped. Schmendrick followed me as I went about the island: first to the spring for a drink of hopefully-safe-to-drink fresh water, then to the melon patch. The Gardeners had already been working on it. The melons gleamed with good health. There were no weeds. Somehow, I don¡¯t think I want to know exactly how, the patch had been fertilized and smelled of it. Bees rejoiced in new flowers I hadn¡¯t noticed the day before. Whatever these guys were doing was working out. Schmendrick and I picked out a melon. Just as I was lifting it and twisting it free of its vine, Gary the Balloon descended from the trees like the wrath of God, snatched the melon and actually smacked my hand with one of his armored mitts. I yelled. ¡°Ow, dude, what¡¯s your damage?¡± Schmendrick became murderously outraged and began yowling at Gary. ¡°It¡¯s okay, sweetie,¡± I said, and scooped her into my arms. ¡°We don¡¯t need those nasty old things. Probably give us intestinal parasites or venereal disease.¡± ¡°Leave here!¡± the radio distantly boomed on behalf of Gary. ¡°These are unripe and part of the larger agricultural program! Fools! FOOLS!¡± And he lowered himself to ground level, began scooping up dirt and actually flinging handfuls of it at us with all five appendages. ¡°Pfah,¡± I said, because he¡¯d scored a direct hit and gotten some in my mouth. Fertilizer for breakfast today. We ended up at the beach, like one tends to do on a very small island. Schmendrick and I started trying to catch fish. I was lousy at it. She called some of her posse and they were soon swarming the shallows, grabbing anything living and flipping it high in the air to flop on the sand. I watched as Schmendrick expertly cleaned the fish on a flat rock. Her claws were perfect for it. She pointed at the raw chunks of meat. ¡°Owen favorite fish kind.¡± ¡°My favorite? How do¡­oh.¡± The Owen she¡¯d known. They¡¯d gone fishing together as well. She knew what he''d liked, and she was right; the sashimi was excellent. It was full of flavor, as if the fish had spent its life seasoning itself for my benefit. I ate and ate. So did she and her pack, and I was able to speak with them for the first time while some horrific disaster wasn¡¯t happening. ¡°Let me ask you something. This place, this world, has a lot of different kinds of people in it. How do you know the fish here aren¡¯t people as well?¡± ¡°No soul,¡± she said. ¡°Just meat.¡± ¡°Got it. No soul, no guts-moon. The Owen you knew didn¡¯t have one, right?¡± ¡°No, Dead Owen just meat.¡± ¡°Would you have eaten him?¡± ¡°Yes. But gave food. Helped. Boat ride.¡± ¡°Have you ever seen any other humans? There¡¯s an island of them that way.¡± I pointed. She snarled and her ears went back. ¡°Bad place. Human with soul, no good, kills humans.¡± ¡°But they¡¯re just meat, no souls. So why is it bad?¡± Why do YOU think it¡¯s bad, I was asking. Those big dark eyes met mine. ¡°Humans there hurt, always, afraid and cry. Bad is bad.¡± ¡°Do you think these fish are afraid before we kill them?¡± ¡°Yes,¡± she said, and that appeared to be that. Philosophy class with an apex predator. The Radio alerted us to visitors: the Makers had returned, ten of them, and were swarming up the beach. They wanted to talk. Precipitation Makers loitered about on the beach near the downed Iron Conclave vessels, giant nightmare crustaceans with wild parade-float shells. The Art Deco individual was positioned in a way that seemed significant; while his four associates were inspecting the crash site, he was aimed away from them and parked near the treeline, apparently waiting for me. ¡°Radio, what¡¯s this?¡± ¡°With tremendous shock, Owen suddenly realized that his incredible friend the Green Radio had no inkling as to why the Makers were present. Owen had great difficulty believing the amazing Radio had any limitations at all! He was stunned! Flabbergasted! No matter how minor¨C¨C¡± ¡°All right, thank you.¡± I sat down in front of the lead Maker with the Art Deco rivets and little building on top. The one with the shell that had a message from another Owen Mateo Walsh, to the current version of Owen Mateo Walsh. I wondered if these guys had an internal skeletal structure; crustaceans on earth never got this big, and certainly never hauled around metal housing. I couldn¡¯t see its face or if it even had one. Just the smooth contours of its machined and curved shell. But I could see its soul in there, with Bonus Content vision. Exceedingly complex, right-angles forming and fading, elaborate fractal hexagonal matrices pulsing and blinking. While the creature itself was motionless, its soul was an intricate, seething mass of energy and action. ¡°Good morning,¡± I said. ¡°Radio, I know you fetched these guys and they saved me from a mean talking fish. Can you convey my gratitude?¡± ¡°Owen says good morning and thank you,¡± the Radio said. ¡°I could have done that.¡± ¡°Their understanding of verbal communication was exceedingly simple. The Radio had been able to convince them to aid you, for a distress call is fairly straightforward. And it could be that gratitude is something universal to people in the Slice.¡± ¡°Okay, that¡¯s nice. What do they want? Can you translate what they say, if I can¡¯t tell them anything?¡± ¡°To a certain extent. The Maker present was glyphing the following message: ¡®Requisition: All salvageable bauxite, fifty percent gibbsite, fifty to fifty-five percent aluminum oxide exceeding 250 grams per cubic meter, under three percent silicon dioxide, Mohs hardness one to three, bulk density six to nine grams per cubic centimeter.¡± I frowned. It was a lot, but the words requisition and salvage stuck out. ¡°They want this stuff here. The Conclave junk. We aren¡¯t really doing anything with it at the moment. It¡¯s kind of dangerous having it here; what do you think, Radio? Schmendrick?¡± ¡°Makers peligro,¡± Scmendrick said. I stroked her head, scratched her ears. She leaned into it. ¡°Peligro, danger. But not bad.¡± The Radio translated again: ¡°Proposal: Six-member team offers Observatory restoration. Services: micro-fissure repair, bond reinforcement, enhancement and repair of inorganic superstructure. Estimated completion: 94 hours. In exchange: salvage rights to crashed craft. Salvage duration: 5 days max. You retain five percent for analysis.¡± I looked at the Observatory dome. It was still a mess. ¡°They have a deal,¡± I said. ¡°Can you convey that to them, please?¡± ¡°You have a deal.¡± ¡°You know what, Radio, sometimes your jokes are so damn stupid¨C¡± ¡°Acknowledgment: Offer acceptance noted. Gratitude expressed. Request: Implementation of proprietary restoration protocols mandatory for optimal results.¡± ¡°Great job. I hereby allow them to use their spells or whatnot to make it happen. Thanks, Radio. Good girl, Schmendrick.¡± I scratched her back at the base of that heavy tail, then stopped. She shot me a dirty look and I kept scratching until she was satisfied. The Makers began looting the corpses of the fallen Iron Conclave ships. There were flashes of magic, or some sort of extra oomph involved, but mostly it just seemed like they were unscrewing things and stacking them off to the side. ¡°Radio, I thought of something. Do you have evidence that these people will use this stuff to hurt anyone?¡± ¡°Owen knew that the Makers were, in fact, muy peligroso. Exceedingly dangerous, as the being he¡¯d named Schmendrick had indicated.¡± ¡°I remember that. And the rockets. So they definitely will hurt people, correct?¡± ¡°The likelihood was strong.¡± I thought about that for a while. I needed allies. Mostly I needed muscle. I needed people who were smarter than me, that was for sure. ¡°Will they hurt anyone I like?¡± ¡°Maker culture revolves around creation. Owen knew he¡¯d given them more exotic raw materials than they¡¯d be able to harvest on their own over a very long span of time. It could be argued that Owen had made not just allies today, but cultists.¡±This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. As Schmendrick and I watched the Makers reduce the ships to fragments and haul those fragments out to sea, clouds rolled in. A light drizzle became a lightning-filled downpour. It was bad. The sky was dark in the middle of the afternoon. The rain stung, and the wind came hissing in from the west. I looked longingly up at the windows of the Observatory, still the only real shelter, still locking me out. The Makers kept at their task; they were amphibious, after all. But the Hunt screamed and complained at the lack of shelter. I waded into the lagoon and awkwardly carried the metal sheet with the Big Broadcast painted on it into the forest near the Radio. It made a decent shelter when propped against the stone the Radio currently infested. The entire pack huddled under there, curled up against one another. The Radio had stopped playing its music. ¡°Fool!¡± it said, using the voice I¡¯d come to think of as owned by Gary the Mean Balloon. ¡°The wretched Human has had hours to prepare, and there are no flood mitigation structures!¡± ¡°Didn¡¯t you yourself chase me away from your stuff just this very morning? I seem to remember being physically assaulted.¡± ¡°EXCUSES!¡± shouted Gary. ¡°There is no excuse for lack of preparation! AGAIN you fail us!¡± ¡°When exactly did I fail you the first time? Oh, never mind, man, let¡¯s do this.¡± I followed Gary to what looked like really nice rice paddies, still in progress. The Gardeners were good at their stuff, no doubt about it. But the current storm was overwhelming the delicate stepped ponds that marched up the hillside. I could see why Gary was panicking. This had been a lot of work. The steps were sloshing over with too much water. It looked like the entire arrangement was about to go sliding down the hill. ¡°I need a shovel,¡± I said to Gary, who handed me a little garden-trowel sort of thing from his tool belt. ¡°No, dude. Like this but bigger, my size.¡± No good. I ran to the Makers and described what I wanted. They gave me three of them in roughly thirty seconds, sturdy metal handles and tough blades for digging. ¡°Okay Gary, how about making a drainage ditch?¡± ¡°Do ANYTHING, Fool! ANYTHING! FOOL!¡± I got into it. Nothing like heavy landscaping in a tropical storm ¡°Gary, don¡¯t you know how to handle this sort of thing already?¡± ¡°The world-of-trees is nothing like this nightmare place. The Good People have never experienced this horror. Now they hide in the forest, waiting for death and doom to take them, betraying with COWARDICE.¡± Sure enough, I spotted the rest of Gary¡¯s people clumped under a dense patch of jungle. The lightning flashed and thunder boomed, and they squashed closer together. They made no move to help Gary. As I shoveled, they watched. That¡¯s all. Fair enough; they¡¯d had a rough couple days. ¡°Just you and me, chief, we got this.¡± I dug where he indicated. He didn¡¯t understand pointing as a gesture; he took my shovel and demonstrated where he wanted me to dig. I still could do more than he could, what with my human shoulders, long human arms and cool new shovels. So we spent the storm in the mud. With her pack in its meager shelter, Schmendrick showed up and help supervise what I was doing. She had no idea about any of it, at all, even had to ask me what the shovel was for. But she still screamed instructions. Occasionally she was right. ¡°No,¡± said that male voice from the nearby observatory dome. ¡°Oh god, no! Where is this place, why god why?¡± ¡°Come down here in the mud and help us,¡± I called up to the windows. ¡°Ah, god, I¡¯m sorry! I¡¯m so sorry please!¡± ¡°It¡¯s cool, man, these things happen,¡± I said. ¡°Human monster in rock,¡± observed Schmendrick. ¡°Yeah, do you know anything about it? Is he like, a magic guy, one you can get at?¡± Her voice got grim and serious. ¡°All are prey to the Hunt.¡± ¡°You¡¯re badass, Schmendrick.¡± She posed dramatically in the rain without a hint of irony. Probably. It was getting dark. The Gardeners busted out their little berry-light necklaces again; this time I got two, one for my neck and one to tie to the end of my shovel so I could see where it was digging. Schmendrick screamed until she got one. We worked, and worked, late into the night. Gary never let up with his verbal abuse, but he also never stopped hustling. He constantly grabbed bits of bamboo and wood, lashing them together with vines or strips of bark, and strange alien architecture would spring up, guiding flood waters around his crops. Gary was a professional. The radio was ominously quiet. Usually one could rely on it for commercials selling alien cosmetics or toiletries, and of course the usual big band music. But it wasn¡¯t even playing its awful eee-yagh song. There is an unfortunate fact of life I need to share here. It¡¯s important. Ready? People sing to their pets. Yes, it¡¯s strange and often horrible, but there it is. I¡¯d sung to my dog Molly when she¡¯d been around. My mom had sung to her cat, Frodo. It¡¯s just something Human people do, okay? Cut me some slack. And it¡¯s not like I ever sing or dance or fool around with any other human stuff when actual humans are around. I have standards. Anyway Schendrick wasn¡¯t a pet. I didn¡¯t know what she was. She was a small vicious alien creature who liked to be petted, and that seemed to fit whatever mental niche I required to start belting out work songs. I started with ¡°Schmendrick is a Good Girl,¡± just making it up. Followed by ¡°Schmendrick Bites You With Her Face.¡± Schmendrick yapped and howled along with me in her high coyote voice. The two of us were awful, but it made the time pass. ¡°Our enemies rejoice in your ceaseless screaming,¡± Gary said. I got louder; so did Schmendrick. The rain was pelting down hard, stinging and mean. I couldn¡¯t think of any more songs. Unconsciously I finally started going through the Radio¡¯s terrible ee-yagh song, the one I¡¯d had drilled into my head hour after hour, the one in a complex inhuman language that contained a scream in the lyrics. I got through it once, then twice. We were winding it up and reached the scream part; I pointed at Schmendrick and we both went EEE-YAAGH! She was better at it than I was. Then shit got real, because it turns out that song was the password to the Observatory. A Sufficiently Advanced Technology is Indistinguishable from Magic Johnson An honest-to-God gong went off somewhere in the dome. It was a low, rumbling note that shook my teeth. Schmendrick yowled along with it. I heard the rest of her pack down the hill in their shelter, yapping and howling too. Gary kept working, but he did pause for a moment, so you know things were pretty serious. A heavy, grinding metal groan filled the night. Blazing blue light flickered in the Observatory windows, and then the round top of the entire structure cracked open in triangular segments. It opened, blooming like one of the flowers that surrounded the Radio, but huge. Speaking of the Radio. Its voice boomed, shaking the world: ¡°The Observatorium Sapientiae welcomed its Steward.¡± Then it ramped up, sounding officious and angry: ¡°So it was decreed, so it shall be, from this day until the stars themselves dim and the great machines of creation cease to run.¡± ¡°Thanks, Radio, you¡¯re a pal¨COW!¡± Because the blue glow from within the dome had reached out into flickering sapphire flame, and it was barbecuing me. It HURT. I was surrounded by blue fire. I rolled on the ground like one is told to do, but the flame wrapped itself around me, singeing the trees and grass, burning my clothing. Now I was emitting smoke. I was treated to the aroma of my own skin cooking, and the wounds hissed and fried like bacon in a pan. I yelled and tried to crawl away but the fire stayed on me, burning, stinging¡­ Schmendrick yipped in alarm and charged toward me. I held up a hand, stopping her. ¡°No, stay away sweetie!¡± She skidded to a halt, ears down, fangs out. It stopped, finally, leaving me in a crater of torched jungle plants and blackened grass. Embers quickly died in the rain. I still smoked. Gary had stopped to watch. The blue fire was gone. He went back to work. Schmendrick, seeing that I was no longer ablaze, crashed into my face, pressing her small skull to my forehead, whining. ¡°Not dead again,¡± she said. ¡°Not fire again.¡± I stroked her neck. ¡°I¡¯m okay. Stay away, I might burn you, don¡¯t get hurt.¡± Umf umf, she made her distressed noise, and didn¡¯t back off until I shakily stood. I was still smoking, fresh from the flame broiler. I wasn¡¯t wounded, exactly. I¡¯d been marked. Tattooed? My skin hissed where rain struck it, which was everywhere. In fact, my cheap shirt, bargain cargo shorts and truly ghastly underwear fell to ashes. The shoes too, breaking into chunks with glowing, smoking edges. All those things had desperately needed laundering and it¡¯s probably best that they died in fire. I heard a high-pitched scream on the edge of perception. It was Gary. He¡¯d stopped working and vibrated in midair. ¡°Behold these fleshy protrusions that offend the very laws of structural harmony! What crudity of form and function dares profane the sublime design of the universe?¡±The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. ¡°Don¡¯t overreact or anything, Gary.¡± The rain was helping cool the burns. I was one entire burn, I think, even the aforementioned ghastly protrusions. ¡°No tail,¡± Schmendrick said. ¡°Bad.¡± ¡°Funnier that way.¡± I examined the backs of my hands, my belly, legs. There were intricate marks all over me now, geometric patterns and circles. They glowed faintly blue-green. And they moved. ¡°You guys see this?¡± ¡°Unspeakable horror!¡± wailed Gary, and fled to the trees. Schmendrick inspected my hands as I knelt for her. ¡°New,¡± she said. Then she said a string of things in her language, and I didn¡¯t understand, so she said: ¡°Marcas m¨¢gicas.¡± The markings crawled over my skin, forming new designs, breaking apart into circles and spirals, intricate triangles and fractal paisleys. Constantly zipping and swirling, constantly glowing. I¡¯d been marked with moving badges of office. ¡°Huh,¡± I said. ¡°Radio, why did I get tattooed by animated gifs?¡± ¡°The Steward knew he would need to interface with the mechanisms of the Observatory, as well as the new visitors inevitably arriving to pay their respects.¡± ¡°Oh, great. Why¡¯d you make that big announcement, blabbermouth? So it was decreed, so it shall be¡­¡± ¡°As the Steward was well aware, the Observatory was bound by rules.¡± The Radio had started playing a song, high, sweet feminine voices: You¡¯re outta the woods, you¡¯re outta the dark, you¡¯re outta the night Step into the sun, step into the light¡­ The Observatory now had an open door, through which golden light flowed, and a new stone ramp that had risen from the jungle floor. ¡°I¡¯m not ready for that,¡± I said. I still stung and burned. The rain was still cooling me and it helped. I grabbed the shovel. ¡°Gary, come back here, we ain¡¯t done. Tell your dudes to take cover in there. Schmendrick¨C But Schmendrick was already herding her pack up the stairs. ¡°Safe?¡± She called. ¡°Yeah. Please find me a pair of pants if you can, Schmendrick. Radio, I don¡¯t know what¡¯s in there, but make sure none of it hurts the guys, please.¡± ¡°The Steward, in his wisdom, has declared that none shall lay hand or harm upon those whom he has welcomed into the embrace of this hallowed place. His word is law, his decree absolute, upheld by the immutable forces that govern the very fabric of our world.¡± ¡°What word ¡®pants¡¯?¡± Schemdrick called. ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it, just get in there and take care of your crew. Gary, I¡¯m getting tired, let¡¯s finish up.¡± The rest of the Gardeners were trooping into the Observatory. They bumped the archway and ceiling, because they were so wide, but they made it through. Good, one less thing. Gary was still out here, though, floating over in the trees. ¡°You disgust me,¡± he said. ¡°So we¡¯re done?¡± ¡°No!¡± He got back to work, and so did I. The rain eventually stopped, and my burns finally stopped stinging. I went into the Observatory. Time to get things rolling. The Invasion Force The sun blasted us like a celestial hairdryer. I was on my little boat in that flat, empty shallow sea. My little boat was well-built and had a tiny engine that ran by dodging the second law of thermodynamics. Schmendrick was with me. Both of us were surrounded by the slow-moving menace of the Copycat Eel. It was surrounding us with that slow-moving spiral of its huge, sharkish body. It was even bigger than I¡¯d remembered, huge and horrible, gray and indifferently ravenous. We were preparing for an invasion from Dr. Harrigan. Some time had passed. Not only did I have a pair of knee-length board shorts, but Schmendrick was looking rounder; her time was coming. She was glossy with good health; a pregnant, furry dinosaur dog sort of thing. I¡¯d made sure she wore her colorful Cazador version of a life vest, made special for her singularly non-bouyant ethnicity. It was covered with little hearts and smiley faces. She¡¯d also been learning English and had gotten pretty good at it. ¡°I got chunks of guys like you in my poop,¡± she said to the Eel. ¡°Now Schmendrick, we don¡¯t need to be mean. I¡¯m sure the Eel here wants to help us out. Especially when we consider the alternatives.¡± The Eel kept its slow circle. That tall fin had healed, and a pale scar marked where a hole had been blown in it by the Makers. The moving stripes on its body didn¡¯t work on the scar itself. Magic healing, maybe. This place was lousy with magic. The surface of the water twitched and wrinkled as the Copycat Eel formed words. ¡°Food mean,¡± it said, in my voice and Schmendrick¡¯s. ¡°Very mean,¡± snarled Schmendrick, leaning over the rail. ¡°Beg us for your life.¡± I petted the back of her head and her neck. ¡°Aw, we don¡¯t need to kill the Eel today. The Eel can be part of our organization.¡± It kept circling. It didn¡¯t make a move on us, but it didn¡¯t up and leave. It was listening. Okay then, I gave my pitch: ¡°This is your territory, as near as I can tell. I¡¯ve been keeping an eye on you. The two of us are here on this boat to see if you¡¯re interested in becoming a Special Friend to the Observatory.¡± It kept circling. ¡°We can offer you a lot of food. A lot. The Observatory rewards its allies.¡± ¡°Two food on boat,¡± said the Eel. ¡°I need you to focus on what I¡¯m saying, and if you threaten us again we¡¯ll take it poorly. Would you like to join us?¡± ¡°Food on boat,¡± said the water again. Something thumped the hull. Schmendrick said something in her language. More-than-purple light flared around one of her monster hands, and suddenly she was holding a long white needle, huge like a fencing sabre in the grip of the diminutive Schmendrick. A tooth, maybe a foot long. It was bloody at its knobby root. The soft, huge body of the Copycat Eel flinched elaborately. A wisp of blood trailed in the water now. ¡°Kill you with your own tooth,¡± Schmendrick said conversationally. ¡°Take aaaall your teeth, stab you with them until you die.¡± ¡°Schmendrick, we don¡¯t have to do that. There¡¯s no need to murder our new friend with its own body parts. Listen, Eel. All we need for you to do is let people go through your territory. People who look like me, human ones.¡± The Eel, though, was no longer interested in conversation. It was slowly unspooling from its scary circle, moving off. Fleeing. ¡°Didn¡¯t say you could leave, pendejo!¡± Schmendrick shouted in her high voice. Her fangs were out and her bat-ears were flat against her skull. ¡°Oh, that¡¯s okay,¡± I said loudly, for the benefit of the departing Eel. ¡°Looks to me like the message was received.¡±This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. After some time, the Copycat Eel had successfully retreated to parts unknown. Schmendrick pushed her head against the palm of my hand and I scratched the bases of her ears. Her eyes closed and she crooned. Then she asked: ¡°How was Bad Cop?¡± ¡°You did great! I couldn¡¯t have done anything like that.¡± ¡°Yes, Owen is a squishy gooshy person.¡± She sniffed at the blood on the root of the Eel tooth, licked it with her long pink doggish tongue. Her pointy ears went up. ¡°Tasty. Good to know.¡± ¡°Can I try?¡± She handed it over and I sucked at the blood. It was actually pretty good. Notes of mango, oddly. I could see making Copycat Eel steaks, if we had to feed some carnivores, which we always did. After days of raw fish this was no big deal, but in retrospect the two of us must seem quite monstrous to my Human readers. ¡°Schmendrick. How does your magic work? How does any magic work?¡± She looked surprised. ¡°You don¡¯t know? Don¡¯t see? But you have a soul. Need a soul to do magic, to see it too.¡± ¡°No, I don¡¯t see. I¡¯m starting to think Humans are pretty dumb.¡± ¡°Maybe just you.¡± ¡°Can I learn? I¡¯m feeling pretty useless around here.¡± ¡°Not useless. Too nice, maybe. Be less nice or you¡¯ll get killed again.¡± ¡°Teach me.¡± ¡°I¡¯m tired,¡± Schmendrick announced. She formed a loaf shape on the floor of the little boat, like a cat would, but with that long thick tail sticking out straight and the neck curled like a question mark against her back. And then she was asleep, instantly. Pregnancy had made her tired and a little crabby. All her people were doing well; I¡¯d been introduced to someone she named Husband Schmendrick. His job had been to make sure the nest was ready, and we¡¯d worked it out. Her whole pack was excited about the upcoming birth, which would be two cubs. Pups, babies, kids, whatever. Husband Schmendrick was a good dude; he fussed over her constantly, but he¡¯d also been fine with her leaving with me for this expedition. I suspected he¡¯d needed a break. I¡¯d give him the Eel tooth, which was undeniably cool. The engine worked soundlessly; I¡¯d described what I was looking for to Art Deco and he and his crew had thought it amusing, but they¡¯d made us a motorboat. One that never needed fuel. Art was always asking about the boat and how to make it better; after this afternoon I¡¯d request a roof to keep the sun away. The Observatory had been benefitting from the work of everyone. Rice paddies climbed the sides, lush vegetation, crops, coated the whole place. The dome was festooned with vines and little trees. The whole place was vibrantly alive, green and colorful in the sun. There had been a campaign against the clouds of colorful birds I¡¯d seen on arriving. Gary had killed them for eating his stuff, then ground them up for fertilizer. Gary did not mess around. It was okay, this place. It needed more work, but what doesn¡¯t? ¡°Your island looks like a damn cruise ship,¡± called a voice from the water. Not the Eel. ¡°No, more like¡­a theme park.¡± A slow, goofy smile spread over my face. I looked around, and there she was: a brown blur far away where I couldn¡¯t see any details. But it was her round face, her twin pigtails, her grin. Her bare, round shoulders were just visible beneath the surface. The rest was frustratingly distorted by the water. ¡°Mandy!¡± I shouted and waved. Schmendrick stayed zonked out. ¡°Owen!¡± she mimicked, and laughed. ¡°I knew it would be you. I don¡¯t know how, I left you in a damn cage and now¡­¡± she raised a chunky arm and gestured at the Observatory. ¡°Come aboard! Ashore, whatever.¡± I couldn¡¯t stop smiling. Good lord, play it cool, you doofus. ¡°Can¡¯t,¡± she said sadly. ¡°Too naked.¡± I would like to point out that I carefully maintained eye contact. ¡°I have a crazy house and some cool alien friends,¡± I offered. ¡°You do? What kind?¡± ¡°Los Cazadores, Makers and Gardeners so far. And some bees.¡± Her eyebrows went up. ¡°All in one spot? Those guys? How did that happen? What the hell are you doing?¡± ¡°I have no idea, but we have stuff to eat.¡± She peered at the island, eyes narrowed. ¡°I wanna see, can I see?¡± ¡°Give us a few minutes, we¡¯ll set up a changing room for you. As long as you¡¯re okay with us being invaded this afternoon.¡± ¡°Invaded by who, the Conclave?¡± ¡°Harrigan thinks I stole his kid.¡± She frowned. ¡°When I was able to go back there, you were gone. Then the girls told me about your escape, and that Doc was freaking out trying to find him. Did you take Sean?¡± ¡°No. I was going to ask if you¡¯d done it yourself.¡± ¡°I couldn¡¯t stand being around that jerk in a social setting, much less kidnapping him. You going to be okay with ¡­ an invasion?¡± ¡°I think so, I just have to keep the guys from slaughtering the poor invasion force. I¡¯m hoping we can work something out and turn it into a barbecue. Meet me back here in a little bit.¡± Mandy smiled like the sun, sank beneath the surface and was gone. I gleefully shook Schmendrick awake and told her about it. She bit me. Product Demo With their usual blinding speed, the Makers had set up a little changing tent right in the shallowest part of the water. It looked like an old-timey one from a hundred years ago, the kind of thing one sees in old beach photographs. Art Deco stood by in the water. He was holding a boxy contraption in one of his many retractable limbs. Mandy stepped out wearing one of the many potential outfits we¡¯d put in there for her: a sarong around her body and hips, leaving bare caramel shoulders and thighs for me to not look at directly under any circumstances whatsoever. So chunky. So gorgeous. ¡°Nice,¡± she said, and looked down at her outfit. It was pale linen, or something, and there were piles of it in the Observatory. It was tough and easy to clean. I¡¯d made several pairs of board shorts with the stuff. I looked at her feet, at the rocks. ¡°Need shoes?¡± ¡°No, I can just¡­you know, toughen up. I have a little bit of leeway with these bodies.¡± I gestured to the Maker nearby. ¡°Mandy, this is Art Deco. He¡¯s Observatory Chief Engineer.¡± I formed glyphs on my skin, with some concentration, and positioned my limbs in a way that mimicked the Maker language of glyphing: Friend. Strong. Ally. Water. Mandy laughed, sounding shocked. ¡°What¡¯s that? What are you doing?¡± ¡°Introducing you.¡± ¡°Is it a dance battle?¡± My face got hot. ¡°No¡­it¡¯s not dancing. This is a way I can form words in their language. I don¡¯t know how to glyph yet.¡± The distant Radio translated through the jungle for Art Deco: ¡°Proposal: immediate commencement of substantive data exchange regarding spheres of concurrent authority and influence.¡± She goggled. ¡°You speak their language. I¡¯ve tried to before but got nowhere, I almost thought they didn¡¯t have any.¡± ¡°They do, it¡¯s just nonverbal. They form their souls into complex shapes. Visible for a long way underwater if you¡¯re in the right spectrum, and super efficient. One glyph is loaded with information.¡± ¡°Is that what these are?¡± She leaned in a looked at my chest. I gazed at the horizon to avoid the temptation of a cleavage peek. I knew the moving designs covering my skin flitted and reformed: spirals, hexagonal grids, fractals, characters in languages I didn¡¯t know. They glowed blue-green, even in the sunlight. My face got hotter. But I concentrated: an anime ink drawing of Mandy herself swirled into being where she was looking. Two pigtails, round face, smiling eyes. ¡°Holy¡­wow, Owen.¡± She raised her hand to touch her portrait, then dropped it before she made contact. ¡°Wow. How¡¯d you get like this?¡± ¡°Wasn¡¯t easy. Art, what do you have there? Oh, is that ready?¡± I thought about offering to take the box from him, but knew better. It was Art¡¯s project and he¡¯d demo it for us. ¡°Okay, come with us if you¡¯re all set.¡± I beckoned. He understood that gesture; we¡¯d been learning a lot from each other. Mandy saw the extensive work being done by the Gardeners. The stepped rice paddies, the irrigation trenches, lined with stones that formed alien mosaics in vibrant colors.. She made appreciative noises at the vertical gardens exploding with flowers, and at the alarmingly large Bees who tended them. ¡°Who are these guys?¡± she asked. She wasn¡¯t remotely nervous around the huge insects; I¡¯d forgotten that Mandy was invincibly unhurtable, more or less. ¡°Big Smart Bees. Schmendrick and the Radio want me to say Beeniuses. I don¡¯t know how to talk with them, exactly. They pollinate everything here and work with the Gardeners. They don¡¯t sting, but they¡¯re armed. So¡­you know, be cool.¡± She held out a hand to one of the Smart Bees. It landed on her palm, busily patting her fingers with its antennae. It was roughly the length of her small hand. This one had a tiny knapsack, a ball of thread and a little knife strapped in various locations on its body. After investigating, it droned and bumped away to the rainbow of color in the vertical garden. Mandy turned to me, eyes wide, beaming. ¡°So cute! And it didn¡¯t try to kill me!¡± ¡°Yeah, we seem to have worked out a truce.¡± I showed her the back of my left hand; a leafy green bandage was stuck there. ¡°Had some misunderstandings.¡± I¡¯d also almost lost an eye, but didn¡¯t say that part. We made our way to the Observatory entrance. ¡°Radio, please grant the Undine whatever reality alteration procedures she requires.¡± ¡°Owen¡¯s message was received.¡± ¡°Who was that?¡± Mandy was in an interesting state. She¡¯d started out pleasant, polite. Now she was fascinated. Her eyes were wide, and she seemed to be perpetually battling a smile and losing. ¡°Oh¡­boy, that¡¯s a question. It¡¯s the Green Radio. At first I thought it was a magic superpower thing. But that¡¯s not it at all.¡± ¡°Owen was correct,¡± the Radio said. Its voice echoed from the curving black walls of the Observatory. ¡°Owen was rarely correct, so this occasion was notable, perhaps worthy of commemoration.¡± I sighed. ¡°Yeah, yeah. How¡¯s the invasion fleet doing?¡± ¡°The invaders had barely survived passage through the territory of the Ammonite Priestess. They were traversing the perilous reach of the Copycat Eel!¡± A dramatic musical sting. ¡°Thanks, man. Let me know if anything changes please.¡± ¡°That stupid Eel,¡± Mandy grumped. ¡°But I¡¯m betting it¡¯ll wipe those idiots out and still keep yelling food food food even after it eats them all.¡± ¡°The Eel was nowhere to be seen,¡± said the Radio approvingly. It played a bit of music, one that sounded like a comically sad laugh. Wah wah wahhhh. ¡°That¡¯s great! Good cop bad cop worked out, I¡¯ll tell Schmendrick.¡± We were in the main dome of the Observatory. Its crazy, ornate golden machinery packed the floor, but the hemispherical ceiling was currently free for the balloonish Gardeners to drift about in. They were, of course, finding ways to make things grow in here. The interior of the Observatory had been a rather nasty, dusty labyrinth when we¡¯d first gained entry. Now it was becoming an indoor arboretum, a sci-fi steampunk botanical garden. Deliberate waterfalls and narrow aqueducts filled the space, supported by solid bamboo scaffold. Hydroponics, they told me. It was good work. Mandy was looking everywhere at once. She couldn¡¯t stop smiling, those cheeks bundled up with excitement. She¡¯d gasp and laugh when she saw this or that bit of Gardener expertise. One waterfall ran a little paddlewheel. A miniature spaceport-looking thing operated as a landing spot for Big Smart Bees. The Radio was playing something I hadn¡¯t heard from it before: a woman singing about work, about a five o¡¯clock whistle on the blink.Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. ¡°Owen talk please.¡± It was Husband Schmendrick. He had orange tabby-cat markings, and was a little smaller than his spouse. I handed him the tooth of the Copycat Eel. I suppose he must have liked it, but was too anxious to say so. ¡°Nest is good,¡± he began. ¡°Thank you for nest.¡± ¡°Great, man. What else can I do for you? Excuse me please, Mandy.¡± Husband led me away a short distance, a very human thing to do for a private conversation. We stopped at the Inverse Kinematic Driver, which looked like a jukebox to me. I knelt to look Husband in the eye and petted the top of his head, which was something the Hunters seemed to expect from me. ¡°Hurts.¡± His ears went down. His green eyes got big and sad. ¡°Schmendrick hurts.¡± I got the story out of him: his spouse was in pain from pregnancy, and I assumed she hadn¡¯t wanted to trouble me with it during our meeting with the Eel. Schmendrick was a tough cookie. But her back hurt, her belly hurt, her neck hurt and she was mad at her husband. ¡°Got it.¡± I¡¯d been reading up on this; the Observatory had a lot of books. Many, many books. I¡¯d been able to get through them with the help of the Radio, and there were other things in the dome that made learning easier. I yelled for Gary. I glanced at Mandy. She was standing rapt in front of the worried Husband, and now she faced the horror of Gary. ¡°You are a fool,¡± he said by way of greeting. ¡°We have a Hunter with pregnancy pain. Do you have any chamomile or aloe vera?¡± ¡°Witness the moronic Steward, poisoning his friend in her time of need. THIS is the proper remedy.¡± And he handed over a little jar of ointment. I passed it to Husband Schmendrick, who wasn¡¯t allowed to go near the Gardeners. They thought his people were monsters, but Gary also acted as a pharmacist for them. Husband bowed once, a human thing he¡¯d seen me doing around here, and ran like a dog on fire to his lady. ¡°You don¡¯t eat it,¡± I called after him. ¡°You rub it on her where she hurts, Husband!¡± I turned to Gary. ¡°Is that right?¡± ¡°Even the foulest pool of ignorance can reflect the moonlight of wisdom.¡± ¡°Good to know. This is Mandy, the Undine. Mandy, this is my dear friend Gary. He loves me.¡± ¡°Unpleasant Steward odor, redolent of decay and evil,¡± Gary said, and drifted up to work on some kind of pipe system. ¡°Hold on, Art¡¯s project is done and he needs to show you.¡± I formed glyphs with my body as well as I could. Show. Work. Good. Mandy started clapping and shouting Hey! Hey! Hey! In rhythm. ¡°I¡¯m not dancing,¡± I said. ¡°I''m not.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll say! Nice to meet you, Gary.¡± Gary paused. At least two of his many eyes inspected Mandy. ¡°Nightmare from the deep, here to slay us. Or damage our crops!¡± He sounded bored with the first option, then panicked at the second. Mandy grinned. Her fists went to her hips (which I noticed had the fabled Dips of legend, to my delight). She was about to cut loose on him with some kind of verbal bodyslam, and I didn¡¯t need Gary throwing fertilizer at an ocean goddess today. ¡°Don¡¯t mind him, he¡¯s just mean. You get used to it.¡± I beckoned, and Art Deco clattered forward with the box he¡¯d been carrying. ¡°Hateful armored crustacean, feasting on carrion and horror, unwanted, unwelcome and unloved.¡± ¡°Gary, cool it before you say something rude. Art¡¯s got something you need to see. Are you looking? Gary, come down here. GARY.¡± The living balloon dropped its tools with a theatrical clatter. Its spherical body noticeably shrank as its membrane contracted, and it sank to our level. Art Deco held the box with one of his main claws. A second one emerged from a little hatch and took hold of a rounded handle. It pulled, revealing the handle to be connected by a blue string. The claw let go, and the handle snapped back to its original position on the box. An elegant propeller, possibly a foot across both insect-wing blades, popped from the box. It spun smoothly, making a strong breeze I could feel from my position across from Art. The box was silent, and the propeller kept going and going as we watched. ¡°That¡¯s great work, Art. Don¡¯t you think so, Gary?¡± ¡°I love it,¡± shouted Mandy, who looked quite entertained by the exchange. ¡°Vicious machine, assembled by demons.¡± But Art was offering the box to Gary, and he¡¯d stopped the propeller. Gary hesitantly took the box with one of his armored three-fingered grabbers and pulled the string. The propeller spun. Gary¡¯s big body moved in the direction the propeller was pointing. He picked up speed, and soon was zipping around the dome, dodging plumbing and hanging vines. The Radio started in with a song about a Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze. I applauded, mostly for the benefit of Art, who knew what the gesture meant by now. Art boomed through the Radio: ¡°Instruction: Engage manual interface protrusion with surface pressure response to terminate kinetic energy generation.¡± I shouted up to Gary: ¡°Art says to find a button and press it to stop.¡± I hoped that wasn¡¯t too alien a concept. Gary was far away, but I could see him immediately lose momentum. He pulled the string again and buzzed down to meet us. He seemed to be showing off, and spun in place. He started bumping into his own mad science equipment, knocking things over and spilling some glass containers of God knew what, and then seemed to calm down. More from Art: ¡°Optimization-Query: Requesting submission of theoretical enhancement for improving operational efficiency while maintaining acceptable tolerances. Goal is mass-production.¡± ¡°He¡¯s offering to make it better for you, do you have any suggestions? And then once you¡¯re satisfied, he and his bros want to make them for all the Gardeners here.¡± Gary said nothing. He cradled the device in the crook of one of his multiply-elbowed arms. He approached Art Deco, and with one of his chitinous, iridescent hands, patted Art¡¯s shell, three times, tap-tap-tap. Then he said: ¡°Only a dangerous, unskilled FOOL would neglect the idea of storage.¡± ¡°Good point. Show him one of your tool belts, Gary. Dammit, hold still¡­Why are you like this, dude?¡± Because I wanted to point at the tools Gary kept in little holsters attached to his five limbs, and Gary started smacking my hands away. I¡¯m afraid it looked like we were having a slap fight. ¡°Beat that ass, Gary!¡± said Mandy, who seemed to be enjoying herself immensely. It ended when Gary tried to use the spinning propeller to cut through my wrist. But the blades were soft and floppy, as I¡¯d requested of Art¡¯s guys, since a delicate living balloon didn¡¯t need to be waving a deli slicer around. But Art spoke: ¡°Implementation-Affirmative: Proceeding with construction of personalized device retention apparatus. Gratitude-indication for suggestion.¡± ¡°He says he¡¯ll do it. I don¡¯t know how much time¡­oh, he¡¯s starting on it right now.¡± Because Art had unfurled five more limbs and each one held an elegant bronze tool. ¡°Okay, look, I¡¯d like to go visit Schmendrick upstairs, you guys work it out. Yell for me if there¡¯s a translation issue.¡± Gary moved to his workbench, which was mostly the floor, said something nasty about everyone, and hunkered down with Art Deco. It seemed to be going well enough as Mandy followed me upstairs. ¡°That was really nice of the guys,¡± I said. ¡°Two days ago we almost lost two Gardeners; the world they come from just doesn¡¯t have much wind. It blew them out to sea and we had to go pick them up again before the Eel got ¡®em. Poor things were terrified.¡± She was having a little trouble with the weird, nonhuman stairs and the lack of railing. I reflexively offered a hand, forgetting that was a very forward thing to do, and she took it. Cold skin. She asked, ¡°Who started the rescue of the Gardeners?¡± ¡°Well, me. It was my fault, I should have looked after them better. Gary¡¯s very protective of his people, in my defense, and always told me to go away. Then off they went, blown to the horizon. He was a mess.¡± ¡°You started the propeller project.¡± She was looking smug about something, making eye contact. I¡¯d been defeated, or something? Human behavior, always incomprehensible. Speaking of which. ¡°Have you ever talked with any Cazador people? The Hunt?¡± I did some of the Cazador speech: their name for themselves. It sounded like yap yap wowwow (cough.) She shook her head, possibly trying not to smile again. ¡°They¡¯re really tactile. You have to pet them and talk to them. They expect it, and get really sad if you don¡¯t. When they¡¯re sad it¡¯s just awful. Is that cool?¡± Big smile. ¡°Oh my god, let¡¯s hurry!¡± Blabbermouth Radio So I hauled Mandy up the stairs, such as they were, and we made it to the living quarters. A long curving hall with tall doorways leading into tall rooms. There weren¡¯t any actual doors; the people who¡¯d built the Observatory had been tall and unsighted, and not especially concerned with privacy. Schmendrick¡¯s nest was in the biggest room. She had one of the bed furnishings left by the Observatory builders: a big sort of stuffed leathery cocoon she crawled into for her naps. The rest of her pack would take turns in there with her, keeping her company and warming her. She¡¯d give birth in there, if all went to plan. The Radio sprouted from the black stone wall, its speaker and dial glowing cheerily. The vines and flowers spread out wildly, blooming in waves of color. It played one of its old songs: ¡°Everybody loves a baby, that¡¯s why I¡¯m in love with you; pretty baby¡­pretty baby¡­¡± Schmendrick was curled up in that big puffy cocoon, smelling of ointment. The top of her head was visible, and the tip of her thick tail. Her black nose twitched and snuffled. ¡°Owen,¡± she said. ¡°Hi sweetie, did the medicine help?¡± ¡°A little. Pet me.¡± So I went over and did as ordered. She stuck her head out all the way, lolling miserably from the upholstery. I stroked her head, rubbed the bases of her ears. ¡°I brought a visitor. Her name is Mandy, and she¡¯s the Undine. A water monster person. Have you heard of her?¡± ¡°On the Radio. Always fighting bad guys. Why is she here, are we bad guys?¡± ¡°No, she¡¯s here to pet you.¡± ¡°Tell her to hurry.¡± I beckoned to Mandy, like I had to Art earlier. I had to do it twice; Mandy was standing frozen with her hands over her mouth, eyes shining. She approached and began rubbing Schmendrick¡¯s neck. ¡°No,¡± Schmendrick said. ¡°Cold.¡± She sniffed at Mandy. ¡°Not alive.¡± ¡°No, I¡¯m not,¡± Mandy said gently. She vibrated with contained happiness. ¡°I¡¯m alive elsewhere, in the ocean. This is a magic Mandy I made to visit you.¡± ¡°Stay but don¡¯t touch me. Where¡¯s Husband?¡± I looked around. ¡°I thought he was in here, probably went to get you something to eat.¡± ¡°Good Husband. Ghost last night.¡± ¡°I know, are your guys ready?¡±If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. ¡°Yes, next time will be the time.¡± ¡°We have a ghost,¡± I said to Mandy. ¡°He wakes us up yelling no no no, and won¡¯t tell us what the problem is.¡± ¡°Scares Owen awake and he crushes everyone.¡± ¡°Oh my god, they sleep with you in the same bed?¡± Now Mandy looked envious. ¡°All of them?¡± ¡°Yep, apparently very important, the whole pack. This nest is just for Schmendrick right now, when she wants it.¡± The Radio abruptly stopped its music. ¡°War news update!¡± A beeping noise, one I¡¯d learned signified morse code, an older mode of electronic communication. ¡°The invasion force had safely passed through all hazards, and Owen knew with icy certainty they would arrive within the hour,¡± ¡°Oh, good for them. Mandy, this is the Green Radio. It¡¯s the voice of the Observatory, I think, and it tells us about your adventures. Radio, how many times has the Undine fought off monsters and jerks from this part of the world?¡± ¡°The Green Radio had witnessed the Undine battle the House of Fists, the Iron Conclave, Vertex Thaumaturge, The Eternal Third Variable¨C¡± ¡°Stop it,¡± Mandy said, flushing. ¡°It¡¯s no big deal.¡± She looked away, suddenly very intent on petting Schmendrick, who shook like a wet dog and bared her fangs. Mandy was embarrassed at her own heroism. My Human readers will understand that I found this extremely, painfully endearing. ¡°We appreciate it,¡± I said. She scowled. ¡°Shut up.¡± ¡°Not allowed to leave,¡± Schmendrick said imperiously. The smile came back to Mandy. ¡°Got it. Nice to make your acquaintance, Radio.¡± ¡°The Undine had saved the Observatory many times, and had never asked for anything in return.¡± ¡°Stop,¡± she said, flapping a hand at the Radio. ¡°Enough.¡± ¡°And Mandy herself, as Owen had rhapsodized just this morning, really was adorable.¡± I rolled my eyes, and I knew my face was blazing. Mandy smiled slowly, not looking at me, perhaps reddening a little. I hoped she¡¯d get over being offended; she was a goddess and I was just a doofus. Blabbermouth Radio. The Radio blared a fanfare of shocking, horror-movie music. ¡°A message was being sent from an unknown source!¡± A series of harpsichord notes and chimes with the occasional click or handclap. Nonhuman speech. That was odd. ¡°Can you please translate it? Do you know the language?¡± ¡°The message was as follows: ¡®In the grand arena where suffering seeks solace, your destined place beckons like a newborn star.¡¯" ¡°Where¡¯s it coming from?¡± ¡°A structure between the Observatory and the Ammonite Priestess. It was a round building, hovering in place, covered with trees that grew down to barely touch the sea hundreds of feet below.¡± I frowned. ¡°Oh, that. Killed one of us. Mandy, do you know it?¡± She nodded. ¡°Empty for a long time, I¡¯ve never gone in, though. Could be someone in there, sending spam. Want me to wreck it?¡± I didn¡¯t get a chance to continue. A noise came from down the long hall, a male human voice shouting. The ghost. The Man Who Wasnt There Schmendrick¡¯s head snapped alert on its long neck: up periscope. She looked at me. I nodded. ¡°Do your thing, but stay safe.¡± She snarled in her language. The words caused her mouth to glow violet inside her head, shining through the muscles and skin of her face, silhouetted by curved bones in her skull, by pegs and needles of teeth. Her shout echoed down through the Observatory, earning responses from others in her pack. The air filled with the smell of lightning. Schmendrick vanished, or nearly so; she was a shadow, the edges of her outline scarily indistinct. She blurred soundlessly from her nest and out into the corridor. Mandy¡¯s eyes were huge, and the fascinated half-smile was back. ¡°What¡¯s happening?¡± ¡°Catching the ghost,¡± I said. We followed the stealthed shimmer of Schmendrick as she was joined by another, then another of her nearly-invisible pack. More Hunters drifted in, silent, almost casual. The Radio was playing a silly song: Late last night upon the stair, I met a man who wasn¡¯t there! He wasn¡¯t there again today, how I wish he¡¯d stay away¡­ ¡°What¡¯s that? You hear it?¡± Mandy whispered excitedly. The whispers, the Huntspeak, Schmendrick had called it, buzzed at the edge of hearing. I nodded and held a finger to my lips. Mandy bounced excitedly on her toes. In the buzz of sneaky communication, there were a few words I¡¯d been taught: Flank. Wait. Move. Then, in a buzzing shout that wasn¡¯t loud, but made my ears ring nonetheless: PREY CONTACT! ¡°Oh no, God why?¡± the ghost shouted. ¡°I¡¯m sorry, I said I was sorry, please!¡± And it began weeping, its bass voice soggy with remorse. It was close by, maybe a few doors down the hall. Blurry members of Los Cazadores began seeping quickly from all over the Observatory. They were converging on an empty room, or one I¡¯d thought was empty. Their whispers took on a triumphant, gleeful tone. Ready. Ready. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. A long silence. It was broken by the sobbing of the ghost, quite nearby. Its voice had an odd crackly, static sound. Electric. An ecstatic whisper from the Hunt: STRIKE! And the entire pack struck. Scarlet and violet strobes blazed in the dark room, casting blurry shadows out into the corridor. Mandy sprinted ahead of me, holding the top of her sarong in place with one hand. We slid to a halt outside the kill zone, or she did; I kept going; she grabbed my hand and hauled me back with intimidating strength. We both peered around the door frame. Stealth mode was off. The pack swarmed visibly around something, a thrashing, fighting invisible something. Magic blazed and sparked. A screeching groan shook the walls as a blazing violet curve was slowly etched into the floor. It grew, slowly, burning, filling the room with acrid smoke that smelled of dead leaves. It was becoming a wide circle, one that was scarring and melting its way into the stone at our feet. ¡°Oh my god!¡± The ghost said, for once sounding something other than miserable. Now it was panicked. ¡°Help! HELP ME GOD!¡± Schmendrick herself climbed the empty air, clawing and biting, rending with the dreadful talons of her legs, gripping with her knobby hands. Husband joined her, biting and snarling. The pack¡¯s joyful yapping and baying filled the Observatory as more and more of the Hunt climbed their struggling, invisible victim. ¡°NO!¡± The ghost shouted, and then cut loose with an honest-to-God ghostly wail, long and wordless. Mandy, still holding my hand, was bouncing with excitement¡­ The blazing circle on the floor flared brightly as it completed itself, or as the Hunt completed creating it. A loud hiss, one final burst of smoke, and the glow faded. The Hunt, still shouting and barking in a satisfied manner, ran in a clockwise circle around the emblem on the floor. Then a phrase I understood from Husband, in the Cazador language: GO EAT! And they all flooded out the door and down the hall, yelling and laughing. I assumed Husband had a pile of fish he¡¯d been about to bring to his wife. Schmendrick was the only one left. She sat on the floor near the glowing circle. ¡°Carry me, Mandy,¡± she ordered. ¡°Wait, no, cold. Owen, carry me.¡± ¡°I have to stay here, sweetie. You all did so great, thank you! Can Mandy go back to keep you company?¡± When I was alone in the room, seemingly, I sat on the floor, back against the wall. I waited. The smoke finally cleared. I heard a buzzing sigh. ¡°Hello,¡± I said. ¡°Sup,¡± said the ghost mournfully. ¡°Are you Sean?¡± ¡°I think so.¡± D-Day! ¡°Your dad thinks I abducted you. He¡¯s sending some guys to get you back.¡± Heavy, static-filled sigh from Sean. There really was nothing physical in that circle. When a person speaks, you can get an idea about which way they face, even if you can¡¯t see them speaking. Sean¡¯s voice simply emitted from the empty air. ¡°Sean? You¡¯re not a prisoner. Do you want to go back to him?¡± ¡°I really don¡¯t.¡± His voice was the same as I remembered. More electric and buzzy, and less hostile and showboaty. ¡°I¡¯m starting to remember.¡± ¡°Okay, this isn¡¯t a problem. We¡¯ll work it out. Radio, please let Mandy and Schmendrick listen in if they like.¡± We didn¡¯t speak for a while. I¡¯d left him in the dark. I wasn¡¯t proud of that. I don¡¯t know what he was thinking, but he did more of that unsettling electrical sobbing: sss-sss-sss. I looked at him with my Steward¡¯s eye, checking for bonus content. A soul, forming in that circle. A pulsing blob of sadness, not hovering in the air but plopped on the floor like a scoop of melting ice cream. Where other souls I¡¯d seen had been seething balls of energy, this one was a foggy, wretched mess. As I watched, it was solidifying, becoming denser. I interrupted his misery. ¡°Are you in any pain? Can I get you anything that will help?¡± ¡°Why? Why would you?¡± His voice was a dull growl. ¡°Why not?¡± ¡°I forced you into that cage. And you know what? I forced you to leave me there. I wouldn¡¯t have let you go up those stairs. I¡¯d have beaten you up, tried to push you off the stairs, you know? Off the cliff. The dark goes down so far. I remember trying to find the bottom, once I¡¯d¡­become this. I couldn¡¯t find it, just bones. Bones, then more dark, going down and down.¡± ¡°Did you¡­are you dead?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know. You said Mandy¡¯s here.¡± Mandy like the song. They¡¯d sung that song at her as they¡­as she¡­ The big dive. I found myself staring into that circle, the one holding Sean. Sean, who had left me in a cage in the dark to starve. But that wasn¡¯t a big deal, was it? No. Not at all. But Mandy. That was¡­ That was a Big Deal. I was on my feet, fists at my sides. It was the Biggest of Deals, the tastiest sample in Costco, the sweetest ride on the lot. ¡°Owen?¡± His voice was tentative. Lost. Just a big dumb kid, really. Afraid of his monstrous father. All of them had been. I was shaking. Deep breaths. I had this person in my power, which was a strange, unheard-of sensation. I wanted to look back on this, years from now, and know I¡¯d done the right thing. It wasn¡¯t entirely my call to make. ¡°Do you want to talk to her?¡± ¡°Oh god, no, not her. After what we did¡­¡± Was that sincere? Did it matter? If I wanted, I could ask the hunt to come in here and destroy whatever Sean had become. I thought for a while. I looked at my hands. They¡¯d stopped shaking. Okay. Back in charge of myself. ¡°Do you want out of that circle?¡± ¡°No!¡± His voice snapped with an electric pop. ¡°No. This is keeping me together. I can finally think. Please¡­I need to think, please let me be.¡± ¡°I won¡¯t let your dad get you.¡± I don¡¯t know why I said it, but I meant it. Harrigan wouldn¡¯t get his mitts on this¡­person, not again. ¡°After all I did. I¡­¡± ¡°It¡¯s cool.¡± ¡°It¡¯s really not. It¡¯s not.¡± No, it wasn¡¯t, but we could work on it. I left him there, sobbing to himself. Sss-sss-sss. Mandy was facing the window in Schmendrick¡¯s nest room. She had that rigid combat stance I remembered. ¡°I gotta go,¡± she said. ¡°Everything okay?¡± I asked, because it¡¯s what you do, but I could see that everything was not okay. ¡°Trouble, something new, a biggie. On the way here. I¡­let¡¯s go to the beach, please.¡±The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. We left Schmendrick snoring in her nest. We passed Gary and Art Deco, building something with the wooden dowels and linen. Wings? A kite, maybe? I didn¡¯t interrupt them. Their conversation was entirely nonverbal; just two nerds slapping stuff together, making something cool. It was good to see. ¡°Those kinds of people don¡¯t like each other, usually,¡± Mandy said. ¡°I think there was a war, but I don¡¯t know.¡± ¡°How about the Hunters? Or these Bees, do you know anything about them?¡± ¡°Nope.¡± Her serious demeanor flipped into that wide grin again. So cute. ¡°I think it¡¯s just¡­¡± She frowned. We were on the beach; she set foot into the water, her feet nearly covered by it. ¡°I like it here,¡± she said. ¡°Me too. Everyone here is cool.¡± ¡°What are you going to do with Sean?¡± ¡°I¡­don¡¯t like what he did to you. I feel like it would be okay for me to¡­For me and the guys to¡­I don¡¯t know.¡± ¡°It would have happened anyway,¡± she said. ¡°And has happened many times, I¡¯ll bet. Please don¡¯t ¡­ whatever, on my account.¡± I sighed. It felt like the right thing. If I asked the Hunt to destroy Sean, I was sure they could do it. Mandy didn¡¯t need that on her conscience. I thought of Mandy, falling. Not superpowered Mandy, like this girl. Just a regular person. I inhaled, deeply. Sighed through my nose. I knew my eyes were big, I was angry, and probably looked pretty crazy. ¡°I¡¯ll just keep him there and tell him he sucks. For now.¡± ¡°He does suck, that¡¯s a real issue.¡± She looked up at me. Kapow, went that sweet round face right into my 2-volt brain. Readers, you weren¡¯t there. Take my word for it: Kapow. ¡°I have a favor to ask,¡± Her voice was tentative, but she already had that smug look. She knew she¡¯d get it. ¡°When there¡¯s a real earthshaker fight like this one coming up¡­¡± She pointed at a distant thunderhead on the horizon, a miles-tall pile of white cloud. ¡°A big one? People need help. People lose everything. They need someplace to go, someone to help them. I¡¯ve been doing my best, but I don¡¯t have an island with a farm piled on it, you know? With a shelter and a built-in population of ¡­¡± She waved her arm at the Observatory dome. ¡°Helpful weirdos?¡± ¡°Yeah, exactly. But they¡¯re all weirdos on the same frequency. It works.¡± Helplessly, I got that big dumb smile on my big dumb face. ¡°Thank you,¡± I said through it. ¡°I know it¡¯s a lot to ask, but I might need a safe place to put some people. What do you say?¡± She raised those big brown eyes, meeting mine, looking hopeful, lovely, badass. I took in a deep breath. Not a gasp, but it was probably close to that. Good grief, readers. Holy cow. Holy mackerel! ¡°Bring whoever you like. We¡¯ll work it out.¡± Okay, my voice was pretty good. No shaking, pretty steady. There it was again: the smug Mandy grin. She¡¯d won an argument with someone. Herself? Not me, that¡¯s for damn sure, I couldn¡¯t argue with this girl if I¡¯d wanted to. ¡°Okay,¡± she said. ¡°Okay, great.¡± She took a few steps into the water, facing the distant thunderhead. ¡°Thanks for coming over,¡± I said, then realized that sounded stupid, or unsuited. Social norms weren¡¯t really built for our current situation, I suppose. Thank you for visiting my mad-science alien farm, you ocean goddess you. She spun in place and faced me like a gunslinger. Her face was grim, serious. ¡°This was the most fun I¡¯ve had in forever,¡± she said in a rush. ¡°Me too,¡± I said. I realized something horrible: I¡¯d been showing off for Mandy all day, and I hadn¡¯t realized it. Idiot. Idiot. ¡°And I can bring some folks? They won¡¯t be human folks, okay?¡± She was stiff, unmoving. Braced. ¡°Better and better.¡± She flat-out scowled. ¡°And if I don¡¯t have anybody and I just want to come over, is that cool?¡± ¡°You tried to get me out of there,¡± I said. ¡°You tried to save me, in the cage. You come over whenever you want. Bring whoever you want.¡± ¡°Oh,¡± she said, like she¡¯d forgotten the cage. She probably had. Just another day. She stepped back, folded her arms, inspected me. ¡°Tall,¡± she muttered. ¡°Nice,¡± she added. Then she looked at the Observatory over my shoulder. ¡°Fun,¡± she grumped. She met my eyes. ¡°Owen, I think¨C¡± The Radio interrupted. ¡°The invasion force is ahead of schedule. She is arriving now.¡± She? We scanned the horizon. There, framed against that huge thunderhead. It was a single little boat, all right. With one person in it. I could see the tag: Cassie Nilsson. Cassie, from Harrigan¡¯s camp. Special friend of Armand. The two of them had died that night, burned in green flame, trying to escape with me. A new version of Cassie. She wore the tan cargo shorts rolled to show more belly, and the white shirt was knotted under her modest bosom. She peered anxiously at the shore. ¡°My god, she¡¯s even wearing makeup,¡± Mandy said mournfully. ¡°She is? How can you tell?¡± She rolled her eyes and set foot in the water. ¡°You¡¯re so dumb it¡¯s almost hot.¡± ¡°Almost? I¡¯m so much dumber than you think¨C¡± Mandy made an irritated noise: ¡°Uugh!¡± and vanished. No splash, no column of water. Just gone. It felt like a slammed door. Seconds later, the distant thunderhead emitted a boom, and something I couldn¡¯t see cleaved it vertically in half. The cut started from the ocean, from that distant horizon, and jolted straight up with a precise, razorblade cut. The two parts of the cloud began drifting in slightly different directions. I scooped up the dress from the water and hung it to dry outside the Mandy Tent. The two clouds had writhing severed tubes, ruptured sacs. Organs. That was no cloud. The two halves were separating, and the squirming innards of the thing reached for their opposite halves. Trying not to die. It was a lot to take in. I watched for a while as the cloud-thing was sliced, julienned, annihilated. The Radio alerted me that the Undine had defeated the Inoculant Vizier Colony. It also reminded me that the Invasion Force was about to land. Pure of Heart, Dumb of Ass I waded out and hauled the boat ashore with Cassie still in it. She really was wearing makeup. I don¡¯t think I¡¯d have realized it unless Mandy had pointed it out; I¡¯m not good with that stuff. ¡°Good afternoon,¡± I said. Her mouth was a long flat line of misery, her eyebrows up in fearful arch. She was just as I remembered, right down to the blonde bob. She was haggard, terrified. I had to remember that she and I hadn¡¯t met yet, despite my having watched her and her boyfriend die. And where was Armand? ¡°I¡¯m Owen,¡± I said. ¡°I¡¯m the Steward, a kind of janitor here. I want you to feel like you¡¯re welcome.¡± ¡°A janitor?¡± She said doubtfully, looking at the crazy moving tattoos on my arms and chest. ¡°I know, I look weird. Everyone here looks weird. Nobody will hurt you. I think Gary has some traps set up still, but stay on the paths and you¡¯ll be okay.¡± ¡°O-okay.¡± She was standing on the beach, taking it all in. She nervously tucked her hair behind her ear. Her hand trembled. Scared. No good. ¡°Radio, can you get Schmendrick down here? We need a mascot character.¡± ¡°Mascot? Schmendrick?¡± Cassie shakily wiped at her eye. A faint dark smear marked the skin of her face, her makeup running. ¡°She¡¯ll be down here in a minute. Uh¡­How was your trip? We tried to make it safe. Are you thirsty? Hungry?¡± She shook her head rapidly and looked longingly back at the boat I¡¯d dragged to the beach. ¡°Nobody¡¯s keeping you here, Cassie. You can leave whenever you like.¡± She snapped to attention, blue eyes boring into mine. ¡°You know my name.¡± ¡°Yes. I knew you before. Do you know what I mean?¡± She nodded rapidly, still shaking. ¡°I¡­Doctor Harrigan¡­he, and the rest¨C¡± ¡°Girl Human!¡± screamed Schmendrick as she came charging from the jungle. She bounced up and down on her muscular legs, wiggling in place excitedly. Her belly was rounder than ever, but she was quick and agile and a very cute alien monster. Her white fur gleamed with good health, and her ears flagged wildly. Cassie¡¯s jaw dropped. She stepped back, away, into the water. ¡°Cassie, this is Schmendrick. She¡¯s in charge around here.¡± Schmendrick carefully approached. She was no dummy, and could see Cassie was terrified. She stopped a few feet away and lay on the ground. ¡°People don¡¯t pet me enough,¡± she complained. Cassie was spellbound. She went down on one knee, very slowly. She stretched a hand towards Schmendrick, who shoved her head into Cassie¡¯s palm. ¡°Schmendrick¡¯s going to be a mommy,¡± I said. ¡°In a few days, any minute, almost.¡± Cassie got a little bolder, stroking Schmendrick¡¯s back and tail. The little alien shoved her rump at the girl, giving her dirty looks when she stopped petting the right areas. As Schmendrick worked her magic, Cassie lightened up. What might have been a smile began peeking out from behind her terror. Schmendrick turned her long face to Cassie. ¡°I don¡¯t want to walk anymore today,¡± she said imperiously. A full grin spread on Cassie¡¯s haggard face with its smeared makeup. ¡°Okay, can I pick you up?¡± ¡°It¡¯s why you¡¯re here!¡± Schmendrick said with authority, and climbed into Cassie¡¯s arms. ¡°Schmendrick, is it okay if I show Cassie something important? You can come with her and protect her from me.¡± ¡°Follow Owen,¡± Schmendrick commanded. ¡°Killing him would be very easy for either of us.¡± When we were in the Observatory dome, I stopped in front of my workbench. It was the closest thing I had to a space of my own around here, one that wasn¡¯t full of alien creatures and their various projects. Speaking of which: Cassie¡¯s eyes were huge, and her mouth hung open. She watched the Gardeners, the Bees, the Makers and Cazadores bustling about. She was hugging Schmendrick tight like a teddy bear. I reached into one of the dozens of little drawers in the workbench. I set the finger bones on the table: Cassie and Armand. ¡°Everything here, all you see, all the guys flying around and doing their thing? This is because of Cassie and Armand. I was able to get away from Harrigan¡¯s place with the help of Cassie Nillson and Armand Fonesca.¡±The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. And I told her all of it. She watched me, saying nothing. Once a tear slipped out; she distractedly wiped it with the end of Schmendrick¡¯s furry tail, which then carried dark smears of mascara. ¡°I don¡¯t know what you want to do,¡± I said. ¡°You¡¯re free to leave or stay, we have lots of space and plenty to eat. We could use your help around here, as long as you like gardening, fishing, mad science, making stuff, carrying pregnant Schmenrdrick around, things like that.¡± ¡°She chooses to stay,¡± Schmendrick said. She licked another tear from Cassie¡¯s face, then made a horrible gagging noise. ¡°Greasy,¡± she scolded. ¡°It¡¯s concealer, expired about twenty years ago,¡± Cassie said distractedly. ¡°Schmendrick, will you please be Cassie¡¯s friend? See that she gets whatever she wants. She¡¯s a brave human and needs someone to pet, okay?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t understand any of what you said to her,¡± Schmendrick said. ¡°But yes. Cassie Human! Now we eat!¡± As they left, Schmendrick craned her pointy head so she could meet my eyes over Cassie¡¯s retreating shoulder. It was a very deliberate, understandable gesture. Her ears performed a complex twitchy semaphore. Some Observations on the afternoon:
  1. Art Deco and Gary were discussing something, and it was getting Gary down that he couldn¡¯t convey what he wanted to Art. I showed him how to form vague equivalents for the glyphs Fool and Incompetent using his own five limbs. It seemed to solve the problem.
  2. Sean was completely silent in his containment ring. Did he ever sleep? I listened for ghostly snoring, but one needs a physical throat for that, I think.
  3. Schmendrick took good care of Cassie. Soon the whole pack was following her around, yapping and demanding to be petted, shouting that they loved her. Cassie looked okay, not afraid. They disappeared into the Observatory, apparently to find a place Cassie could sleep.
I needed to think. I loitered around Gary and Art until they asked me what the problem was. I told them. In minutes I had a serviceable surfboard. It wasn¡¯t varnished, and hardly sanded at all, but I liked the rough feel of the wood. No splinters yet. Okay. Okay. I went to the side of the Observatory where the breakers were striking, rolling in from the West. They were nicely sized, forming pipelines now and then. Excellent. And the clear water was incredible, like surfing on a constantly shifting jewel. Nobody could get at me out here. I could think. I went in, out, in. Meditative. The board was absurdly buoyant, made of alien wood, and it was a good ride despite being built by two non-surfing non-human craftsmen. ¡°How did the invasion go?¡± ¡°Disappointing. I made too much food.¡± I sat up and looked around for a luscious chubby naked girl in the surf. Nothing; too bad, the water was very, very clear. ¡°The Radio said you won?¡± ¡°Yep, gotta recharge after that fight,¡± she said. Her voice was nowhere, everywhere. Nothing like the Copycat Eel; she just sounded like Mandy. ¡°Wanted to check in, though. Did you get any fallout from the big bad monster guy?¡± ¡°Nope, none at all. Thank you once again for saving us. The invasion, right¡­the invader girl is named Cassie. Poor kid was terrified. I turned Schmendrick loose on her, and she seems to be feeling better.¡± ¡°She¡¯s gotta be scared,¡± she said thoughtfully. ¡°I think¡­she¡¯s in a tough spot. She didn¡¯t want to come here, to do whatever mission she¡¯s been forced into.¡± There was a long pause. ¡°What do you think her mission is?¡± She was speaking slowly, cautiously. ¡°I don¡¯t know. She and her boyfriend were killed when we left Harrigan¡¯s place. We all owe her a lot here.¡± ¡°Owen.¡± ¡°Mandy.¡± ¡°She came across the ocean. Wearing makeup. Looking as cute as she could look under the circumstances. Without her boyfriend, just her. Sent by the good Doctor himself, because he thinks she¡¯s the prettiest prettiest girl.¡± ¡°Compared to who,¡± I began¡­then¡­¡±Oh.¡± Instead of a bunch of beefy dudes with baseball bats, Harrigan sent her to me. His idea of the prettiest prettiest girl. ¡°Oh.¡± ¡°He finally gets it. Never occurred to you?¡± I shook my head. A single tear ran down the side of my nose. I wiped it angrily, flinging it away. Pounded my fist on the new surfboard. I wanted Mandy to go away. But nope, she was still lurking about. ¡°You okay?¡± Shook my head again. ¡°Cassie and Armand, they died escaping with me. I couldn¡¯t save them. They should be here, playing Robinson Crusoe and making out with each other all the time. ¡± I pounded the board again, once. ¡°They should be here. Instead of me.¡± ¡°You did your best. I¡¯m sorry, I ¡­ wish I¡¯d been there. I might have been able¡­¡± ¡°Don¡¯t you start.¡± ¡°Then don¡¯t YOU start!¡± I shook my head again. Enough with the¡­whatever this was. Now I was getting angry for other reasons. ¡°She was my friend and he just threw her across the ocean. Like a dead fish for a trained seal. And Harrigan¡¯s got Armand, I¡¯m betting, in a horrible position, to force her to do it.¡± I blew air from my nostrils like a big dumb bull. ¡°To make me behave.¡± She was quiet a long time. ¡°Doesn¡¯t sound like it worked.¡± I laughed. ¡°Sorry. You don¡¯t need to see me like this.¡± ¡°Seen worse.¡± A smile entered her voice. ¡°I can¡¯t believe i had to explain it to you. Pure of heart, dumb of ass.¡± ¡°That¡¯s me. I want to stop this, Mandy. I¡¯m betting the guys will want that too. Will you help us?¡± ¡°I was about to ask you the same thing.¡± The Phone Call I¡¯d never planned a fight. Usually in a fight you charge someone and give them a Superman punch, just one usually does it. Nobody fights like they do in the movies; usually people who aren¡¯t trained fighters go right down after taking a single punch. And if that doesn¡¯t work, you get them on the ground and squeeze. How to apply these principles to a large-scale fight, though? Harrigan had a whole island with a network of caves and assorted stone ruins in which to lurk freely. He also had an army of idiots, which were in truth a horde of hostages. So what kind of fight would this be? A single punch or a down-on-the-ground and squeeze? And how could I avoid being punched or squeezed myself, and also what about my guys? I couldn¡¯t allow my guys to be hurt. Ever. Deep thoughts, that¡¯s me. I was out digging ditches for Gary, and the Radio was playing its weird mix of music and commercials. The sun was up, the breeze was going, and it was a nice morning. I had only gotten hurt once today, which was a good thing, but the day was young yet. ¡°Freeze-Dried Ectoplasmic resin, for all your spiritual and alectromantic needs! From Thaumaster!¡± A jingle that I didn¡¯t understand at all, a repeated chant of the words Bromo Seltzer Bromo Seltzer Bromo Seltzer, over and over, so it sounded like a weird choo-choo train. Then a kind of yodeling war cry, just going on and on, brought to you by the good folks at Timepiece Cumbanchero. Alien advertising. And the music, of course. Someone, possibly an alien monster, named Xavier Cugat and his band of cool dudes. Lots of bongos. He could have been Human? I¡¯d lost track. ¡°Radio, this is another world. Why play Earth music?¡± ¡°Owen knew his good friend the Green Radio was part of the Observatory. That it had been alone a long time. Owen had repeatedly been given this information.¡± ¡°You pointed me at a downed plane, and said it was a spy aircraft from world war two. How did you get ahold of it?¡± ¡°The Big Broadcast.¡± ¡°Yes, that¡¯s the name on the plane. How did it end up here?¡± ¡°Owen would be given the tale shortly, but first: a word from Doctor Jeffrey Harrigan, known as the First Human.¡± I dropped the shovel. ¡°What?¡± ¡°Did you like my present?¡± It was him, sly and cold. I hadn¡¯t heard his voice in weeks, but it cut right through. Right in there. The guy who paralyzes you, who burns your friends right before your eyes. Call me Doctor Jeff. That guy. ¡°The Doctor was in his office, full of what may have been medical equipment. He wore his office casual garb, topped with the white lab coat. On the folding plastic table in front of him, Harrigan was working with his reasonably-priced tablet computer.¡± ¡°The Doctor was serious, but also amused. He leaned back in his chair, which creaked¨C¡± A sound effect here. ¡°--And folded his arms behind his head.¡± He purred some more: ¡°She¡¯s lovely, isn¡¯t she? I knew you¡¯d like her.¡± Oh. Basic unpleasantness from him. I said: ¡°Cassie. She¡¯s doing okay. Send Armand.¡± ¡°That¡¯s not on the table, Owen. You¡¯re doing well out there, all by yourself. How do you do it?¡± ¡°By myself? Lots of people live here.¡± ¡°Animals. Those little dinosaur creatures, the weather balloons, some other things. Because you can¡¯t make friends, you have those?¡± ¡°Do you want something? Why are you talking to me at all?¡± ¡°I was hoping to get an apology.¡± ¡°Sorry.¡± I started shoveling again. It helped. ¡°You stole my property. That body; it¡¯s not yours. You agreed to the terms. You burned my camp. And I thought you might have stolen my son.¡± ¡°Sorry.¡± Just another bully; running the Bully Script from time immemorial. Like his son. ¡°Super sorry, my bad.¡± ¡°I find myself questioning your sincerity, Owen. I thought you¡¯d taken him, but I was able to get him back again just two days ago. Did you have anything to do with that?¡± ¡°You mean you were able to rebuild him? Reboot him, whatever you call it? Only one version at a time.¡± ¡°Well look at you, figuring out that part. Yes, only one at at time. I was worried for my son, and he¡¯d been taken from me. I blamed you, and I think now that was unfair. Unless there¡¯s something you¡¯re not telling me.¡±The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°There is.¡± ¡°And that is?¡± ¡°You suck.¡± ¡°I''m a monster, yeah?¡± He sounded wistful. ¡°But everything I do is legal, you know that.¡± ¡°Endlessly killing and rebuilding people? You think it would hold up in front of a judge?¡± He snorted. ¡°The courts have changed on Earth.¡± ¡°How about the court of public opinion? You think the parents of these kids would allow this?¡± ¡°It¡¯s an interesting question, isn¡¯t it? I think they would. If you give them a licensing fee, I think people would allow it just fine. It wouldn¡¯t be for their actual children, after all, and I¡¯m betting people wouldn¡¯t care otherwise. You¡¯re all just copies.¡± ¡°What do you want me to tell Sean? Remind him that he¡¯s just a copy, that he has no rights, and should just get his little fanny back to dad, pronto, chop chop?¡± There was a pause. ¡°Sean is here.¡± ¡°He¡¯s here too. He got himself a soul down there in your cage, just like I did. Just like you and Mandy, he¡¯s the newest god in the squad. He¡¯s chilling in my tower, and he doesn¡¯t want to go back to you. He seems to be a being of pure thought, Doctor. Smarter than you or I. He¡¯s beyond Human, I think. He¡¯s something new.¡± ¡°That¡¯s¡­not true.¡± ¡°Why would I lie to you? So you bother me more?¡± Why was I telling him? Why do that? What was I doing? Guns over the table, that¡¯s why. ¡°I wasn¡¯t able to¡­ Is that what happened?¡± He was asking himself. ¡°That¡¯s what happened,¡± I said. ¡°He was here, but not in his current state. We helped put him back together again. I¡¯m betting your trick didn¡¯t work because he was that guy. Now he¡¯s this guy.¡± ¡°I need that soul, Owen.¡± The purr was gone. Steel was in his voice. ¡°Do you have any idea how much effort, how much work went into giving him that soul?¡± ¡°Can¡¯t have him, he doesn¡¯t want to go. And I¡¯m not sure I¡¯d be able to give him to you anyway. Want to send him a message?¡± That got a thoughtful pause. ¡°What would I have you tell him¡­¡± ¡°He¡¯s not your biggest fan.¡± A sigh. ¡°He¡¯s always been stubborn. I don¡¯t have a message, but thank you for the offer.¡± ¡°So that¡¯s it. You want Sean, and you don¡¯t want to bother talking to him. This means you plan on forcing the issue.¡± ¡°I guess it does.¡± He laughed. ¡°I hadn¡¯t really thought it through. You¡¯re more than I expected, Owen.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t want to hurt the people you send here.¡± ¡°So what? I have an infinite army, don¡¯t I? I can send them to you, day after day, and wear down whatever defenses you have. Killing them is a meaningless act; I¡¯ll just rebuild and redeploy, like in a video game. Hundreds of people, all attacking you, all the time. Ever play the original Warcraft? How about any of the Dynasty Warrior games?¡± ¡°No.¡± ¡°Kids these days. Anyway it¡¯ll be a lot of pain and suffering, and it¡¯ll be on your head.¡± ¡°So don¡¯t.¡± ¡°I would do anything for my son, Owen.¡± I couldn¡¯t help it; I laughed. ¡°Anything for Sean, huh? How did he get a soul? You left him in the dark, in that cage, and I think he died there. You left him there, and I¡¯d told you where he was, and you did it anyway. Your son.¡± ¡°Eggs and omelettes. I have something to show you.¡± Here it came. The thing he needed to feel like he¡¯d scored a victory. Here it came, and it would be bad. ¡°I don¡¯t know how things work with you. I want to show you something on my screen. Can we do that?¡± The Radio played a bed of creepy background orchestra music, as if we were watching an old movie about a haunted house. ¡°Harrigan leaned back into his chair again.¡± Creak. ¡°His tablet computer was facing upward on his table. On the screen was a detailed personality description of Owen Walsh, first recorded 2025¨C¡± ¡°Ready, Eye of Sauron? Take a look on the screen, if you¡¯re not looking already. Go on, take a look.¡± The Radio narrated again: ¡°When viewed through the double-cracked monitor, the video played tinny sounds through the old speaker. Laughter of young people, eager anticipation of a good meal.¡± I whispered: ¡°Radio. Lower right. Date. Later.¡± Harrigan: ¡°You know those little turkey dino animals you have infesting your place? The ones you have a creepy affection for? They have magic. I turned it off, all of it, when they came here for help. Turns out they really need that magic. I think it¡¯s a key to their metabolic process.¡± The Radio: ¡°The camera shakily zoomed in on a wooden spit over the campfire. There were eight things roasting there; they resembled poultry, skinned and cleaned, but with long, heavy tails¨C¡± I drew in a breath. ¡°The video cut to the happy young people, all eating their fill. The camera swung around, showing everyone, satisfied, with the exception of a young man who appeared to be Owen Walsh, standing with what appeared to be a joint of meat in one hand, looking at it, confusion on his face and hunger¨CHarrigan paused the video here, keeping the blurred face of Owen in the frame¨C¡± ¡°You ate it,¡± Harrigan said breezily. ¡°Everyone ate that night. This was Owen iteration¡­I¡¯d guess 24. You¡¯d never met any nonhumans. The little dino critters have souls, I¡¯m sure you¡¯re aware by now.¡± The guys. Schmendrick¡¯s people specifically. I was trying to come up with something. A zinger. A way to rid his voice of gloating, to shut his smug face up. Anything. ¡°Doctor Harrigan had concluded the conversation,¡± the Radio said. I sat heavily in the dirt. Gary found me there, my face in my hands, and asserted that I was a fool. Gary had a point.