R1GG3R by Mike Kay

Tepid sallow light beamed mercilessly down upon the battered surface of the table. The angular fixture featured a single sodium bulb, and it cut out his form, across the flat surface, around his shadow with no features, a humorless shape hunched over in searing pain.

Another shadow joined his, a guy in a tie and a white shirt.

“All you need to do is tell us where you get your leads from. We already know we have a rat, and that’s who we really want. We don’t care about you. You are shit. Cough up the name and you walk”.

Struggling for breath, cuffs biting into wrists, the beating continued. Reeling in pain, something snapped and it was done. Was this death? All sensation simply stopped. Everything was going dark. Then the room came back into focus, three men kicking and punching his limp form below.

He couldn’t look away, fascinated in a detached horror as they grabbed his body by the shoulders, screaming something dead ears couldn’t hear.

“This’ll blow your effin mind, Rick”.

Rick looked at his computer screen more than a little bored. Their ‘Source’, Chad, was digging for something off camera. He wore his usual garb, a white sheet with eyeholes cut out, covered with nondescript sunglasses. His friendly ghost get up was making it hard for him to locate what he wanted to show Rick. With a grunt he sat back up with a very thick collection of files. He started to leaf through them, almost lazily. Rick watched the pages go by, mostly writing, mostly in English, spattered with some sort of- what looked like hieroglyphics.

“And I need to care, exactly why-?”

“O fiss U. L. Q. docs, pal, straight from Qorpguv.”

Rick leaned closer to the screen, watching as diagrams and tables and more hieroglyphs flipped past.

“So, what am I seeing, some new form of code or something?”

“Nope.”

“Look Chad-.”

“It’s Gigachad, man.”

Rick sighed.

“Okay, Gigachad, okay. So, what makes this worth our time, and the heat we’re gonna get from it, if we make this public?”

“Because, Rick, its’ about the end of the world.”

 **********************************************************************************************************************************

Maybelle pushed open the door, smoothly dropping the keys back into her purse, right next to her .38 caliber revolver with the custom black rubber grips. Her long fingered hands were tipped by dark red nails-musician’s hands, her mother used to tell her, straight from Oma, grandma on her father’s side.

There wasn’t a single musician left in this world, everything was trash heap generated by robot slaves, but some people still remembered musicians. Maybelle shrugged. What was certain was that her hands could fly over a keyboard, or shoot with deadly accuracy any cyborg rapist or Q. type wise guy.

Her cool green eyes missed nothing as she scanned the room. The place was alive with electronic equipment, from quantum number generators to password calculators, computers with multiple screens showing camera feeds across the 15 minuite city. In the middle of it all, disheveled as usual with a giant mug next to him of some unrecognizable black tar coffee, Ted stood with his soldering gun and a panel on the work table in front of him, looking slightly sheepish.

“Did you actually go home last nite?” Maybelle demanded, sounding even to her own ears a little too motherly.

Ted set his tools down and grabbed for his coffee.

“Uhh, not really May, but I’ve got our next project almost completely ready for beta testing.”

“Fossilized microfish?” She was interested despite herself.

“Yep”, he nodded. “We’ll have it all”.

She smiled. All those archives that nobody else could read-job security baby.

“Ted, that is awesome, but I’m sending you home, okay?”

Ted shrugged.

“Can I finish my coffee?”

She shook her head as she made her way into her office. The sheer amount of clutter was truly daunting, an almost unimaginable assortment of everything from paper flowers and cards-from secret admirers, to bills she payed, to books crumpled with dog ears upon which notes were written, some half used cosmetics, and any number of small collections that included little glass bottles filled with tiny stones and coloured earth. Maybelle stretched lithely, for she was she was quite athletic, before seating herself at her computer.

She had started this business with Rick a number of years ago now. He liked to refer to it as “Hackers Are Us”, and it was all about information. Rick handled their sources, she handled the-well pretty much everything else. It never ceased to disappoint her how much clandestine contracts paid to get dirt and Intel to further their plans. Because of her they had recently started leaking some of the more lightweight stuff to the public, which resulted in several storms of outrage and denial. Rick said it was dangerous, but she just had to get her musician’s hands on something that could actually help humanity.

She sighed aloud, noting that that was Rick’s habit with slight bemusement.

“Welcome to Realistan, May.”

The page she was looking for booted up smoothly, stuffed with dozens of messages and possible leads, most of them from their primary source, Gigachad.

 ***********************************************************************************************************************************

The odd thing about being dead was the sheer interest the living world still held for him. He watched as his signal stick, disguised as a working ink pen triggered noiselessly , even as the few possessions he had were swept into greedy hands, and stuffed into regulation black suit coat pockets. His limp form was zipped up into a body bag, and just like that they were leaving. He wasn’t sure, but he felt a kind of pull that was like a string on a kite, only he was the kite, being tugged along.

For a moment he wondered again if he was truly dead. Perhaps some life somehow still lingered in his destroyed body. If that was the case, why couldn’t he get back in? He felt something akin to panic build, until he released it, and accepted his condition. After a while, travelling by vehicle, he decided he might not unravel the mystery of why he was still so engaged with the living. It started to become something like a great adventure, and so he went with it, and let events carry him away.

 ************************************************************************************************************************************

Maybelle burst from her office. Her eyes were furious, her face set in a humorless grimace. She moved with a muscular intensity that was at once beautiful and dangerous, a human avatar of terrifying Sekhmet.

Ted had nowhere to go.

“Whatever happens next Ted is all your fault unless you get John on the horn right now!”

Ted for his part was already at the com-dock, his fingers flailing, buttons snapping, as a chiseled face appeared on screen.

“Ricks signal stick!” Maybelle shouted.

The face nodded almost imperceptibly, watching what hands were doing off screen.

“Got him”, the face said curtly. “Leaving Q.”

“I will meet you at base S as fast as I can get there!”

She was already through the door as the transmission ended.

This part of the 15 minuite city was new, but already past its prime. Rolling brown outs, followed by rolling black outs completely paralyzed the shoddy infrastructure, built as it was by the hub slaves. Some of the roving power outages were planned, typical Qorpguv racketeering, but increasingly they were being caused by odd events like the spontaneous ignition of EV batteries. EV fires burned large and incredibly hot, in the complex network of power delivery to essential services, it was guaranteed that expensive chunks of the grid would succumb to the flames.

Maybelle cut a practiced path through town on foot. Her long legs ate up the distance. She intentionally chose blind row, where empty camera pivots stared at her. This row was maintained by the Eurokits, light complexioned people who wouldn’t stand for the surveillance state, and made a habit of removing any form of spy gear. She wasn’t worried about trouble while cutting through blind row, she looked to be one of them, with her auburn hair and alabaster white skin.

Working past the row, she made it to the escalators that headed down to the lower levels. Base S. was at the midpoint of this region of the city. They called it such because it was the shipping depot for all the provision containers. The implant cutters worked here, getting fat on the calories shipped in, even as they threw the synchronized switches and levers of food distribution with the help of those surgically implanted electronic diodes dressing up the outsides of their hairless skulls.

Base S was always an overcrowded place, favored by predators like the cyborg rapists, primitive dark lust driven once men. The din from the huge conveyors and mechanical arms was deafening in places, sound that covered officially sanctioned nefarious activity. Maybelle knew the worst places, and steered clear of them instinctively. She took her usual shortcut through the surgical enhancement emporium. Hideously fat and genderless attendants stared at her in hostile silence, even as they were showing off their new skin tones to each other. Maybelle trotted past them lithely, one bleeding slightly from its fresh pleasure implants in its flabby neck.

Maybelle had worked out ahead of time prearranged points to meet at, and it was at one such point where she found John standing alone. John carried himself the way many big men do, with a kind of indifferent confidence. He caught Maybelle’s eye, and the two moved loosely in the same direction, no visible communication to be picked up by electronic surveillance.

 ************************************************************************************************************************************

“I got the-e-e end of the world blues-s-s.”

Rick was singing, a glint of humor in his eye.

“Cut it out!”

Gigachad cleared his throat from his screen, looking very Halloween like, except for his crooked sunglasses and his sudden unhappy demeanor.

Rick just laughed.

“Look Rick, this stuff I’m showing you is the real deal. Do you have any idea what these documents are?”

Rick stopped giving his source the raspberries. He wasn’t convinced, not even a little bit. Modern life was nothing but a pack of lies, piled on top of lies, wrapped in more lies. The only truth he ever found in anything was the wind, and sails on ancient ships that could work with it, and rigging, and how he felt about May.

“Okay,” he sighed,” I’m listening.”

Gigachad collected himself, straightened his glasses, and cut to a folder stuffed with photos. Picking one, he held it up so that it filled Rick’s screen. It was a shot that featured a group of typical Qorpguv types in typical suits that everyone who was anyone always wore. They surrounded two figures who towered over them, like a collection of bushes surrounding great trees, a human like couple. Both the male and the female wore understated, but tasteful clothing that bore no resemblance to anything Rick had ever seen. The male was well groomed, his classic Nordic features handsome and inviting. The female was simply stunning, exuding an ethereal aura that was evident even through the photo. Her eyes, captured in three quarter view, were of a deep blue that Rick couldn’t believe existed. Rick stared like a teenager who had just seen the most beautiful woman his imagination was capable of conjuring.

It was Gigachad’s chance to laugh at Rick, and without hesitation, he seized the moment.

“I’ll bet, Rick, that you are wondering who they are?”

Rick blinked to break the spell. Gigachad pressed onward.

“They’re from what they call Futurepast”

“Wha-a-at?”

“Outside of our regularly scheduled experience of time, pal. They are both our ancestors and what we can become.”

 ************************************************************************************************************************************

The three men in official Q. dress reached the stairwell. Unzipping the body bag, the limp form rolled out onto the pavement, quite evidently dead. With a shove the body tumbled down to the bottom of the stairs. Flashlight beams checked the location of the corpse, and with a grunt of approval, switched off. This section of the city was permanently black. There hadn’t been any power here in years. If someone did stumble on the body, and actually bother to report it, there would be little attention before it was shipped to the incinerator-problem solved.

“Da stiff never spilt.” The roundest one observed.

“Yeah,” agreed the one with the scarred knuckles. “Q ain’t gonna be very happy.”

“What’s new about that?” The third cut in, wiping his forehead.”I got his pen outta the deal, tho”.

“Come on”, said the roundest one.” Let’s scram.”

They shuffled off in the half light. They didn’t notice the big man with the chiseled features come out of the shadows with a surprising speed. The roundest one fell with a perfectly delivered chop to his throat, knuckles caught a hard punch to the heart, and pen dropped to the floor, his knee ruined. The last sight they saw was an auburn haired avatar of Sekhmet, her eyes blazing move close to them. Deep magenta lipstick perfectly applied seemed to highlight a mirthless smile. Musician hands curled around the stocks of a gleaming gun that barked fire three times.

 ************************************************************************************************************************************

“So, the tall Swedes are from a different timeline-.”

“I never said that”, interrupted Gigachad. “I never said anything about timelines, and according to what I read here,” a sheet covered arm thumped on the thick files, “neither do they. Here’s what they do say; that they are from a place that is like your dream of your Grandmother’s house. You remember it, and it still lives in your dreams. But it’s also not like they are locked into that house. They have the ability to look forward, to look toward your great granddaughter’s house, and to live anywhere in between.”

“Chad, you have so heavily lost me.”

Rick was rubbing his jaw dubiously.

“Dude, you will have to actually read this stuff. Some of it is in Hieroglyphs, but a bunch of it is in English. Best I can do is just tell you what I read, and they say they have access to any point in time.”

“So they should know all the history of earth-.”

“I never said they were from Earth, either, Rick”.

“So what is the point of them being here? And you said it was about the end of the world.”

Gigachad shifted in his chair, as if he was debating within himself what he would say next. His sheet covered head looked down at the thick stack of folders.

“They’re back here to fill out their crew with those old souls who still remember sailing, and their genetic children who have been waiting for the return. They say it’s time, because this world is going to collide with the Destiny Star. Those who don’t return are either back into the matrix, or they ride the event to achieve a new status in the galaxy. I would guess these people already know who they are… Look, just watch this…”

Gigachad hit a few keys, and the screen shifted to a frontispiece, and more jargon related blathering before opening to an extraordinary view of a spherical planet dwarfed by the blazing form of a gigantic star that filled the very space with incredible multicolored geometric patterns that shifted and condensed into waves and forces of heavily charged light. The hapless planet seemed to open to its very core, stretching and shifting under the hold of unimaginable forces as the very atmosphere and oceans transformed and disappeared. The dense matter of the planet seemed to be infused by the energy, as if resonating at a higher frequency as it too became transparent and utterly disappeared with only the blazing blinding light left behind.

The screen flickered, and Gigachad was back, his glasses still somewhat crooked, hunched over his keyboard.

“Yeah, end of the world, bro.”

“And what about everyone else”, Rick was wondering aloud.

“I’d say it was up to their lineage Rick, in terms of what it means for them. The Swedes sure aren’t here for everybody.”

 ************************************************************************************************************************************

John had Rick’s body draped over his shoulders, barely encumbered by the weight. He was following Maybelle as she darted and weaved through the tunnels and galleries of the city, working to stay inside the dark zone of the rolling blackout. John didn’t know this part of the city. It was the lower level, a dank, stinking place where the regular power outages were met with a stoic acceptance. Most resident’s eyes were glued to their screens, and Maybelle, for all her classy demeanor, slipped through their level with the cunning of a savvy street rat.

She knew someone, she had said carefully over her shoulder as she had negotiated a steep set of strairs-somebody good who could help them with Rick. John just nodded. He was in, so he was in all the way.

They emerged into an open zone, where the dark sky yawned above. It was Maybelle who saw it first. It was like a living column of light that dropped from above the artificial clouds, a huge Undine made of flowing, pulsing light that struck down somewhere behind them, and disappeared, flickered out as if it had never existed.

John wasn’t prone to nervousness. He had seen too much to be easily rattled, but there was something about that vision that seemed uncomfortably close. He wasn’t sure what he thought, only that he should stay on top of his senses.

Fortunately, the rolling blackout was a big one. It covered their journey to their destination and then some. By the time the lights began to flicker on they were already inside the great cell block, working their way down the hall to “someone good.”

Maybelle’s knock on the door-a staccato rapping sounded like a code. A tense face appeared through the narrow opening. From Maybelle an open sincere gaze. A hushed exchange. They were in making their way to a small room with a metal table. John laid Rick’s remains there. He watched as practiced hands sawed through the cuffs, a quick review and shaking of head. Flashlight into unresponsive eyes. A tense face again, no lies.

John couldn’t help thinking how cowardly it was to beat a man to death who was cuffed. He felt a sense of justice for his part in cutting them down for May to use her gun. Maybelle was as tough as they come. She didn’t hesitate to do what needed to be done, three shots to three temples, Q types dead, but now it sank in, and she was crying. John shrugged. She was a woman, a woman in love.

 ************************************************************************************************************************************

The bright Undine passed through the heavy electrical defenses of Q. A column of light, arcing down from the artificial particulate sky, it moved through the city with ease. The layers of alarms and surveillance didn’t trigger. No scrambling of men and machines occurred. It seemed to locate what it was seeking, and dropped into a small, ugly interrogation room. The light transformed into a huge hound-like being, who carefully, almost patiently checked every place. The great muzzle settled upon the chair as the nostrils worked subtlety. All at once the huge hound had the scent, and raising a massive head, canine snapped into an Undine once more.

The column headed directly for one of the de-electrified districts. There were many such zones, and new ones joined every month, but this one was one of the first, and closest.

If anyone in the huge metropolis noticed the brilliant Undine, there was no sign. Hidden in plain sight it touched down on the weathered pavement of a municipal stairwell, instantly transforming back into the hound who bounded down the stairs to the three dead bodies at the base of the well.

The hound ignored their lifeless forms. It ignored their com-links and their plastic I.D.s and their ruined skulls. It was the faint scent the great hound was after, wafting ever so slightly. For a moment the hound worked with great intensity, as if to fully ascertain what that fantastic olfactory sense was reading. Then with a woof of certainty, muzzle to the sky, great hound was Undine once more moving swiftly and unerringly.

 ************************************************************************************************************************************

Dead.

No doubt about it now.

What he couldn’t figure out, for the life of him-chuckle-was what the cord extending out from him was. He thought for a moment that it was his own personal rigging, but rigging to what?

Sure, there were all those great stories about the warm light, and going into it, and how everything was suddenly fine, but he couldn’t recall a single story about any cord.

He didn’t feel put out by any of this, it was more a curiosity, the kind of state that occurs when one truly has surrendered all expectation, and simply responds to their circumstance as it is. He could follow the cord, and it took him to a dark place that seemed to be filled with shifting dreams. He saw himself, as if from above, hopeless and without memory, without any real autonomy, involved in gasping for breath cast in a wild sea of conflicting demands, each one with a million strings, and as he travelled the strings became a logical web, and he knew even though he was dead what the lines meant, and how his cord was weaving into them. He was travelling through dream after changing dream, and only the strings were real things-strings and a great hound that appeared at his side, grabbing his hand with its teeth and pulling. He wondered if his hand was going to be covered in slobber. Well at least that huge snout isn’t sniffing my ass, he thought.

 ************************************************************************************************************************************

Maybelle had replaced the three spent cartridges with fresh rounds. She once again commanded six platinum plated fingers of death. Following the instruction of her humorless trainer, a scarred man who served in the military in an undisclosed order, her two hands were wrapped around the rubber of the custom stocks. She had the hammer all the way back, with her finger touching lightly upon the curved surface of the trigger, ready at any moment to release a quick single action shot.

The bright dot marked the point of the front sight, always held just below the desired zone of impact. In this case, hovering just above the muzzle and directly between the eyes of a huge hound like being.

Maybelle had sandwiched herself between what was left of Rick, and the great dog thing, her green eyes offering no opening. The hound had dropped Rick’s limp hand, and stood quietly contemplating the fierce gaze of the woman, and her gleaming gun.

When the doorbell rang “someone good” slipped out to deal with it.

John cast a glance at Maybelle.

Maybelle was ready to send the dog to Hell.

The great hound let out a loud whine, and wandered to the door, tail wagging.

“Someone good”, had opened it wide and there stood two tall and commanding Swedes, their eyes easy and their demeanor without any intensity. They were a tastefully dressed couple in clothes unlike any currently seen, and in the forefront was the man, with classic Nordic features, his face handsome and inviting.

“We would like to speak with you, may we come in?”

Maybelle, to the end of her days would not know why she chose the action she made. Unlocking the hammer she dropped it to rest, quietly parking her gun in the accustomed place. With a well practiced sigh she gestured them in. For a moment everyone stood and the great hound greeted the new additions as if they were family. With a slight smile the tall Swede said, “May we see him?”

 ************************************************************************************************************************************

“How should I know if the Swedes are in with Q?” Gigachad shrugged under his sheet.”What I do know is that they are directly linked to these files. They are all over them. Does this place them in the big back pocket of Q? You tell me.”

Rick rubbed his chin.

“Okay, Gigachad, you are definitely sitting on something here…still… Is any of this stuff real? Is it Q just yanking our chain, playing both sides? Seems there is no real case-.”

“There IS a case, Rick. You have evidence of these tall Nordics, this Destiny Star, and them being back for their people.”

“Sure, if any of it is actually true.”

Gigachad leaned closer to the screen, his dark glasses becoming huge.

“That’s it, it has to be your call. I drop you these files, or they just go away, nobody the wiser. You know I can’t leave this stuff lying around for posterity.”

Rick didn’t really know if Chad had any other clients or not for this type of Intel. He was taking a risk, but he decided to feel it out. “So why spring this on us?”

“Because, you guys are the only ones that would leak any of it. Anyone else would use it for their own gain, and not let it out, or bury it deep. Either way, no one else would see it. Look Rick, I’m waiving me fee here. This is just a service to mankind, and I think you guys are the only ones who could see it that way.”

Rick had a deeply uncomfortable feeling, that sense of a huge steel door slamming behind him, echoing across his mind. It was the final gear check for a sky dive, with something important missing. It rang with that no going back sense, where fate and reality suddenly link, and one’s next move is no longer in their hands.

“I’ll do the pickup in one hour Chadly, usual place. Make sure the stuff is there.”

Rick shut down his link, and powered down his set. Kicking back, he stretched, trying to work through the sense of deep unease. He would fill Maybelle in over dinner. He had already set the reservations; A luxury top story patio with a robot string quartet.

He could actually picture her eyes catching the candlelight, and her smile. She could be an incredibly hard woman, fierce and unrelenting, yet she also had a deeper side she rarely showed. He liked to think it was the real May.

Glancing at the readout on the camera panel, he noted the time, realizing he had to get moving. The camera feed was clear. Almost forgetting his signal stick, he clipped it into his front pocket. The strange feeling was really hitting him. He cast his gaze over his minimal space, just his books on sailing, and his models of ancient ships, complete with all the complex rigging. Shaking his head, he grabbed a few more things and was out the door.

The electric locks buzzed closed as he donned his jacket and adjusted his tie. Moving quickly, he noticed the elevator’s door was open. Making a dash, he was inside, with three men who waited for the door to close before surrounding him. The roundest one was in front of him, flashing his Q card with his ugly mug pictured upon it.

“Rick Murtel”, he said. “You’re coming with us.”

 ************************************************************************************************************************************

Maybelle led the tall Swedes to the small room with the metal table, where Rick’s remains lay. Everyone followed in a kind of solemn procession. John was last, with the great hound shoving in. John was a big man, but the dog managed to sandwich in almost on top of him. He was tempted to make a remark about it being warms and cozy when he caught a glimpse of Maybelle’s expression, and thought the better of it.

John glanced down at the figure on the table. Judging from what he what he was seeing, Q had worked him over to the point of killing him because they didn’t get what they were after. He must have really loved May, because he died without giving them her name either. If he had, they would all be dead right now, or maybe undergoing torture, instead of being stuffed in this tiny room together. He allowed himself a small indulgence, a sense of respect and a conclusion that he had made the right choice in joining this team.

The male Swede produced what seemed to be a device that featured what appeared to be an eyeball sized gemstone. It was blue and green together, with dozens of what seemed to be natural facets, no two exactly alike, radiating with an inner light in one or the other colour.

He raised it to his forehead, as he bent over the form of Rick. He seemed to react, as if sensing something, and followed an invisible arc to somewhere above the table. He spoke in a language that only his partner could understand, and passed to her the gemstone device.

“He is still close, his thread holding him near”, He spoke to the group in heavily accented English.

The female Swede repeated the gesture, her eyes such a strange deep blue that they seemed to harmonize with the gem. Her ethereal beauty was composure in motion, and with a commanding presence she reached out with a free hand. Her long tapered fingers seemed to close gently on something, reacting as if subject to a sudden increase in weight. She spoke something in her native language, and it sounded like poetry. She pulled her hand in, her fingers still holding the invisible weight.

The great hound shifted its own weight, now fully sitting upon John’s right foot. He looked down and their eyes met. No anger or anxiety, just a sense of communication. John reached down with his huge mitt, and loving patted the dog.

 ************************************************************************************************************************************

Rick was floating in space, contemplating his body. He could see a group surrounding him, those he knew, and those he didn’t. He could feel an intensity, an emotional energy. It struck him as similar to heading into the middle of a deeply involved conversation. He saw the hand then, a feminine hand, white with tapered fingers. Gently, easily, her fingers closed upon a silver cord. He felt in his middle that he was being pulled in, a sense of slowly breaking free to move through dark waters in accord with the current. He reached out with his own hand, responding to a certain longing, a song more felt than heard.

His hand reached hers, and the visual field rearranged. He was standing lightly upon a sort of decking, neither of metal or wood, and as he got his bearings he had the impression he stood upon something like a vast wing. All around him wove gossamer patterns of luminous rigging, each responding with the speed of thought. Where the lines crossed were myriad brilliant bosses, a neural network that directed huge tracts of semi-transparent sails that were billowing under the cosmic wind. He stood dumbfounded, overwhelmed by the sheer beauty.

Countless stars brilliantly gleaming provided an endless backdrop to the magnificent vessel he stood upon. At once he felt at home like he had never felt before, and he remembered the raucous songs, and the rum hangovers, and the understanding, working so high above everything that death was always near. Tears filled his eyes as he remembered the danger and the stinging of the sea.

He was not unnerved, as he undertook a wider exploration of the cosmic ship. He sensed that he was not alone, that there were others who worked the rigging. The insistent tug he tried to ignore, but the feminine hand with the long tapered fingers was again pulling directly upon his silver cord.

Back in the tiny room, with the emotion and his body, he saw that it was the tall Swedish woman who had his hand. She was looking at him directly, her gaze fully enveloping his, as if a decision had been made.

 ************************************************************************************************************************************

“He has destiny with our ship” The tall handsome Swede made eye contact with each of them in turn. “However, it is up to you to allow it, for this a choice only to be made by the living. I can assure you that his spirit will be happy with us, fulfilled, as this is his purpose.”

Maybelle wasn’t at all sure what she felt about all of this. Part of her truly wanted to expect that the afterlife could be kind to Rick, but from another, harsher point of view she had a dead body to deal with, and a relationship that had just ended as irrevocably and suddenly as the shutting off of a light.

“You are saying that Rick, even tho he is dead, has a future?”

One you may also share, if you are willing.”

Her eyes locked with the Swedes. She saw frankness there, and compassion. She nodded.

“I want to believe there is more, but I wish he was still alive.”

The Swede cleared his throat quietly. He seemed to be collecting his thoughts, and when he spoke, it was measured and slow.

“This cosmos of ours, it extends into areas you would call places where substance is like thought. In these realms the spirits of the dead are very much living. Our ship, it also extends into these places of thought, where the spirits can stretch and furl the sails we use to cross the vast expanse of the star oceans. Spirits are needed for this task, they can absorb the stellar energy, and bring us into the cosmic wind.”

Maybelle for the first time in her life was touched by something she did not understand. It was neither thought, or emotion, just a very firm sense of Rick upon a ship, involved in sailing-happy.

“You said we can share, does this mean we all become spirits and work the rigging?”

For the first time, the tall Swede laughed.

 ************************************************************************************************************************************

He was quite used to the cord that glowed blue in the unfiltered starlight. He knew it led directly to his sarcophagus, which held his preserved mummy, surrounded by beautiful art and hieroglyphs that wrote his name, his true name into the living ship. He could hear and feel the commands from the helm, and was tirelessly on duty to keep the sails pointed correctly for their celestial sailing.

At times he would visit her, while she was dreaming. Her green eyes closed, her chest gently rising and falling, surrounded by her cloud of auburn hair. She was no longer a personality living by her wits and her grit. She was now, aboard ship, finally able to explore the talents she had denied for her entire life, simply to survive.

The wounds of a thousand lifetimes were slowly healing, and with that her eyes began to turn a shade of green that was most harmoniously like the gleaming gemstone the kinsfolk used. She was still concerned over the others, worrying most about Ted, whose genius had come as a response to a terrible wounding. Still they were all healing.

Venturing out upon the wing he watched the rigging as they travelled a direction taking them a comfortable distance away from the fiery glare of the onrushing Destiny Star.

Cover courtesy of Ozymandias