Nanovel 3.9: Frank Evers

I think I knew we wouldn’t make it back when I looked in the faces of those assembled to see the launch. They knew, they knew we knew, but they knew we thought there was a chance. It was necessary to remember how much more important the mission was than four lives, and I cannot help but agree, even in my current state. Do I have regrets?

Frank Evers sat in the captain’s chair, reading the loose-leaf final journal of the dead astronaut. The chair had been hastily evacuated by Kelly, who knew when to leave Frank alone with his dark thoughts. He had deliberately not fed the journal into the ship’s scanner yet. He wanted to read it first before he broadcast the message of the dead. The journal had been carefully written in easily legible block letters, the hand of a man who did not write for himself. The officers were collaborating quietly around the data tables, interpreting the data coming in from the probes as the Unreliable proceeded to Earth, following the signal to its source.

My name is Jim. My last name is not important because I don’t have any family left. I am the technician, youngest student of the late Jeremy Graft. It was he who determined the mathematical key that we have painstakenly encoded and worked these years to find a way to transmit. I am pleased to say that we have been successful.

My fellow astronauts are Errol, who is also without family, and Jessica and Sam Pruitt, who only had each other. Errol was the first man to return to space when he went up into Earth orbit to grapple communications satellites to start construction of the main transmitter station. The Pruitts volunteered for this mission, probably the last that we of Earth will be able to justify resources towards for a generation. Over drinks before launch, Jim explained: “This is our last chance not to die on Earth.” The solemn look the two gave each other impressed me with their seriousness. Even if it were possible, I do not think those two would have returned. In some ways, I almost agree with them. I would still have gone back. I’ve lived too long to die.

“I’ve lived too long to die,” Frank Evers repeated, then realized he had said it out loud and looked up. The officers were pretending not to have heard in an exaggerated way, aside from Psion Oliver, who of course had heard but had much more practice at pretending he had not. Evers coughed and arranged the loose pages together and slipped them carefully into the protective plastic sample case. He handed them over to Paul who started feeding them into the scanner for storage. “Report?” he asked.

The probes had made their way throughout the system, and had as yet only reported finding human life on Earth. “-but Mars has plant and animal life. The terraforming is breaking down in the absence of human monitoring,” L.T.Smythe said. “-advise against landing on the planet. Until we have more data.”

“I think we know where the humans of Mars went,” added Professor Kelly Qu, the inert colony ships of Anomaly J bore mute testament to the final fate of that desperate attempt to escape the quarantine. The officers nodded solemnly.

“Anything else to report?” asked Evers, but there was nothing. The officers were still collating the reports from Earth. “Then I’ll be in my quarters,” he said, walking off the bridge into the corridor beyond. After a decent interval, Kelly went after him.

Nanovel 4: Frank Evers

[The Captain reads the dead man's journal as the probes bring information]

(Good scene with lots of pathos and such, will write tomorrow.)

(The extensive Mars colonies abandoned, terraforming breaking down. &c)

(Set course to Earth, quoth the captain)

#

The navigators carefully brought the ship into a parking orbit around Earth near the source of the transmission, a strung-together jury-rig of communications satellites arrayed around a small space station that looked suspiciously out of its expected lifespan. The whole mess was carefully balanced in a high orbit by judicious computer-activated rockets apparently salvaged from other satellites in orbit. None of the officers expressed much confidence in the setup, but declared it an amazing use of limited material. L.T.Smythe summed it up: “-somewhat greater than the sum of its parts.”

The probes scan had revealed extensive life on Earth, human and otherwise, but not much technology still active. “It’s probably been about two hundreds of years since humans were in control of the planet, a lot of the tech and structures will have broken down,” Vanessa Tyre declared. The geologist was one of the large worktables with the biologist L.T.Smythe working through the data to try to get some clues to the situation.

“Can you find any concentrations of human activity?” asked Professor Kelly Qu.

“Strangely enough,” said Vanessa. “This would seem to indicate that there is several billions of humans down there.”

“-largest concentration is here,” added L.T.Smythe, pointing out a section of the coast about a third of the way between the equator and the north pole.

“That’d be NYC,” said Paul, always eager to use his knowledge of trivia when his minimal scientific abilities were useless. “You say the letters, not ‘nick’,” he continued.

“There’s a odd concentration in the central part of that continent nearer to the equator. Looks to be in the middle of a desert for some reason,” said Vanessa.

Captain Frank Evers pondered for a moment, then he walked over and superimposed the orbit of the satellite over the geographic map. “The satellite passes over that first region regularly. They could send signals and instructions up to it then.” He decided quickly: “We’ll land the shuttle in this NYC-” he said the letters distinctly “-and see if we can find any of the signalers. Agreed?”

The officers hurried to load the shuttle, as Dr. Kjit went to prepare the soldiers for their role in the mission. Sooner than later, the large shuttle detached from the Unreliable and slipped easily through the atmosphere, landing with a slight bump in a clear section of the crumbling urban sprawl as the pilot adjusted for the higher gravity of Earth. Locking the shuttle tight and leaving the pilot to guard it, the away team scrambled out and set off into the dense cityscape.

#

Holding the pistol tightly in front of his face, the barrel pointed up toward the pale blue sky, Paul walked forward through the overgrown streets, tall buildings in various stages of disrepair and ruin looming above him. He wondered why he was in the lead, but then remembered that the female soldier, whose name he had never asked and never been offered, had gone stealthily ahead. He looked over his shoulder at the away team strung out behind him, picking their way through the rubble and vines. Dr. Kjit urged Paul forward with a nod, his massive arms flexing as he vaulted himself easily over a piece of rubble that came up to his broad waist, and three-quarters up Paul’s average frame. The doctor was unarmed for professional reasons, as was Psion Oliver, but Vanessa Tyre was holding a pistol slightly more confidently than himself, Paul noticed. None of the officers were especially comfortable with firearms, but Captain Evers had ordered it after reading the last journal. Two of the male soldiers were spaced evenly, one roughly in the center of the line and the other in the rear. Paul knew that the third male soldier was waiting in the fighter, ready to provide air support. Paul knew this should make him more confident, but he could only think of the rockets and bombs mounted in great quantity on the bottom of the speedy vehicle. He had looked it up, and discovered that the largest of the bombs could level a city block. He resolved not to cause any trouble, since he was currently walking in a city block.

Some rubble fell away from one of the higher stories of the building to his right and he whirled to look up and tripped on a vine. As he fell he saw the center soldier give the all-clear sign to the captain, and then he hit the ground hard. His pistol flew out of his hand and skittered across the rubble. He watched in horror as it bounced off a rock and flew into the air. The center soldier shouted for the team to duck, and pushed Kelly quickly behind the waist-high rubble wall, shielding her with his body. The pistol fell and discharged, the bullet ricocheting off the rubble wall and impacting against the side of the building. The shot echoed loudly between the buildings up and down the street, disturbing some birds from their perches to fly into the air.

Before Paul could stand up the rear soldier had appeared in front of him, picking up the pistol and removing the magazine. He tucked the pistol and magazine into his pack and offered Paul a hand. Annoyed with himself, Paul considered slapping it away, but decided against it for reasons of self-preservation. The center soldier was speaking quietly to the air support into his earpiece microphone, then a tense silence fell over the team, the two soldiers carefully listening. Paul edged away from the front toward Captain Evers, and shrugged an embarrassed apology. Frank Evers’ attempt at a reply was drowned out when a cacophony of roars and screams arose from all directions.

“I think you gave away our position, Paul,” Frank revised dryly. The staccato of heavy weapon burst fire sounded from the front as the female soldier began a fighting retreat. The center soldier shouted for air support and then looked to the Captain for strategic orders as the howling steadily came closer from the direction of the female soldier, who became visible as she moved up to the top of a pile of rubble a block away and fired a wide burst down, followed shortly afterwards by loud groans. She jumped down and began to sprint down the street as the first male soldier fired bursts of suppressing fire and the second activated a scope, the green lights flashing as it powered on. He took careful aim.

Frank saw the first head for less than a second as it appeared over the edge of the rubble before it was blasted to pieces by a well-aimed round, but it was soon followed by dozens more, leaping quickly over the artificial ridge to the other side. The human figures flesh hung like sacking, and even from this distance Evers could see that the skin was necrotized black and blue, the hairless scalp palpitating slightly. Some of the figures ran on all legs and arms, propelling themselves forward in leaps that put the lie to their shabby exterior. They were cut down by carefully aimed shots from the soldiers, but there were more and more behind. He heard L.T.Smythe gasp: “Zombies”, then the female soldier dove behind a large clump of vines and the fighter’s engines roared overhead, releasing two rockets towards the sides of the buildings ahead, then strafing the creatures with four tracks of deadly metal. The rockets hit as one, and the street ahead was suddenly a hellscape of flashing shards of metal and rock, clearing it in a spray of suddenly seperated organic bits. “Fighting retreat to the shuttle,” Frank ordered, knowing that the soldiers would deal with the tactics necessary to implement that order.

The howls from either side continued unabated as the fighter flashed around, performing an incredible high-speed turn to decrease the time between strafing runs. The female soldier continued her sprint through the line of slowly reacting officers, moving to clear the way to the shuttle. The central soldier gently hustled the officers in that direction, while the rear soldier walked backwards covering the approaches, looking for more of the creatures through his scope. The fighter did another strafing run one street over, to accompanying screams, but the team could hear a multitude of screams converging on their position. The female soldier stopped and started firing into the horde that was running up the street from the direction of the shuttle, and Frank saw a large group emerge from a side street to the left. He pointed, but the center soldier had already started laying down a base of fire.

“We’re cut off?” asked Kelly.

“Seems like it,” said Dr. Kjit. Vanessa fired her pistol wildly into the mass to the side, her inaccurate fire still finding targets, thinning it imperceptibly. The soldier tossed a small-looking grenade into the midst of the creatures and it exploded in a surprisingly large gout of flame, immolating a chunk of the rapidly advancing group. The officers backed into each other as the two male soldiers found steady pieces of cover and deployed the tripods under their weapons. At an unheard signal, the two guns opened up in full automatic fire, spraying down wave after wave with body penetrating force. The female soldier tossed a pair of grenades up the street and retreated from the explosion, using her scope to pick off single targets amongst those miraculously unhit by the male soldiers fire.

As the fighter made another run behind them, Paul tried to shout over the din. “Sorry!”

“If we survive, I forgive you!” said Vanessa, reloading her weapon with her spare clip. She was the only one who had thought to request extra ammunition.

“-Zombies, they’re fast and stupid. They track sound,” said L.T.Smythe.

“How do we get to the shuttle?” said Kelly, looking around. To the right the side streets were blocked off by rubble and newly toppled buildings, to the left and rear were hordes of creatures, charging to be shot down by the concentrated firepower of the soldiers. She could see that the creatures were making slight but steady progress by sheer force of numbers. A shot from Vanessa slammed a close one back and to the ground. The female soldier gave her a thumbs-up.

“Can we push back to the shuttle?” shouted Evers to the soldiers. The central soldier shook his head, maintaining fire. They were less than two blocks away from the shuttle, but it might as well have been on the ship for all the zombies. Frank Evers tried to think, but was interrupted by a disturbing click-thump. The rear soldier’s weapon had jammed, the barrel warped and useless, smoke billowing out.

“That’s not good,” said Paul as the soldier deliberately overloaded the useless weapon and tossed it at the advancing horde, where it exploded into tearing shards of metal. He quickly grabbed out a large-calibre pistol and took careful aim, each shot taking out at least one zombie in a splatter of explosive rounds, as the female soldier hurried to set up for full automatic. Frank Evers doubted that it was going to be fast enough and the creatures gathered and sprang toward the small group.

#

The fighter pilot easily withstood g-forces that would have killed a lesser man as he turned the nimble craft through a series of near miracles in urban terrain following flight. He ranged and fired down a pack of the creatures, scattering them. He saw in the rear sensor that some chased after his fighter as it passed over, so he released a small cluster of bomblets, destroying in a blast more than he had taken with his strafing run. The enemy was not intelligent then, but had speed and numbers. Almost the perfect run. It was hard to distinguish whether this was a simulation or a real-life combat, but it was no matter, he took both equally seriously.

His comrade reported a weapons malfunction, and he checked the situation. Too close for a strafing run, but he activated the auto-targetter, listened to the staccato beeps of successful acquisitions safely distant from friendlies, then triggered a flechette volley of guided micro-missiles that streaked down and impacted without explosion, tearing flesh and muscle apart. At least fifty creatures fell, and more had limbs blown off with minor hindrance.

He overflew, cutting the turn even closer, gritting his teeth before the forces he had unleashed on his ideal body. He spotted another wave of creatures running up from behind, and a large blocky vehicle moving up the street on endless treads. He saw a turret rotate on the roof of the vehicle, and he was cycling through his anti-armor rockets when he saw the cannon fire into the mass of creatures, blasting them into the air, then rolling forward over the scattered remnants. He relayed this down to his comrades, who relayed back orders to cover their retreat toward the new vehicle.

He happily complied, bringing out the heavy weapons as the friendlies pulled back down the street, scattering it with new piles of inert flesh with each dispassionate squeeze of the trigger.

Nanovel 3 : Frank Evers

“Scatter the probes,” he said, as the bridge returned to its normal quiet bustle. An insistent beeping indicated that the hundreds of tiny probes were being deployed for launch all around the ship, their single-minded purpose to seek out objects of interest according to the mission parameters and scan them thoroughly. When the probes were deployed within a solar system, the power-saving biotech brains that ran the brute force scanning equipment drew enough power from solar energy to function almost indefinitely, and it was not a rare occassion for a later survey ship to run across an old probe still transmitting data. None would be found in the Sol System, presumably. There had not been a survey ship in-system in generations. The probes launched simultaneously and without event, although one out of the hundreds failed to activate and shot out inert. It would eventually enter an unstable orbit and end its career as a small impact crater on one of the minor planets. The beeping stopped, and all eyes seemed to turn to Psion Oliver.

Psion Oliver remembered to anticipate his captain’s order and checked the communications board, trying to determine the source of the transmission. Close to, it was not difficult. “A moon of Jupiter,” he said. “Europa,” he added, checking the file for the common name of the moon. “A research and extra-solar observation base.”

#

The ISS Unreliable Narrator hung in space in geostationary orbit over Europa. The glow of light reflected off Jupiter and the surface of the icy moon was dazzling, playing through the atmosphere of the large moon. The large dish of the transmission satellite was orbitally anchored at a distance from the Unreliable, presumably set over the entrance to the research base and electronically linked. Because the surface of the icy moon was so inhospitable, the research base had been attached to the bottom of the ice layer, surrounded by the cold water below but protected by an artificial air bubble reinforced by high-strength durable materials.

Kelly noticed something from the probe reports of the planet that were being fed to the captain’s chair display. “Look, there’s another spaceship in orbit,” she said.

Evers came over and looked at the display. “Abandoned, tiny…chemical rockets? Why is that still there?” he said, looking around at his officers who all started poring over the date. The small four man capsule was orbiting unsteadily around the moon, an orbit that would degrade within the next couple decades. L.T.Smythe transferred the data points of the image to a wireframe so he could see it in three dimensions, rotating the hologram with hand motions. He looked over at the captain:

“-a module is missing. A lander?”

“So what happened to the crew?” asked Paul.

“That orbit is too unstable to have been in place for more than a decade. Maybe they’re still down there,” said Vanessa Tyre.

“One way or another,” added Dr. Kjit solemnly. “That capsule couldn’t have carried too many supplies, so…” His voice trailed off as the officers drew their own conclusions.

“Why would they come all the way out here?” wondered Captain Evers, beginning to pace again, deep in thought.

“The signal is being relayed and strengthened at this base,” declared Psion Oliver, looking up from communications. “The original, weaker signal is being transmitted from Earth to Europa. It’s still transmitting.”

“And the colony ships just started receiving the transmission in the last few years-” started Kelly Qu, her red eyes flashing as she looked to Evers.

“-they came to set up the transmission relay to call for help,” he finished. “They must have cobbled together that spaceship in order to do it.”

“Brave,” said Vanessa simply, shaking her head in disbelief. She could not imagine going that far from any help in such a primitive spacecraft, with no expectation of a return flight. “They must have been very dedicated.”

“Or very desperate,” said Paul. “I recommend we investigate the base before proceeding to Earth.”

“Agreed,” said Evers. A surface mission would give the probes more time to scatter and transmit more information about the system, and he refused to leave before discovering the fates of this mysterious crew.

#

The eight person away team walked down the shielded surface passage that led from the hardened surface landing zone to the thick door to the elevator shaft. The shuttle from the Unreliable had set down next to the lander module that matched the command capsule in orbit. The landing struts had broken, either on landing or shortly thereafter, and the lander had collapsed to the ground, destroying the thrusters. Kelly Qu, swathed in low-temperature suit material, ran her fingers along the wall as she walked along. Lights came on, sensing motion, and turned off almost immediately after the team passed. The high winds on the surface drove particles into the heavily shielded wall. The muffled taps sounded like a steady rainstorm, and was not unpleasant after years in the dreary environment of ship and station.

Despite the slowing influence of apprehension, the team arrived at the elevator door. The heavily armed soldier took up a position where he could cover the entrance, unnecessarily in Kelly’s opinion, and motioned for one of the team to call the elevator. Psion Oliver was closest, and pressed the large button. After a short wait, the door opened and the team piled in. A brief search discovered the manual controls, and the elevator descended quickly through the ice.

The lights of the atrium turned on as the elevator door opened, and Vanessa gasped. An orange-suited corpse lay face-up in the atrium, the dead eyes facing the elevator door. A water bottle, obviously empty, was set next to the corpse, fallen from the dessicated hand. The room itself was otherwise empty, with two bulkhead doors across from each other and a small logistics station against the far wall. Evers knew that the research base, an upside-down geodesic dome, would get narrower the further down they proceeded, but the minimal, probably outdated Sol System records stored on the Unreliable had not held a floor plan. L.T.Smythe had posited that there would be a submersible bay at the bottom of the base for oceanic research. Dr. Kjit moved forward to perform a physical check as the soldier cleared the room efficiently.

“Thirst, or starvation,” the doctor said, announcing the cause of death after a quick examination. “There’s plenty of air.”

“He was waiting,” said Paul.

“Can you tell how long, doctor?” asked Frank Evers.

“More than a year, for this much decomposition. There has been some mummification due to the low humidity of the base air. I’d need more time to determine a more exact timeframe.”

“Later, let’s move on.”

#

They found two more corpses in what once was the living quarters. A man and a woman lay on a bed next to each other, the fingers of one hand entertwined. The beatific effect was only marred by the fact that both had vomited. “Poison,” said Dr. Kjit after a brief inspection with a medical scanning tool. “Most likely painless and self-administered. The vomit was a natural reaction shortly before death.” The team looked at the two doomed lovers, trying not to envision their last moments, then went back to the search

“They knew there was no getting back,” said Kelly sadly, as the others left.

“Even if their lander had not been broken, I’m not sure they could have made it back,” said Evers, walking up behind her and putting his hands on her shoulders. “Maybe it was better this way.”

“They were unlucky,” said Kelly, turning to face him. “But at least they accomplished their mission.”

“We’ll bring them back to Earth,” said Frank. He gave her a quick kiss, then held her for a few moments until she pulled away.

“We should keep searching,” she said, wiping away a single tear. She had dealt with death on a much large scale for the last several years, but it had been impersonal, sterile. The difference between a clean death in coldsleep and a death the choice between starvation and suicide was too different. She put the complication away for later, and returned to the comforting simplicity of the search.

#

The door to the communications room had been sealed shut from the inside. Captain Evers motioned to the soldier who stepped forward and produced a gel applicator from the huge arsenal about his person. Quickly, efficiently, silently the soldier set it up and moved away exactly to the recommended safe distance. Inexperienced with such things, Kelly Qu tensed for an explosion, and got a small nervous laugh from the rest of the team when the thermal gel flared almost silently and burned through the seal of the bulkhead door. The soldier stepped forward smartly and grabbed the door as it started to fall, putting it to one side as easily as Evers would lift a clipboard. He looked through and nodded to indicate the room was clear and the team moved forward to peak in.

The communications equipment was still lit up, steadily relaying the transmission at full power to the galaxy beyond. A corpse was sitting curled up with head on knees, the pen held in his hand snapped by the stiffening of rigor mortis. Ink had dripped down slowly to pool on the corner of the small stack of paper that lay loose on the bare floor in front of the dead man.

#

[The Captain reads the papers as the probes bring information]

(The extensive Mars colonies abandoned, terraforming breaking down.)

(Earth, life all over the planet but signs that the environment has taken over in many places.)

(Set course to Earth.)

#

[Earth orbit, scan]

(signal comes from a satellite in orbit, geostationary over a point. Difficult to pinpoint where on the surface, so an away team is dispatched to the surface.)

#

Holding the pistol tightly in front of his face, the barrel pointed up toward the pale blue sky, Paul walked forward through the overgrown streets. He wondered why he was in the lead, but then remembered that the female soldier, whose name he had never asked and never been offered, had gone stealthily ahead. He looked over his shoulder at the away team strung out behind him, picking their way through the rubble and vines. Dr. Kjit urged Paul forward with a nod, his massive arms flexing as he vaulted himself easily over a piece of rubble that came up to his broad waist, and three-quarters up Paul’s average frame. The doctor was unarmed for professional reasons, as was Psion Oliver.

Nanovel 2 – Frank Evers

The voyage to Anomaly J took six months, relative time. While the ship traveled at less than the speed of light and the voyage, for it, would take years, the crew’s perception of time was artificially sped up during normal operation by a carefully tested cocktail of mind-altering drugs and judicious use of short-term coldsleep to simulate a single night of sleep. It had been discovered that exposure to cryogenics was only possible either in short periods of up to a month long or long periods measured in centuries. A short-term cryogenic state, or coldsleep, was almost foolproof provided that the sleeper was revived before a month had passed. A long-term cryogenic state, or deep hibernation, required different preparation methods for successful recovery and could not be interrupted for less than a century, but so far had proved incredibly successful for those willing to sacrifice that much time. A cryogenic state longer than a month and shorter than a hundred years almost invariably resulted in either death or permanent mental damage, turning the sleeper into a vegetable. The small handful of humans who could survive any length of cryogenic state were extremely valuable and were mostly working as highly paid test subjects.

Captain Frank Evers watched through the bridge viewport as the ISS Unreliable Narrator approached Anomaly J, two months travel from the edge of the Sol System. Small pieces of rock or metal, rare in the cold reaches of space, bounced off the sleek form of the medium-size ship. Anomaly J turned out to be the ruptured hull of a massive colony ship, the radiation of the massive nuclear power plant streaming throughout the local area, not yet dissapated after an apparently sudden meltdown. At various angles around the ruptured ship floated slightly smaller colony ships, gigantic floating coffins once halted from their course. Set back and carefully shielded from the radiation was a sturdily constructed space research station, constructed of modular parts standard at least fifty years earlier. Several small ships were attached via umbilicals to the space station, all of them sacrificing cargo space and thrust for heavy shielding. The research craft, meant for expeditions into the floating colony ships were docked less neatly next to the four sleek fighter craft, meant for only one thing: sudden attack and certain defense.

The Unreliable slowly swung around and applied correcting thrust to get behind Research Station J’s shielding, as Psion Oliver communicated with his counterpart to confirm an approach.

#

The inner airlock door slid open and the Unreliable’s officers stepped through. Two people stood patiently waiting to greet them, but Frank Evers suddenly only had eyes enought for one: the tall, strikingly beautiful Professor Kelly Qu. Her shoulder length blonde hair contrasted with her deep red eyes, the result, Evers decided, either of some unusual but harmless mutation somewhere in her family history or in deliberate gene replacement in her wild college days, which did not seem to have been that long ago. What a difference this vivacious woman was from the dry but long background readout sent with the mission orders! She stepped forward and extended a hand.

“How nice that you have finally arrived,” she exclaimed, her clear diction ringing slightly off the enclosed walls. “And at such a perfect time!”

Frank Evers was stunned. In the course of their long deployments, Space Scouts settled into taciturnity, as if words were as carefully rationed as anything else on the ship. It was almost an essential quality in a Space Scout to consider the value of a verbal exchange beforehand to mimimize the chance of friction in the long-term close quarters. To hear so many words, so breezily declared, left Evers without a ready response. He considered carefully, and ventured: “Yes.” He felt that he had not quite eliminated the questioning tone from his declarative, and he remembered suddenly to take her hand and shake it.

“We have many things to discuss, don’t we?” continued Kelly Qu, her warm grip not without a professional firmness. Frank Evers considered this as he looked into her eyes. “Supply and personnel transfer, briefing, is this your entire officer complement? Dan, could you take the ship’s doctor to the military’s module?”

As Frank Evers tried to work out which question should be given priority, he discovered that he had been ignoring her companion, not from rudeness so much as oversight. Casually dressed, besides the obligatory clipboard, the man was almost as average as his colleague was not, and yet beneath the plain features, Evers decided, there was a mental confidence. Dan greeted Dr. Kjit and the two walked out of the reception module silently. Evers looked back at Kelly, who had continued talking, listing various transfers she would have to make and interjecting comments about the upcoming voyage which had very little actual information attached. Altogether a very chaotic speaker, and Frank was at a loss as to how to proceed.

Kelly shook her head and laughed, a high-pitched but not unpleasant shower of embarrassed sound. “What am I saying! I apologize, we should go to dinner first, then we can talk business. I hope that you have more recent news.” Before Evers could formulate a response, she had slipped her arm through his and was leading him quickly through the atrium door, followed slowly by his officers.

Frank Evers did not know it as he tried to make sense of her walking chatter, but he was in love.

#

“So,” declared Professor Kelly Qu, in full lecture mode. “The interesting thing about the last colony ship-” Kelly pressed the touchscreen in front of her and a picture of the smaller colony ship farthest from the radiation corona was displayed on the large screen behind her “-is that it was not as badly damaged. The records are still mostly intact and the subspace receiver is still functional. This means-”

The extensive clutter of plates and cutlery had been cleared away after a progressively less awkward dinner. The crew knew their Captain and under Paul’s practiced management had carefully intercepted and translated the barrage of questions and comments directed at Evers, slowly increasing his confidence after months of enforced near-silence. By the time the casual conversation had ended, Frank Evers was nearly readjusted to polite company. Almost did a meaningless courtesy phrase pass his lips without a thought, but then the dessert was finished and over coffee Kelly Qu had begun introducing the basics of the studies conducted on Anomoly J.

An unmanned Independent Space Scouts probe, one of thousands scattered by a scout ship dispatched in the area of the Sol System had been abruptly destroyed when it ran across the radiation field. The scout ship investigated from a safe distance and one of the older lost fleet mysteries was solved. The magnitude of the find and the proximity to the quarantined Sol System had prompted a larger mission to deploy the research station. It had, unfortunately, been quickly determined that none of the cryogenically preserved colonists could be successfully revived, too long exposed to hard radiation. Research priority had then shifted to retrieving data about the Sol System and its quarantine. The fate of Earth and even the shadowy causes behind the quarantine were an enduring mystery amongst the colonies, sparking numerous theories of greater or lesser plausibility. Most ignored it, not concerning themselves with the ghosts of history further seperated by years, if not decades of distance.

But any honest Space Scout would jump at the opportunity to explore the mystery, and the ISS Unreliable Narrator had luckily been the most advanced ship closest to the Sol System, so it was Captain Frank Evers and his officers who listened intently to the blonde professor explain the newest find. “-that it has an extensive record of the subspace radio feeds from the Sol System,” she said, tapping out a command that displayed an assortment of grainy video feeds, fragmented by radiation, but still visible. “Psion Oliver knows that the quarantine only blocks our instantaneous mental communications. Traditional wave-based communications will easily permeate, but with the same disadvantage the precludes their use for most interplanetary communications: Slow speed and unreliable reception. In the case of this abandoned fleet reasonably close to the edge of the system, reception is much more certain and quick.”

Professor Qu paused and looked up, apparently used to hearing comments at this point in her lecture. The crew, however, was quietly awaiting the conclusion of the speech. This seemed to throw Kelly slightly off balance, but she continued: “That is, we finally have some idea not only of how to gain entry to the quarantine field, but also of what we might find within.”

“How?” said Frank Evers, his reticence overcome by his eagerness.

“For the last few years, a new signal has been filtering out. Analysis of the composition indicates that it is a tight beam signal that diffuses when it passes through the quarantine.”

“There are people on Earth again?” asked Paul levelly. The culture officer’s speech, of course, had not been affected by the long voyage thanks to careful maintenance in simulator training.

“Or one of the other planets, but Earth is most likely. It’s possible that whatever caused the quarantine has been brought under control. At least enough to allow this primitive signal.”

L.T.Smythe, the shaking of its hands nearly undiscernable in its excitement, seemed to consider this carefully, and spat out a question. “-and as for what caused the quarantine?”

“The earlier records from the ship are damaged by radiation, but indicate that it was some sort of disease or mutation. Many of these colonists are from Mars and the other planets besides Earth. If a pandemic threatened, they might have wanted to escape before they could be infected or trapped by the quarantine.”

“-they would be carefully tested before they could be on the colony ships,” mused Smythe. It shrugged. “-autopsy will not discover the infection.”

“It is not my specialty,” said Vanessa Tyre, who had recovered her elocution more quickly than the others, although her voice carried traces of Kelly Qu’s distinctive speech that implied Vanessa was mimicking the dominant voice while her natural speech patterns regrouped. “But, I have been behind a system quarantine before. Usually they are lifted within ten years by the system authority. What happened here?”

“Some of the last broadcasts from Earth showed widespread looting and roving groups of humans attacking. It must have been very bad at the end.”

#

The four military space marines, three men and one woman, lay strapped into their pods as Dr. Kjit checked the feed of nutrients and chemicals. While the marines were not fighting for real, they were hooked into hyper-realistic simulators to fight in the air and on land, in endless variations devised by the computer or specially programmed by an officer. One of the few jobs that had been studied enough throughout the years to have developed an ideal psychological profile, the soldiers were all willing volunteers who had been gathered out of the population and put through the toughest training ever devised. Combat soldiers were those too psychologically attuned for combat to ever have a normal enjoyable civilian life, despite being of sound mind and stable personality. Whether in air or space in lightly shielded, high-g fighters or on the ground outfitted with the heaviest and most technologically advanced combat systems available, the military space marines were among the few humans who were perfectly suited to a job that was guaranteed to be enjoyable. Most of their time was spent in the simulators, whether for combat training or for leisure, but regulations required them to spend at least one hour a day in reality, where they paced the decks, ate large amounts of food and engaged in halting conversations with professional psychologists, trained to deal with their sharply focused personalities. They always seemed glad to return to the pods or to combat.

Frank Evers, uncharacteristically, was pacing the bridge as the Unreliable approached the flickering surface of the quarantine sphere around the Sol System. Transparent to vision and instruments, any attempt by a sizable object to physically pass through the quarantine sphere would result in an equal counter-force preventing such passage. It apparently blocked all attempts at psionic communication into it, a phenomenon soon confirmed by Psion Oliver’s failed attempt. The slight warning headache that was the psion’s first notice that something was interfering with his mental signals was insistent enough to convince Oliver that nothing was getting through.

Professor Kelly Qu sat in the captain’s chair at Evers insistence, watching Captain Evers paced. She watched the man, two months of living in close quarters giving her some insight into the brilliant mind lurking beneath the artificially inconfident exterior. After all, she thought with a smile, would a true coward have declared that she would share his stateroom? It had solved a problem without shuffling around any of the regular crew, and from time to time during the long voyage the solution had provided a welcome release not usually associated with the Space Scouts. Perhaps it should be, she decided, since we’ve both made thorough explorations. She turned her mind to the matter at hand.

Psion Oliver was tempted to delegate the mildly distasteful task of using mundane electronic communications to the junior psion, but decided that in this instance it was just important enough for him to do it himself. The Unreliable had been maneuvered to an extrasolar point near the point on the quarantine sphere where the weak tight-beam signal appeared. Psion Oliver carefully determined the exact coordinates and relayed them to the piloting crew. Captain Evers stopped pacing in front of the viewscreen and looked to Vanessa Tyre at the scanner station. She nodded in the affirmative, and Evers turned to Professor Qu and elaborated:

“If we lock on to the transmission, we should be able to follow it through the quarantine sphere.”

Her red eyes flashed and she leaned forward in the comfortable chair. “Good,” she said. Some of the ship’s customs had cut into her verbosity. “Then we can follow the signal in-system to its origin.”

“Yes,” said Frank, and ordered a cautious increase in speed toward the sphere. The ISS Unreliable Narrator crept forward to mimimize impact if the sphere resisted the attempt at entry. Frank Evers realized that he was oddly impatient and was not prepared to spend the entire day in suspense. To the surprise of the piloting crew, he confidently signaled full speed, accepting the risk in favor of action. There would be plenty of time to wait as they proceeded slowly in-system. Steady acceleration over the course of an hour brought the ship to the edge of the sphere, thicker close to, but Vanessa’s sensors showed a state-change in the large section directly ahead. It was too late to stop anyways, so Frank Evers stood at the viewport and watched while some of the less confident members of the crew braced for impact surreptitiously and held their breathe. Kelly Qu watched the captain as the ship easily nosed through the sphere, and she almost thought she saw him sigh with relief before he signaled full stop.

“Scatter the probes,” he said, as the bridge returned to its normal quiet bustle.

NaNovel 1 – Frank Evers

Despite the spectrous void that is the darkest reaches of deepest space, there will still be those who choose to spend their time there. Captain Frank Evers was one of those. Known as the “Iron Captain” for some reason and “F-E for Service” for less, at the moment the slight blue eyed human man with medium-length hair slicked back carefully across a rounded dome sat still on the cramped bridge of the ISS Unreliable Narrator. The rumpled uniform of the Independent Space Scouts hung loose on the newly thin figure, not for the first time regretting the unfortunate name of his branch of civilian service. The common practice of appending the adjective Space to the beginning of every organization that found a mission in the cosmos had led to some unfortunately juvenile constructs. In the perverse way of all those nomenclaturely challenged, the Space Scouts had proudly taken ownership of the moniker and attempted a rehabilitation, mostly involving a dependence on primary colors in their spaceship themes and an oddly misjudged penchant for dramatic names. Nonetheless, as one of the most popular branches of civilian service, application levels were high without being excessively competitive, and the best and brightest of the star-eyed colony-born were recruited yearly for the customary tour of twenty years, barring mechanical difficulties. The SS Unreliable Narrator was a mid-sized scout ship, recently well-equipped from a convenient confluence of funding, timing, and location near a refit yard, and had picked up a new crew upon departure. In the free-and-easy rank structure, in which the rank of any officer was determined mostly by patience and ability to think quickly over long-term, this was Frank Evers second tour as captain, and fourth on board this ship, known informally to most of the crew as the Unreliable when it was not known simply as Home.

The first thing Frank Evers suspected when Psion Oliver announced his message was that this was a trick. Psion Oliver, a massy brain barely contained within a large head attached to a largely extraneous body, was carefully translating the instantaneously transmitted and painstakingly encoded mental packets which were the only reliable communications the ship had beyond the boundary of a solar system. The carefully trained psion mutation, the result of a happy accident in the early days of space travel, had been invaluable for real-time communications amongst the far-flung spacefarers, and the mental codes were among the only standardized practices of the otherwise disorganized colonies. Frank Evers produced from the shielded portion of his mind one of the carefully memorized daily confirmation code sections and had Psion Oliver confirm the change of orders. Each captain was provided with twenty-five years worth of daily codes, artificially uploaded into a small biotic implant for ease of memorization, which corresponded directly to a list held in the memory of The Admiral. A secondary list was provided to enable a captain to indicate that he was under duress or in some other compromising situation surreptitiously. Multiple messages per day could be sent using combinations of obsolete unused day codes and the current day code following a simple algorithm. Security such as this had become necessary as psion training became easier and more widely available outside of the civilian service. It was widely theorized that one day even the professional military would have access to compatible psions, despite the danger.

Psion Oliver recited the correct countersign and Frank Evers sat up in confusion. “Earth?” he said, as the Psion unpacked the high-density code and converted it to a standard orders form for display. The bridge crew looked up, confused, and a low murmur whispered around the bridge as he read:

(MISSION DESIGNATION LR001) CAPTAIN FRANK EVERS OF ISS SHIP PQ091-B

YOU ARE ORDERED TO PROCEED TO THE RESEARCH STATION AT ANOMOLY S AND BRING ABOARD PROFESSOR KELLY QU WITH ANY PERSONNEL AND EQUIPMENT SHE REQUIRES. PROCEED TO THE SOL SYSTEM, USING APPROPRIATE MEASURES TO BREAK QUARANTINE. PROCEED WITH CAUTION TO THE PLANET EARTH ASSESSING THE STATUS OF THE SYSTEM. IF ADVISABLE, LAND ON THE PLANET EARTH AND CONDUCT A SURVEY MISSION UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF PROFESSOR QU. PROCEED OUTSYSTEM AND MAINTAIN POSITION OUTSIDE OF THE SOL SYSTEM QUARANTINE TO AWAIT FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS AND REINFORCEMENT.

BROAD DISCRETION IS AUTHORIZED WITHIN THE QUARANTINE.

#

The five officers were gathered around the table ostensibly to play cards but primarily to pump Captain Evers for information about their mission. The loose command structure aboard the survey ship merely provided that Captain Evers was in charge while all the other officers were ranked in order of how useful their skills were at the moment. Psion Oliver was naturally precluded from playing, but derived equivalent enjoyment from dealing and basking in the natural reactions of the players throughout the game. Like all psions, he was forbidden to discuss any communications except with the intended recipient, so he confined his remarks to gamespeak, the rest of the crew tactfully avoiding directing any questions. To try to pump a psion for information was a firm taboo, and unwise in any case, since he also handled your private communications. The cards, thin strips of wood with changeable biochemical faces, were dealt out of an organic shuffler which refreshed the card face after each hand. If the card spent too much time away from the base shuffler, the picture face would begin to break down, but the system was flexible enough to replicate the incredible and changeable variety of card games throughout the colonies. Frank Evers pushed a considerable sum into the center of the table.

This game, a more traditional game reliant on daring skill more than luck, had been chosen by the captain. It was being tightly contested by all six players with piles of the simple shipboard currency that could be exchanged for shore currency as needed. Serious players, they all had minimally alcoholic drinks except in the case of Dr. Alan Kjit, teetotaler for biological reasons. The tall dark-skinned man with a dark white head of hair was among the small minority capable of fully accepting augmentation, and the doctor’s large muscular frame was further enhanced by concealed diagnostic and surgical tools as well as a small biotech brain implant containing a small library of medical knowledge. Supplemented by a portable medical kit, Dr. Kjit could perform advanced field surgery and was an integral part of the Unreliable’s survey team. He had almost certainly saved Evers’ life after a bad fall from a high cliff during a survey of a high-gravity world. He looked at his cards carefully, selected the highest, and discarded the rest.

Play passed to the left and the mousy-looking albino L.T.Smythe gathered its cards carefully. Hailing from one of the first, poorly documented colonies, the androgynous mutation of humanity had developed in the long isolation before their rediscovery. The colony used cloning to reproduce as well as to control the population of their inhospitable world. L.T.Smythe was the chief biologist, which naturally included highly advanced genetic research, and was responsible for identifying as many native species on the planets surveyed and suggesting adaptations for any species that would have to be introduced. He took two cards, the slight quaver in his hands apparent whenever not engaged in delicate work. He did not respond well to relative time.

Almost immediately the young man sitting next to L.T. threw his cards lightly toward the center, the faces wiping before they fell face up near the shuffler. A classically handsome young man with olive skin and deep eyes with slightly-too-large dark pupils, Paul sat back, apparently thinking about something else. The culture officer with no family name, amazingly fluent in most of the hundreds of splinter dialects of the supposedly common human language. He was also fluent in some of the more obscure old languages spoken by some of the older, lost colonies, and thus the only one who could speak to Smythe in his native language. His only oddity an enthusiasm for the still suspect xenolinguistic field, gleaned from scraps of supposed alien probes found floating in space and disputed traces of alien cultures on several settled worlds. It was hardly out of place in the Space Scouts, and Captain Evers figured it might come in handy one day.

The next officer looked over the top of her cards through slightly drawn grey eyes. An older woman, though it was not especially apparent at first glance, Vanessa Tyre was the longest serving Space Scout on the Unreliable. A pleasant enough woman whose amiability had been honed by four tours in space and innumerable excursions on countless worlds, she was the Geologist, and the only one on board, relying on the computers for support and her colleagues for the heavy lifting. This had yet to be a problem. She shook out her close-cropped brown hair and pushed forward an equivalent stack of currency, then added a similarly large number. Dr. Kjit and L.T. hastily folded, and Frank regarded her coolly, trying to disguise any trace of his emotions and probably failing in the steady gaze. He shrugged, falsely casual, and matched.

He won.

#

The voyage to Anomaly S took six months, relative time. While the ship traveled at less than the speed of light and the voyage, for it, would take years, the crew’s perception of time was artificially sped up during normal operation by a carefully tested cocktail of mind-altering drugs and judicious use of short-term coldsleep to simulate a single night of sleep. It had been discovered that exposure to cryogenics was only possible either in short periods of up to a month long or long periods measured in centuries. A short-term cryogenic state, or coldsleep, was almost foolproof provided that the sleeper was revived before a month had passed. A long-term cryogenic state, or deep hibernation, required different preparation methods for successful recovery and could not be interrupted for less than a century, but so far had proved incredibly successful for those willing to sacrifice that much time. A cryogenic state longer than a month and shorter than a hundred years almost invariably resulted in either death or permanent mental damage, turning the sleeper into a vegetable. The small handful of humans who could survive any length of cryogenic state were extremely valuable and were mostly working as highly paid test subjects.

[Anomaly S description]

#

[Professor Kelly Qu, meet and greet]

[INSERT EARTH PLOT]

#

The four military space marines, three men and one woman, lay strapped into their pods as Dr. Kjit checked the feed of nutrients and chemicals. While the marines were not fighting for real, they were hooked into hyper-realistic simulators to fight in the air and on land, in endless variations devised by the computer or specially programmed by an officer. One of the few jobs that had been studied enough throughout the years to have developed an ideal psychological profile, the soldiers were all willing volunteers who had been gathered out of the population and put through the toughest training ever devised. Combat soldiers were those too psychologically attuned for combat to ever have a normal enjoyable civilian life, despite being of sound mind and stable personality. Whether in air or space in lightly shielded, high-g fighters or on the ground outfitted with the heaviest and most technologically advanced combat systems available, the military space marines were among the few humans who were perfectly suited to a job that was guaranteed to be enjoyable. Most of their time was spent in the simulators, whether for combat training or for leisure, but regulations required them to spend at least one hour a day in reality, where they paced the decks, ate large amounts of food and engaged in halting conversations with professional psychologists, trained to deal with their sharply focused personalities. They always seemed glad to return to the pods or to combat.

[This space intentionally left blank]

#

[Sol System Quarantine]

Ernie Centrifuge 6

Meanwhile, Ernie Centrifuge was thinking hard. He was beginning to see the benefit of being split from his drunken oaf It, leaving him the whole brain to use while the rest ran on instinct. His reason tried to interrupt, but he shouted himself down. The I went over to a corner of the brain and sulked. The Over-I listened as the Wallet explained the situation, letting his instincts provide the running commentary. He recalled the case.

A woman had walked into the office right before closing time. A storm was brewing and a shock of lightning played across her face, veiled. “Please, you must help me!” she had said.

Sam Spade had sat at his desk in his customary non-chalance. “What’s it worth to you,” he had drawled.

The woman wiped away some tears. “My husband has been murdered!”

“Murdered, you say? Perhaps he was just misplaced.”

The woman glared at Spade through the veil. “He’s murdered, I tell you. Shot through the heart next to me in bed. A man, an assassin, came into the room and shot him dead. I screamed, but the assassin only nodded to me and put his gun away. Then he walked out.”

“Interesting. Ernie, take her information while my train of thought comes into the station,” said Sam Spade, walked over to the wet bar at the side of the room and looking out the window at the gloomy weather.

Ernie carefully noted her address and name: Mary al-Rafiq. She answered his questions dispassionately, not bothering to ask his name. She was apparently not one to associate freely with the lesser classes. Ernie smiled to himself and did not disturb her calm.

“Now,” said Spade, turning back. “Why don’t you start from the beginning?”

“My husband is an engineer, in quantum robotics. A few months ago, some men hired him to build something. It was very secret, he did not tell me what it was. He oftne went away for days at a time, in the men’s car. He became sick, but he continued to work. That is always how my husband has been. He becomes obsessed when the idea is good, and this one must be very good. He lost a lot of weight, but finally he must have finished. He came home and slept for two days straight, then he woke up screaming something. I couldn’t understand and I tried to ask. But he told me not to worry about it and bought a new lock for the door. We were going to move to a new house, but then he was killed! Do you think it was those men?”

“Almost certainly, or their competition. Do you have any idea where your husband went?” asked Spade, tapping his hat with his pen. Ernie had been taking all this down as well in shorthand.

“Once I followed him in a cab, I could probably find the way back.”

“Did anybody see you? Did you tell him?”

“No.”

“Then maybe these men think you know nothing. That’s good for us. Ernie, mind the store. Me and the lady are going out.” Spade grabbed his jacket and escorted the woman out. He poked his head back in. “If I’m not back in a couple hours, call the police.” A careful one, always, Sam Spade. Ernie nodded, and went back to some filing.

“Well, is that all you know?” asked a voice. Ernie looked up into the smiling face of Detective Benji through the cell bars.

“What?” Ernie asked.

“Is that all you know? That’s a nice story, but what happened next?”

“Have I been speaking out loud?”

Detective Benji sighed and walked over to the cell door. “You’re too oblivious to have killed him, get out of here. We got your address out of your wallet, we’ll call you if we need you.”

“Can I have it back?”

“Can you have what back?” replied the exasperated Benji.

“My wallet,” clarified Ernie calmly.

Detective Benji sighed and tossed The Wallet over to Ernie. Ernie was glad that Benji had not noticed the odd metallic bits. It was well-disguised. He caught it and put it in his back pocket. “Be seeing you.”

“Not likely.”

Ernie walked out into the dark street and went his seperate ways as the police station doors closed.

***

“What am I supposed to do about it?” asked Ernie.

The Wallet hovered, looking reproachful. Apparently this was one of the few facial expressions its designer had felt it would need to use. It was very effective. “You could talk to his widow,” the Wallet said.

“I could just ignore it,” said Ernie, kicking a wall experimentally on his way down the dark alley.

“You know her address,” said the Wallet.

“She won’t be there. If they killed Spade, they would have known she knew about them. If she’s still alive she’ll be back at their lair,” said Ernie. “Yes, I said lair.”

“I know where that is.”

“Then let’s go!”

***

Moments later Ernie Centrifuge found himself situated across the street from a dark, apparently abandoned, office building. “That was fast,” he said in an impressed voice.

“Yes,” said the Wallet, seeming to preen. “I switched you over to the timeline where you were here already.”

“That hardly makes sense. But it makes just enough sense for me to not argue about it,” said Ernie. He saw a spark in one of the third story windows. “Let’s go, she might yet be alive.”

“Put me in your pocket,” said the Wallet, folding itself up. Ernie grabbed it before it hit the ground and slipped it back into his jeans. A muffled babble continued periodically from behind him, but he ignored it.

Ernie Centrifuge looked over the exterior of the office building. It was sheer, but there were windows set in the side above a heavily locked front door. He walked around the corner into a very narrow alley and found what he was looking for. Two tin garbage cans lay on their sides near a small side door. Ernie picked one up and threw it into the street where it clattered loudly, breaking the monotonous light traffic noise of the night. A car swerved to avoid it, honking, and the side door opened and a figure stepped out. It turned around and got the second trash can full in the face. The figure fell over and Ernie ran over and kicked it in the face again and then checked to make sure the guard had stopped moving. The guard breathed slowly, unconscious. Ernie grabbed the guard’s gun and threw it down the alley, where it skittered off a rock, then walked through the side door.

He closed the door carefully behind him and looked around. Where would they be holding the woman? Up or down? He chose impulsively as he burst through the door of the guard room and found a flight of stairs. He ran up the stairs to the second floor and stopped, listening at the door.

“What did your husband tell you about the Project?” a male voice said.

“Nothing,” came the brave reply. A woman. Ernie recognized Mary al-Rafiq, in all her earnestness slightly strained.

“And where is the Wallet? We searched you.”

“Quite thoroughly, too. You should be ashamed.”

“Shut up. Where did you take it. You don’t have to die like your husband and that detective you so foolishly went to.”

“I’ll never tell you!” Mary declared, then Ernie heard a loud crack of a slap, and Mary cried out. Ernie slammed open the door and saw the scene laid out before him. Mary had fallen to the floor under the force of the man’s strong hand. The man himself was tall, muscular, not especially good-looking, with an annoyed expression on his face. He turned around and looked at Ernie. Ernie saw a surprised looking guard standing next to the door.

“Who the hell are you?” said the tall man quizzically.

Ernie kneed the guard in the groin and shoved him out the door, slamming it shut behind him. He faced the tall man. “Ernie Centrifuge, Private Eye.”

“Who?” said Mary from the floor. Ernie sighed.

“Ernie, from Spade’s office,” he added. She shrugged. “The secretary?”

“Oh!” she said.

“I see,” said the tall man. “I am Xavier Li. You are trespassing on Company property.”

“Is that so? What do you intend to do about it?”

Xavier pulled a gun from his suit, pointed it at Ernie and fired, but the shot went wild as Mary kicked him in the shin. He winced, then grimaced as Ernie punched him in the chest. The gun clattered to the far side of the room. Ernie shoved the man aside. “Let’s get out of here,” he said to Mary. He heard a pounding at the door. Hold on, he thought, there’s a simpler way to deal with this.

Mary ran over to the side of the door and Ernie grabbed the handle, listening for a pattern. Right before the next strike, Ernie opened the door and the guard tumbled in, off-balance, holding a folding chair he had been bashing at the door with. Mary and Ernie scuttled through the door and closed it. Mary found another folding chair sitting outside and Ernie used it to wedge the door shut. A muffled shout came from his back pocket and he drew the Wallet out.

“The lab is upstairs,” it said.

“We should try to destroy it,” said Mary. “They killed my husband, they shouldn’t get his work.”

“I wouldn’t want them to build another one,” said Ernie, taking the stairs two at a time. He went through the door to the lab, which was empty. There was a small server rack at the far corner connected to hot-swappable data drives. “That must be where they store data. Mary, look around for something explosive while I smash this.”

Mary clattered around in the drawers set around the room while Ernie picked up one of the lab stools. He put the stool back down and crawled behind the server to unplug it. He heard a bang from the lower floors. “We don’t have much time,” he said as he picked up the stool and smashed it a few times over the delicate computer equipment with a satisfying crack. Mary was sprinkling a smelly chemical all around the room. “Bring some of that over here,” he said, gesturing at the insufficiently smashed equipment. Mary doused the equipment liberally.

“How do you intend to get out?” said the Wallet.

“No time to think about that,” said Ernie, patting himself looking for his lighter. As he found and lit it, the door swung open and Xavier, flanked by two guards, stood framed in the doorway.

“Don’t do that!” Xavier shouted. He charged Ernie, slipped on some of the chemical and slid headfirst into the server rack. Ernie jumped lightly over him and tossed the lighter to the far side of the room, where it ignited with a sudden whoomph. The chemical burned blue.

“Get out of my way!” he shouted at the guards, who were looking for a fire extinguisher. He and Mary ran out of the burning room and down the stairs quickly, followed by the fluttering Wallet. As Mary ran ahead of him, Ernie saw the guards give up and rush to pick up their unconscious boss before the server rack ignited.

Ernie and Mary ran out into the street as the top floor started to collapse. “If you’re going to do something, do it now!” Ernie demanded of the Wallet, who did.

***

Detective Benji surveyed the pieces of the charred room that remained. “Officer Pidgen, did you get anything more out of those two guards we arrested?”

“They’re not talking. They claim it was an industrial accident,” replied Pidgen.

“Did you ask them where they got Spade’s gun?”

“They wouldn’t say.”

“I think we can guess,” sighed Detective Benji. This was becoming a very troublesome case, but at least one part of it was closing. “Tell Mary al-Rafiq that we found the people who killed Sam Spade. They probably know who killed her husband.”

“It’s a shame all that data was destroyed.”

“Yes, isn’t it?”

***

Uncle Entropy cracked his knuckles loudly. “That’s it?” he said, finally.

Ernie Centrifuge shrugged.

Christian Scene 1

The plane fell from the sky, crashed into an apartment tower and exploded in a gout of red flame. The tower slowly collapsed, the flaming rubble scattering and starting secondary fires in the surrounding buildings. The man walking slowly down the center of the street didn’t flinch as the rubble rained all around him. He was lost in thought. His arm was bleeding, staining the white scarf he held in his hand. A large piece of rubble fell in front of him, blocking the street ahead. He looked down, and saw a corpse entangled in the twisted wreck. The corpse’s head bent up, the eyes wide open staring at him. He walked up to the corpse. A woman, her once-blonde hair charred, her skin still warm. He put his hand on her cheek, then closed her eyes.

He turned down an alley and heard sounds of a struggle ahead. A woman screamed, then a shot rang out, followed by a gasp. A crumpling sound. He turned the corner and saw two men standing over a woman. She had been stripped roughly, her fine clothes tossed to the side. A bullet hole had appeared in her forehead, and blood dripped down. The man stood still, silent. One of the rapists looked up and pointed. “What the fuck you looking at?” the other one shouted, pointing with his gun at the man. The man was silent. The two rapists walked up to him and began to circle him. “Yeah, yeah. What you gonna do?” asked the one with the gun. The other one suddenly darted his hand out and grabbed the white scarf. “Where’d you get that, huh? Stole it?”

The man looked up and the rapist stepped back involuntarily. The man’s eyes were empty. He stooped down and picked up a piece of brick. “What you gonna do?” said the rapist, a trace of hesitation in his voice as he waved the gun. The man suddenly smashed the brick into the gunman’s eye, then dragged the sharp edge along the gun arm, opening a red gash. “Aww! Fuck!” shouted the rapist as he dropped the gun and put a hand over his blind eye. The other rapist started to charge the man but was stopped by a bullet from the gun. The man lowered the gun he had caught as the rapist fell back over the woman’s corpse. The half-blind man looked up as the barrel of the gun faced his good eye, and winced as the hammer fell. He stumbled back, then realized the gun hadn’t gone off. He ran down the alley, still clutching his eye, blood streaming out down his cheek.

The man threw the empty gun down amongst the fallen rapist and his victim. He picked up the white scarf. It was speckled with blood. Christian dabbed at his bleeding arm gently with the scarf, then folded it carefully and slipped it into his pocket. He walked out into the street. A ragged dog on a leash keened in the middle of the street. It ran away as Christian approached. There were crashed cars, some of them empty, some with bloodied corpses hanging out of windshields. He stepped over a human leg without noticing and walked down the street. He was nearing his destination, inside the cozy suburbs.

Christian turned the corner and saw his house ahead of him. A small blue ranch-style house with a yard. Nothing had touched it, even on this day. The door was closed, and the lights were off inside. A dark green SUV sat in the driveway. His wife’s car. He walked up to the door, opened it, and stepped inside quickly. He tried to flip the front room lights on, but the power was out. Enough light streamed through the windows for him to see clearly.

“Sarah?” he called, not expecting an answer. He walked through the living room into the connecting kitchen. “Are you here? Jake? It’s Dad.” The start of lunch was on the stove, but it had shut off when the power went out. Nothing had burned. A plate had been smashed on the floor. Christian knelt down and touched the jagged pieces. His wife Sarah wouldn’t have left it like this, would she?

He walked down the cramped hall to the first small bedroom. It was empty, dolls littered the floor. He took the white scarf out of his pocket and placed it gently on the bed. He patted it, then turned quickly as he welled up and walked out of the room toward the next small bedroom. Nobody was in it, toys neatly stacked away. “Jake?” he questioned the silence. No answer. He walked into the master bedroom. The double bed was made and the room was tidy, except for some of his socks on the floor. A Bible lay on the bed. Christian walked over and picked it up. He couldn’t believe what he knew to be true. He started to throw the Bible across the room, then stopped himself and cradled it to his chest. He started to weep and started to kneel, then stopped himself again. He shook the tears away and ran out of the house back to the street, still clutching the Bible in his uninjured hand.

He saw a man farther up the street but didn’t wave. He went over to the SUV and got in, starting the car with the spare key he left in the glove compartment. He backed carefully out of the driveway and drove down the street. The man waved frantically to try to get him to pull over, but Christian didn’t stop. He reached the main road and weaved his way through the stopped cars on his way to his church. The church parking lot was almost empty, so he parked near the door. He walked up and tried the door. It was locked. He banged heavily. There was no answer. He went back to the car, found the crowbar, and walked around to the back of the church where he used the crowbar to lever open one of the office windows. He crawled through, ripping his shirt on a hook as he dropped to the floor inside. The floor was littered with papers and other items dropped suddenly.

Christian stepped into the office of Pastor Tim. It was empty like the rest.He walked forward in the gloom and nearly tripped over a fallen body. He checked the pulse, then turned it over with the crowbar. An older man, with a rictus of terror on his face. A heart attack? Christian suddenly recognized him as one of the associate pastors. Held tight in the grip of rigor mortis, a DVD. Christian saw an empty DVD box on Pastor Tim’s desk. Steeling himself, he pulled the corpses fingers back from their grip. He heard a small snap as one of the fingers broke. Wincing, he extricated the DVD and looked around for a player. He found one underneath on the side of the large TV set in the wall and inserted the disc.

The screen displayed on image of Pastor Tim, his hands steepled in front of him, a Bible opened on the desk between his elbows. “So, you’ve been left behind…,” he said, then Christian paused the DVD and listened. He heard a pounding on the front door. There must be more like him.

 
 

Ernie Centrifuge 5

Ernie Centrifuge found a closet full of clothes exactly his size. He put on a light cotton suit to match the weather. He wanted to put on a tie, but couldn’t find one. He went the other way and left the top two buttons unbuttoned. He looked at himself in the mirror and flexed. “Yeah?” he asked himself, and got a positive reply.

He walked out of the room and went down the hallway. He opened one of the doors, but it was just a bedroom. He walked inside anyways and poked around. “What’s this?” he said to himself, spotting a small box on the dresser. He walked up to it, and tried to open it. It was locked. He looked around and found a hairpin. He twisted it straight and used it to pick the lock. This is pretty easy once I thought to do it. He opened the box. It was empty except for a folded note labelled “To Ernie”. He picked it up, flipped it open and read it. “Thanks for last night. -Laetitia” was written in overly flowery cursive. Well, that doesn’t make much sense, Ernie thought as he looked over his shoulder suspiciously. He put the letter back in the box and closed it, making sure to lock it. He threw the hairpin away and walked out of the room, slightly paranoid.

He walked all the way down the hallway, through the big double doors and entered the shop floor. This was not the room that he had entered. Was it last night that he had entered? He couldn’t say for sure. The shop floor was bustling with customers of every station. Along the back wall was a selection of herbs, while the rest of the shop seemed to be devoted to alcohol of every variety. He saw Laetitia standing behind a sample counter, a green liquid in complicated glasses in front of her. He walked up and whispered through his teeth: “What is going on?”

“We have to pay the bills somehow. Would you like some absinthe?” she offered, holding up one of the drinks.

Ernie sighed and took the drink. He drank it a little faster than he would normally, and felt the effects. “What is this?” he asked.

“Absinthe. It’s good!” said Laetitia.

“Not that. This shop. What am I doing here?”

“You, Ernie, are our newest employee,” she said. She saw Ernie’s disbelieving expression. “You did just lose your job,” she added.

Ernie was about to argue, but then he realized she was right. “What do I do?” he asked.

“If you could convince that lady over there to buy some of the more expensive wine, you’ll have accomplished your task,” Laetitia pointed to a slightly overweight woman of a certain age. She was browsing the wine rack, obviously lost.

“Right,” Ernie said. He moved to straighten his tie, remembered that he wasn’t wearing one, and then gave up and walked over. “How can I help you?” he asked.

“I’m looking for a nice wine for my party. Ooh, you’re new, aren’t you?” said the woman, actively staring at Ernie’s fit form.

“Yes, just got hired. May I suggest-” Ernie realized abruptly he didn’t know anything about wine. “May I suggest a white wine,” he said as he looked over the price tags. Thinking fast, he found the highest priced and the second highest priced white wine. He took both of them off the shelf and held them in each hand. “Now this one-” he held up the highest priced wine, “is the best one, but-” he held up the second-highest priced one, “is almost just as good but cheaper. What would you choose?”

“Well, it’s all so confusing. I suppose the cheaper one would be good enough for a party,” she said, a little flustered as Ernie lifted the wine bottles up and down, inadvertandly flexing. His muscles could be seen through the thin cotton of his suit.

“Wonderful, wonderful,” said Ernie, directing her to the checkout, where Uncle Entropy nodded appreciatively and took her money. Ernie looked over at Laetitia and winked. She nodded. He walked over: “There, am I done now?”

“Not quite. Now you have to find out where you are,” Laetitia said with a wink.

“Aren’t I right here?” said Ernie, repeating an old punchline.

“Fine, you win,” said Laetitia, throwing up her arms. “Now it gets dangerous. Do you have any idea what killed your boss?”

“I have wondered about that,” said Ernie Centrifuge.

“Go outside,” said Laetitia, giving a bored smile. “I have wokr to do.”

“Fine,” he shouted, annoyed. “Where’s the door?” Everybody was looking at him. “Don’t worry, people. I’m just trying to-” he looked at Laetitia for help and she mouthed, “get prices lower, yeah!” The customers cheered as Ernie walked towards the door.

***

Ernie walked down Main Street. The city he lived in didn’t hardly have any other streets of note, but this one was main street, and nobody was going to argue about that. He walked down to the railroad bridge. The corpse of his employer had been cleared away. “What did you even do? You never got in trouble in all the time I was your secretary!” he shouted. His honest instincts wouldn’t allow him to leave without he first solved this murder. If he left, he thought, he’d be the lowest sort. He walked over to the police office. It wasn’t far, just a half-mile down Main Street.

“I need to speak to Detective Benji!” he declared.

“What about?” said the ever-reasonable sergeant on desk duty.

“Oh, never mind,” said Ernie Centrifuge, remembering why he didn’t like cops. He walked outside. He stopped by a liquor store, bought a bottle of whisky made his way back to the railroad bridge. Surprisingly, the Wallet was hovering there.

“You idiot,” quoth the Wallet.

“What have I done now?” exclaimed Ernie Centrifuge.

“Here’s the situation, listen carefully because I’m not sure if I’ll be able to repeat myself.”

“Shoot,” said Ernie Centrifuge, drunk on uncertainty, and not especially concerned with ambiguity.

“Listen, you’re really the only one who can protect us, much as I’d prefer otherwise. Here’s the situation: Mr. Spade has poked his nose into somewhere he hasn’t any business in. Admittedly, that was his job.”

“Get to the point,” said Ernie Centrifuge. “What am I supposed to do about it?” he drank a bit too much too quickly from the bottle of whisky. He threw up a bit under the railroad bridge. “Jeez,” he exclaimed..

“Listen, you think you’re the only one who exists outside of time? There’s a whole group what does. They’re a bunch of assholes, really. You figuring on joining them?”

“I’ve determined through harsh introspection that I’m not an ass. Despite my current drunkenness, I’m certainly on your side. Yeah.”

“Right, then. Here’s the situation:,” said the Wallet as it orbited Ernie.

“Wait a minute, let me take a drink,” said Ernie, tipping the bottle up and draining it. “Go ahead and talk, I’m not listening.”

“Right, here’s your situation: first, that’s not a bottle of whiskey, that’s a two liter of coke.”

Ernie looked at the bottle in his hand. “Wait, then what was that liquor store clerk talking about? He said it was aged!”

The Wallet flew close and talked very slowly. “That was a 7/11, he was high, and you aren’t drunk. You’re just confused because you’re in a new time. Happens to the best of us,” it said, then paused. “Well, not the best. I’m sure it happens to somebody. At least it happened to you. Now throw away that bottle and listen.”

“Fine, I’ll listen. Seeing as I’m not drunk, apparently,” Ernie said accusingly at the world. He threw the bottle away and sulked. He belched and thumped his chest with one hand.

The Wallet looked precisely as if he really wished he could shake his head derisively. Unfortunately, the armature would not allow it, so he shrugged. That didn’t work either, so he gave up. “Here’s the situation: your boss was killed-Let me finish!” he said, seeing that Ernie was about to say something stupid. “Your boss was killed because he had got too close to the group that built me. They stole the plans from an engineer who they killed after he refused to help them.”

“I remember a widow coming in a week ago, crying. So-” said Ernie, trying to keep up: “You’re evil?”

“What? That’s ridiculous. I’m just a Wallet. With a dimensional shifter,” averred the Wallet, floating around. Ernie made a strange grab at it, forgetting that he wasn’t drunk.

“What would they want you for?” he asked.

“Unlike some of us, most people are stuck in one timeline. There is profit to be made in jumping between the timelines, and you need an electronic brain powerful enough to be able to distinguish the useful ones. There’s a different timeline for each possible shift of each atom. That’s a lot of timelines.”

“Yeah,” said Ernie Centrifuge.

With his spectacularly powerful brain, the Wallet knew what was coming next.

“So, if I understand you correctly, and I think I do,” started Ernie.

“Yes,” said the Wallet. “I could take you to an alternate timeline where you managed to buy whiskey as you left a liquor store instead of having just drank two liters of cola and needing to take a piss.”

“Make it happen,” commanded Ernie Centrifuge, and with a quick flash his drunken state matched the situation. He walked around, nearly tripping over a discarded whiskey bottle. He was blinded in a bright light. “Hey, where’d you go?” Ernie shouted. “I still have to piss!”

Ernie Centrifuge 4

Laetitia, Psychic Psychiatrist, sat at her desk. She was tall, black, and quite good looking. Her diploma was on the wall behind her, but this was immaterial as she had given it to herself. Laetitia had a lot of modern ideas about psychic psychiatry which didn’t work well with the general idea. It was unclear whether she even believed that she was a psychic, aside from being telepathic which anybody could be with the proper, albeit arduous, training.

She saw the three men enter and immediately diagnosed them, but she let them explain themselves. One of them tried to kiss her, but was held back by the other. Meanwhile, the third one had plenty of questions, but no answers. She listened carefully to their confused self-diagnosis, letting them tire each other out with contradictory accusations. Finally, she addressed the center man.

“Ernie Centrifuge,” she said in a self-possessed voice. “You are a very split individual. This is uncommon, but not unheard of. You are only the second person who I have met with this condition.”

The wan-looking man spoke up: “How can I fix it?”

“Oh, you don’t need to be fixed, you just need to learn how to control it. You, Ernie Centrifuge have three parts. The first part, the It-” she pointed at the muscular man, who grinned, “-is your instinctual drive. It can’t plan. The second part, the I-” she pointed at the central man, who listened, “-is your planning self. The I tries to harness the It to accomplish a useful goal. The third part, the Over-I-” she pointed at the wan figure. “-asks the questions that need to be asked and answers the questions that need to be answered. Only in this case, your Over-I doesn’t. That’s part of your problem. You think too much instead of doing.”

“But, why are there three of me?” asked Ernie Centrifuge.

“As a split individual, each of your parts was going along its own timeline, each not particularly fulfilled. But then you all converged on a single event. Now you have the chance to make something of yourselves. Are you ready?”

“What?” said Ernie Centrifuge.

Laetitia rolled her eyes. “Follow me,” she said as she stood up. She opened a door set in the wall and ushered them through into a large white examining chamber. The walls were padded. The men saw a machine in the corner. It had three discs fitted over three clearly marked footprints. As the men walked in to the room, the door slammed behind them, and they saw a peculiar figure standing behind the door.

He was an old man, but incredibly healthy-looking. He was tall, wore a lab coat and held a clipboard easily in his large hand. The other hand held a pen. One of his bushy eyebrows seemed to be in a permanent arch. The man stalked forward, leaning slightly forward as if to inspect the three men. “Yes,” he said, in a rich deep voice as he perambulated around the room.

“Yes? That’s it?” said Ernie, who had been expecting more of an introduction. “Who are you?”

“I am Uncle Entropy,” said Uncle Entropy.

“Whose uncle?” asked Ernie Centrifuge.

“Now, that is an example of your Over-I asking the wrong kind of questions. You have a condition, boy, and a very useful one when used properly. Just look at me,” he said.

“What am I looking for?” asked Ernie Centrifuge as he tried to spot something different about this mysterious old man.

“What you see before you is a person with your condition who has harnessed-” the old man balled a fist, “-the potential of it. Most people aren’t able to fully seperate, whether to operate on a purely instinctual level or to get over themselves. Both very useful in pure form, but often crippling when watered down. You have the opposite problem, Ernie Centrifuge. You’re too seperate, so much so that you have three simultaneous timelines working for you. What is it they say? A house divided against itself cannot stand? How much more so for a brain?”

Ernie stalked around the room, looking for something to do. He ran into the wall and bounced off easily. He laughed and tried again.

Ernie listened, trying to figure out a way to make it make sense. He tried to ignore himself.

“What can I do? Is it possible to put myself together?” asked Ernie Centrifuge.

“That’s the question you should be asking. You’re making great progress. The important thing is to put yourself together without merging, and to learn how to control yourself. Usually one of your parts turns out to be dominant. I’m sure you can figure out mine. Yours might be completely different. We’ll have to find out the hard way. Now, if you’ll just step on this platform,” Uncle Entropy chattered as he led the three men into the machine. Each man stood on a platform.

“This is stupid,” said Ernie angrily, but before he could move Uncle Entropy had nodded to Laetitia, who pulled a lever purely for show, and then pushed a button.

“Stay calm, it won’t take but a moment,” said Laetitia in a soothing voice. The machine whirred a bit and Ernie began to get a headache.

Uncle Entropy watched as the three men were surrounded by rings of glowing light as the machine dissolved the artificial barriers between them. Then the rings dissolved, leaving three energy bodies trapped in a shrinking box. “Watch carefully, Laetitia, see which one is dominant. That’ll be our center.” Uncle Entropy and Laetitia saw the wan-looking energy body flutter about looking for a way out, squealing in the complicated language of the Over-I. They looked over to the other two. The muscular energy body was attacking the regular energy body aggressively, but the I tripped It up, sending it sprawling into the Over-I. It subsumed the Over-I with a pleased chuckle, got up and squared off against I again. It moved to attack, much more fluidly, feinted, and then It had the I in a headlock. The I broke the headlock only to be slapped solidly on both ears. Dazed, the I stumbled to the ground, and was subsumed by It. “Huh. That’s rare,” remarked Uncle Entropy. “Laetitia, are you prepared?”

“Yes, Uncle Entropy,” she responded, as the box closed in on the one remaining energy body. It slammed a fist against the wall and then was contained in the walls of the box as they compressed it down to a small hot cube of energy. Uncle Entropy left as Laetitia picked up the cube and took it over to a lab table to let it cool off.

***

Ernie Centrifuge woke up. He was lying on his back on top of the bed sheets of a large bed. He was unclothed except for a pair of red silk boxers of a slightly lighter hue than the bed sheets. His chest, hirsute and broad, reflected in the mirror set across the room. He admired himself. He heard a noise. He rolled over and saw Laetitia in the doorway, in a tasteful red slip which set off her dark brown skin. “Are you awake?” she asked.

Ernie Centrifuge awkwardly fumbled for the bed sheets to cover himself. “No!” said Laetitia calmly. Ernie felt something in him resist his attempts at modesty.

Why are you ashamed? Free yourself, Ernie thought.

“That’s better,” said Laetitia. “Don’t listen to your reason. Right now, it’s flawed. We will have to train it. Let your instinct lead the way, and guide it with your intellect.”

“Yeah,” said Ernie Centrifuge as he watched Laetitia walk over. He patted the bed next to him. “Come here, then,” he propositioned.

“Is that your intellect talking?” said Laetitia.

“It is in total agreement with me at the moment,” Ernie said, as he watched her walk over and slip into bed.

“That’s a good start. Now to give you a reason.”

As Ernie Centrifuge worked away single-mindedly, Laetitia guided him subtlely for her own purposes. Finally she achieved it as she let him expend himself.

“Yeah,” said Ernie Centrifuge.

***

“Wake up!”

Ernie Centrifuge struggled awake as he was beaten about the head with a heavy stick. Uncle Entropy continued yelling until Ernie leaped out of bed and made a grab for the stick. Uncle Entropy easily avoided him and slammed it into his stomach. Ernie fell down, his wind knocked out of him. “What the hell are you doing?” he shouted.

“You should have already caught the stick. Use your instincts! Somebody is attacking you! Do you intend to fight or do you intend flight? Which will give you more pleasure?” shouted Uncle Entropy as he swung the stick around at Ernie as he lay prone.

“Fine, fine, I suck. I knew that already.” said Ernie, which was greeted by a stick to the temple. He groaned as he stood up, holding out his hand.

“Only part of you sucks. Your reason is flawed. You put too high a bar on the possible,” Uncle Entropy declared, bringing the stick around like a golf club aimed at Ernie’s crotch. Ernie grabbed it, pulled it out of the older man’s grip and broke it over his knee. “Now you have two sticks,” said Uncle Entropy.

“I very much dislike you, old man,” said Ernie, tossing the sticks away.

“Put on some clothes, you hedonist. Then join us on the shop floor.”

***

Ernie Centrifuge 3

Ernie Centrifuge felt himself being propelled through a rushing medium. It felt like he was going down a waterfall, but it wasn’t wet. He looked to his left, and saw himself. He looked to his right, and saw himself. He started, then looked up and saw a strange sight, but before he could focus he crashed into a surface, just enough to knock the wind out of him.

Ernie Centrifuge jumped to his feet, looking around, his fists balled. “What the hell is going on?” he shouted. He saw a man of medium build with brown hair and green eyes sitting up with his arms behind his back supporting his torso. The man looked bewildered. He looked closer. “Hey! You look like me.”

Ernie Centrifuge sat back, bewildered. He saw a muscular man with brown hair punch at the air, then turn and spot him. “Well, it’s not my fault! Please don’t hit me,” he said. They both looked around. They were in a small circle of light on a plain white floor. Ernie almost overlooked a wan-looking man lying face first on the ground. He had brown hair.

Where am I? What can I do? Should I get up? Oh, two more of me. That just raises further questions. I’m going to sit right down here until I can get an answer.

“Shut up!”

The three men looked up and finally focused on the strange sight from before. It had brown leathery wings which it was flapping quickly in order to remain suspended in the air. The wings were attached to the box of a thorax by two metallic articulated armatures. The abdomen was covered in the same leathery substance that covered the wings, but thicker and striped yellow and red all over. The three men’s gazes arrived at the head of the creature at the same time, an unfriendly face composed of lighter leather and two blank beaten gold coins for eyes. The eyes had a strange white gleam that rolled about in a way indicative of the mood. In this case, they seemed annoyed. Ernie came to the horrifying realization that this creature, if that was the proper term, must have been somehow concealed as the wallet that he had picked up.

“Yes,” said the creature. It spoke in well-pronounced syllables, with no particular accent. As it spoke, a thinner portion of the leather face was lit from underneath in a well timed lip simulation. “You can call me The Wallet.”

“Screw you!” said Ernie, throwing a fist wildly. The Wallet flew up, easily avoiding the fist.

Ernie Centrifuge held himself back. “Hold on, hold on, let’s calm down. I’m not even sure where we are.” He saw the wan shadow of himself stand up and hover ambiguously over his shoulder.

Where are we? How can we get out? Only one way to find out.

“There, that’s using your head,” said The Wallet, hovering as he watched Ernie grope towards the darkness. He turned his attention to the middle Ernie. “Ernie Centrifuge, you have got to put yourself together.”

Ernie bristled. “Hey, what’s that supposed to mean? I’ll enjoy plucking those wings out.” He advanced menacingly as the shadow walked out of the circle of light, and the surroundings came back. “Wait, where’d that Wallet go?”

Ernie patted himself on the back. “Hold on, let me deal with this. I promise I’ll let you loose on anybody who needs it.”

“Don’t be too slow doing it.” said Ernie, still tense. He watched as the shadow walked into a wall and fell back down. He laughed at his own antics.

“I don’t know what’s going on, but look at that sign,” Ernie pointed.

“I can’t read,” said Ernie proudly.

“Just come in with me,” replied the exasperated Ernie as he picked up the shadow and carried him through the door.