Three black, wavy shapes wobbled through the haze, leaving
dark footprints in the blue. They became clearer, solidifying into humanoid
forms dressed in long black coats with hundreds of buttons. They had long pale
faces and dark round sunglasses. Their dark hair was either covered by square
black caps or, in the case of the leader, pasted to its pasty forehead.
The leader stopped, holding up a long skinny finger with a
fingernail that was more claw. The other two halted, kicking up wet sand. Water
pooled by their black-booted feet.
“Where are we?” the two hatted beings asked.
The leader pulled out a black pocket watch and flipped it
open.
“Ah,” he said, consulting the multiple faces. “We are in a
spatial interim caused by the accordance of the Annums.”
“Explain this to us,” the other two said in unison.
“It is like so,” the leader said, slipping his watch back
into a pocket and gesturing with his elongated digits. “The Seven Magnitudes
are only relative one to another through the Twenty-one Annums. Normally they
are in disagreement, but occasionally Annums will overlap, causing simultaneous
existences. But,” he punctuated the word with a jab of his finger, “when all of the Annums are in accord, the
Magnitudes and Annums fuse in an exo-reality, creating what you now see around
you.”
“Ah!” the two capped beings said together. “Next time,” one
muttered, “I didn't ask.”
“Why are we here?” the other follower asked.
“Ah...good question. Very good question,” the leader replied.
He tapped his lips with one long finger. He frowned. The other two waited
patiently, their round lenses impassive.
Their leader spun in a confused circle, eyeing the emptiness,
his heel digging a gouge in the sand. He flapped his arms helplessly.
“How did we get here?”
“We were walking, I think,” the other two said.
“Yes, and before that?”
“We follow, you lead;
we ask, you enlighten.”
“Before that...” the leader pulled out his watch again and
consulted several of its faces. “Hmm, before that this,” he waved at the
seemingly physical landscape, “wasn't here. The
Annums were in disagreement. Now they
have fused for a time and so I conclude that 'before that' we were not.”
“Ahhh...” the followers said.
“And very soon we will not be again, after which I do not
think it likely that we shall be again.”
The followers looked alarmed, their eyebrows shooting up over
their glasses. They both opened their mouths to speak, but their leader
silenced them with a flick of his hand as he gazed at his watch.
“It seems we do not have long,” the leader said. “The Annums
will soon break apart again and return to their normal state of separation…Our
simultaneous existence will end ere the hour is out.”
He turned to look at his followers. Their shoulders sank in
dejection. Then one of them looked up and pointed excitedly. “Look!” he exclaimed.
“I see something!”
“Impossible,” the leader said, “there’s nothing here…” he
trailed off as he gazed across the blue plain in the direction his follower
indicated. “Impossible,” he repeated.
In the shivery distance something protruded from the ground.
It was a twisted, broken, bluish silver tower or stump—or city—or—or something.
“Minas Central Terminus,” the leader breathed.
“Qu’est ce que?” the followers asked.
“Hurry!” the leader shouted, checking his watch. “That may be
our only escape, but it will not last!” he broke into a wild run. The followers
glanced at each other, and then hurried to catch up. Source-less light blazed
through the sky, causing them to run even faster, their hearts jerking like
accelerated atoms. They raced across the endless expanse, heading towards the
only other thing in sight.
The followers didn’t know what their leader meant by escape,
but they hoped it meant they wouldn’t cease to exist in an hour. They strained
towards the tower, clawing at the air with their skinny fingers as if they
could pull it towards them.
Suddenly, in the blaze of source-less light a broken statue appeared
to the left. A headless god of blue-white stone, crumbling into the sand.
Another one disintegrated into existence on the other side.
“Faster!” urged the leader. Wet sand flew behind their black
booted feet, their black coats streaming like wings. The sand sucked at their
feet, their coats caught at the wind, trying to hold them back, anchor them until
they winked out of existence. Their dark glasses flared with the reflection of
the source-less light.
The colossal arm of a god came crashing down on them. Sand
exploded everywhere, the leader and the first follower dove to the side, but
the second was too slow.
The hand came down over him like a cage, its thumb pinning
his coat to the ground. Blue water pooled around him. The Leader and Follower
One (F1) scrambled to their feet as more wet sand came streaming around them. A
massive nose hurtled past, only to smash into its foot, sending debris flying.
“Where’s Follower 2?” Leader asked, looking around at the new
landscape of dissolving limbs. F1 pointed at the hand, slowly wearing away,
burying F2 alive. Leader ducked between the fingers and yanked on F2’s coat.
“Why?” F2 asked.
“What?” Leader asked. There was a ripping sound, but F2 was
still trapped.
“Why are you saving me? We have no past, and no future unless
we escape. Go!”
Leader shook his head. “No. I am the leader, you are the
follower; a leader takes care of his followers.” The ceiling was lowering, the
hand pressing flat.
“How did you become Leader?”
“You followed me.”
The coat ripped and F2 came loose. They scrambled out from
under the smashing hand just before it collapsed completely.
“Look!” yelled F1, pointing at the sky. Weird blue lights of
various sizes were pulsing off to the right. Wind whipped through the ruins of
the statue, blowing wet sand against their glasses.
“Come on!” Leader finally yelled, grabbing his followers and
hustling them out of the statue. Back on flat sand they ran towards the tower.
The blue lights seemed to be fading and fewer statues were crumbling onto the
plain out of nowhere.
As they got closer, the form of the tower grew clearer. It
appeared to be constructed or grown in tiers, rings of stone or wood or something
in between, rising off the plain. Among the twisted towers that sprouted from
each level stood large archways, and in the center rose a massive rock that
jutted up through all the layers and stuck out over the plain like a knife.
All fell still again as they neared the massive structure
which appeared to be rooted to the ground by gigantic hands that grew from the
lower bastions and roots, like a trees, and huge chains that disappeared into
the sand.
The only sounds were the Slap! Squuck! of their feet in the
sand and the Hu! Hough! of their breaths. The Minas Central Terminus soared
above them and they slowed to a jog, out of breath, the seams in their sides
ripping. All of the arches and windows were dark.
“What is that?” F1 panted.
“It’s…it’s…” Leader gasped, “the Terminus!”
“The end?” F1 exclaimed, skidding to a stop, plowing up the
sand.
Leader and F2 also stopped, hands on knees, huffing. “I
thought you said it was an escape!” F1 said, he now stood in a little pool of
water. “You’re leading us to the End! Terminus! I want to exist! What kind of
leader are…” he couldn’t finish, his lungs were seared. He coughed up blood.
Dark purple splattered in the blue water.
Leader opened his mouth, but he couldn’t start, his heart was
seared.
“We made him leader,” F2 said firmly. “We follow.”
“Blindly into that?”
F1 choked, pointing at the Terminus. “He popped into being just like us, what
makes him qualified?”
“He came into being as a leader,” F2 said. “And he came back
for me,” he added defensively, almost accusatorily.
F1 was almost up to his knees in blood stained water.
“Move!” Leader exclaimed, whipping out his watch and grabbing
F1’s arm. But he couldn’t pull him from the pool, it was swallowing him.
“Help!” F1 screamed. F2 screamed louder.
“Help!” Leader repeated. F2 stopped screaming and grabbed
F1’s other arm. “One! Two! Heave!”
SCHLOPSCH!
F1 popped out of the pool and went sailing over their heads
into the sand. Leader and F2 hurried over and helped him up.
“We can’t stay in one place too long here,” Leader said,
consulting his watch. “The fusion is thin where the Terminus stands. The Void
seeps in easily.” He pointed at the pool. “Let’s go,” he said, leading the way
towards a gaping maw in the Terminus. F2 followed. F1 stood and brushed off the
wet sand.
“We’re the ones
with the hats,” he muttered, but he hurried after Leader and F2, glancing back
fearfully at the pool. He caught up with the other two just before the
hole/gate.
The water of the pool rippled, the purple blood stirring. A
violet colored baby octopus lifted its tiny tentacle above the surface and
planted its suckers on the sand of a temporary world.
“Hurry!” Leader said, ushering the followers towards the
hole/gate.
A blazing blue light fell upon their distinct black shapes.
They threw their hands across their dark glasses, which did little against the
glare.
The followers whimpered, wind gusted through their coats, not
stirring the plastered hair of Leader. The light dimmed, floating off of them
and they saw its source.
High above the plain, hovering silently just a half mile away
from the lowest tier of the Terminus, was…something. Something between a rock
formation and a vessel, for Leader could make out seven thruster engines, four
at the back, three scattered around the things midriff. The thing was
misshapen, grey, and dripping. Odd towers and canyons divided its rocky
surface. Greenish plants or liquid leaked from pores.
“What is that?” the followers asked in unison, their voices
trembling.
Leader consulted his watch. He looked back at the floating
thing, sending down its blue spotlights, sweeping across the plain and the
craggy surface of the Terminus.
“I don’t know,” Leader said in a very small voice. The light
swept over them again and he pushed his followers into the hole/gate. The
shallow pool they’d been standing in slowly started to recede.
Leader urged F1 and 2 through the darkness of the hole/gate,
stumbling over vague shapes of a smooth, cold material. Leader took of his dark
glasses, but he could still see nothing.
“We can’t see!” the followers cried.
“Keep going,” Leader said.
“Ow!” said F2.
“My shin!” said F1.
“What is that?”
Leader asked, coming up against something hard and poky. He reached out his
hand. He felt a ring. "I think…” he pulled on the ring.
“Ah!” all three screamed.
Blazing light nearly blasted him back into the followers. He
threw his pale hands across his exposed eyes.
“Dark glasses on!”
They all threw their glasses back on, hurriedly dusted off
their coats and strode out through the tall arched doorway.
Impossibly tall walls of undulating cyan glass curved away from
the doorway on either side. Opposite stood a mangle of doors, windows,
apertures, stairs, pillars, walls, and a thousand other architectural features
growing in and out of each other with no sense of decency.
In the space between the structural nightmare and the three
beings was a sort of courtyard or street. In the middle stood a fountain; a
shapeless pool with a statue of a woman, naked, holding a dagger of silver. The
water gushed from her eyes into the pool, dark purple.
“What is it?” F2 asked breathlessly, reaching out a tentative
hand.
“It’s a she,” Leader said, consulting his watch.
F2 withdrew his hand. “Do they bite?”
“It’s a statue,” F1 pointed out.
“But, it’s crying blood,” F2 said with a shudder. Dark purple
rivulets ran down the statue’s ankles, making hardly a sound as they entered
the wine colored pool.
“I’m…not sure it’s real
blood…” Leader supplied. “But I think we go up.” He led the way over to the
crushed dreams of an architect. There were seven total staircases. Three went
down, one, toppled on its side, ran sideways through eight windows and into a
dark hallway. The last three stairs led up. One fused with a pillar, one ended
in midair, high above the street, and one disappeared up through a trap door.
They filed up the steps into a gallery filled with endless
rows of pillars. Leader hesitated for a moment then declared, “This way!” and
smacked into a mirror. He fingered the surface. “Hmm, odd. This must be a
reflective surface, yet…I don’t see myself…”
“A see-through barrier?” suggested F1.
“No…this gallery appears endless, it’s just reflected
eternally upon itself. See, there are thousands of trapdoors. But somehow, we
are not reflected, it’s like we’re invisible or…we don’t exist.”
The followers shuddered.
“Right,” Leader said, feeling along the wall to the right of
the trap door. Suddenly he vanished.
The followers gasped and ran forward, alternately clinging to
each other and pushing each other away. “Leader!” they squeaked.
He reappeared right in front of them and they piled into him,
all falling around the corner where Leader had seemingly vanished.
“What?!” Leader asked.
“You disappeared!”
Leader stepped back around the corner, observing the effect,
then rejoined the shaken followers. “Interesting placement of mirrors,” he
commented, leading the way along the hall.
“Why aren’t there any pillars?” F2 asked, trailing his hand
along one wall, then crossing the floor till he hit the other wall and tracing the
cool, flat pillar reflections. “What’s making these?”
“Why are there pillar reflections, and no us reflections?” F1
asked.
“I…don’t know,” Leader said, quickening the pace.
“You seem to know everything else,” F1 said.
“I don’t.”
“You should, if you’re the leader.”
“I can’t, minds like ours just can’t know everything,” Leader smacked into another invisible
barrier. He splayed his skeletal fingers across the glass, feeling for a
corner. “There are just things in my head,” he explained. “They’ve been there
since…well, a few minutes ago. Things I see bring them to the forefront. But I
know them beforehand.”
“Why should we believe you?”
“I’ve gotten you this far, haven’t I?”
“We’re wandering in an endless hall.”
“Look,” Leader said, stopping, “this is some kind of tunnel
or maze, it reflects itself infinitely.”
“So you say,” F1 argued, “but you keep going on about
reflections and how they work and all this nonsense, I see infinite pillars.”
“Feel the mirrors,” F2 said.
“Who felt them first? How do we know they’re really there? Is
any of this really here?” F1
demanded.
“Use your eyes!” F2 exclaimed.
“Think about it,” F1 said. “We’ve believed everything we were
told from the beginning, what if none of that was ever true?”
“But we knew what we were from the beginning, no questions
asked,” Leader said. “In fact, you told me who we were.”
“Because you told us first subconsciously,” F1 said. “Don’t
either of you feel any different than you did at first? Don’t you think you
might be something else, something you want to be?”
“What’s ‘subconsciously?’” F2 said.
Leader frowned. He did feel a bit different. He felt…unsure.
F2 glanced around. “Do you hear something?” he asked.
They all cocked their heads. A rumbling echoed in the
distance. “That way,” Leader said heading off between the pillars.
“Are you sure?” F1 asked under his breath, following Leader
and F2.
They emerged quite unexpectedly onto a parapet that ran over
a muddle of broken streets. It had crenellated walls and led to a winding
stairway, broad enough for an army, that circled a fat, desolated tower. At the
top of the tower a bridge connected it to the third tier of Terminus, a
faceless wall with spikes along the top. Rising from the top of the tower, grew
a pedestal of dripping limestone with steps cut into the side and smaller
towers jutting out as if the pedestal had crashed down on top of them.
The massive rock formation vessel swam just above the surface
of the pedestal, its thruster engines echoing off the thousands of walls,
rumbling like thunder and lightning as the thrusters flashed, sparked and went
out. Leader and the followers ogled up, open-mouthed.
The vessel hung for a moment, then dropped the last fifty
feet onto the pedestal. Dust, rock, fire, and noise cascaded around the pedestal
in a torrential rain. The shock wave passed over Leader and the Followers,
vibrating and cracking the bridge, jarring their teeth and shaking F2’s glasses
off. He threw his hands over his eyes.
One of the towers jutting from the pedestal cracked and fell,
shattering like an icicle on the tier below, sending shards raining down on the
lower Terminus. F2 scrambled around on the parapet after his glasses whilst
Leader and F1 cowered under a hail of particles.
F2 slapped on his glasses and stared in awe at the colossus
wrecked on the pedestal. It shivered like a living thing and belched a cloud of
black smoke into the sky.
“That’s a vessel…” Leader whispered. Surely that was their
escape. They had to reach it and find out what was wrong. “Come on!” he said,
striding across the parapet. F2 and F1 followed reluctantly, looking up at the
precariously wobbling towers.
The parapet was cracked. Stones crumbled from it as they ran
towards the wide staircase. One last chunk of Terminus fell from the pedestal,
crashing down onto the tier and sending a house sized rock flying down at them.
Leader looked up with terror, slashing his hands in the air,
running faster, urging his followers onward. The rock obliterated the parapet
behind them, huge cracks wove across the stone, crenellations dissolved, rubble
slid down into the streets.
“Go! Go! Go!” Leader shrieked. He and his followers darted up
the steps, the cracks right on their heels. The parapet fell away completely
into the city below, dashing several cafés into grounds. The first few steps
followed and Leader and his Followers fled higher.
At last the dissolution ceased, the steps hanging hazardously
over the lower tier. Leader and the followers collapsed on the wide stairs,
eyeing the drop with mistrust. The sky overhead remained pale blue, the plain
stretched out beyond Terminus and silence reigned.
“Look!” F2 shouted, pointing up at the higher levels of
Terminus. Leader craned his neck. High on the chasms and pinnacles of the upper
Terminus swarmed dark little scuttling shapes, flooding out of a maw-like
opening and pouring up, curling around the structure and streaming into
Terminus's eyes, vanishing.
"What..." F1 began.
"I don't know," said Leader, "but they make
me feel all...crawly." He shuddered and stood shakily. The followers rose
and together they ascended the staircase. The stairs were even bigger than
they'd appeared from a distance and rose straight and steep for a couple
hundred feet before beginning to slowly
encircle the gargantuan tower.
Behind them, across the gap of the broken parapet, the
purple cephalopod dropped down onto the rubble with a plop.
Finally the wide stair entered the tower through a five
story arch, flanked by a cluster of seven pillars on each side. Leader paused
on the threshold of the huge chamber. The interior was divided into four darknesses
by two shafts of bluish light from tall slit windows.
Leader waved his pale skinny hand and led them inside.
The middle of the room was dominated by a seven tiered
platform on which stood a massive chunk of silvery rock. Leader and followers
were silent in awe.
The room seemed to echo strange hollow notes. Slowly, their
eyes adjusted to the gloom and they could see the photographic frescoes painted
onto the glassy smooth walls. One depicted a noble figure, a kingly boy,
drawing a black sword out of a chunk of rock…the same silver rock that stood on
the pedestal.
Beside the fresco, was another, showing the same king on
horseback, leading armored knights, pointing the way with the black sword. More
paintings ringed the room, but Leader stared at the last.
The king knelt, crownless, his hair plastered to his
forehead with sweat. The black sword was clutched in his grasp, but he did not
raise it. Above him loomed a green scaled knight, raising his green sword to
decapitate the king. Above the painting was an inscription and below, a map.
The inscription was in some ancient language, carved in
squarish symbols.
"Due to massive delays and the closing of one of our
main lines, only two tickets will be valid for exiting of the Minas Central
Terminus. Sorry for the inconvenience," Leader read the inscription aloud.
"What's that mean?" F2 asked.
"It means...it means..." Leader faltered. He
thought he knew, and he knew what he had to do. He was the Leader and he would
do his job. To the very end.
"You made it up," F1 interrupted. "That's a
bunch of scribbles up there."
"You mean you can't read?" Leader asked.
"Of course! But that’s not an alphabet, it just…it’s…”
“It’s the first alphabet I’ve ever seen,” Leader sniffed. F1
opened his mouth, but F2 interrupted.
"What's this map?" F2 said.
It was a complicated grid laid out in several sections cut
through with spirals and labeled meticulously in tiny script.
“Excellent,” said Leader, “we shall find our way to the
platform!”
“How?” pointed out F1. “We have no idea where we are.”
F2 drooped, staring at the hopeless tangle.
“’You are here’” Leader read, placing a thin finger on a
triangle on the map. F2 brightened. “If we go along here,” Leader said, drawing
his finger along the map. “We will come to this, see it says ‘up,’ and we go up
to here and along here, up again and out to the…Landing Platform A, off
limits.”
“Off limits?” F1 said warily,
“What’s that?” F2 asked, pointing to a silver inlaid symbol.
“That says Departure Gate 3B,” Leader said.
“That sounds good,” F2 said, staring at the map.
“Departure can also mean disappearance,” Leader said,
consulting his watch. “Which is what we’re trying to avoid. I think it best to
investigate this vessel on Landing Platform A.”
“What’s that?” F2 said pointing at another symbol.
“It says Transport Museum.”
“And that?”
“Lavatory, but we must be going, we’ll have time for reading
lessons once we ensure our state of being is of a more permanent nature.”
Leader led the way through one of the slit windows and out
onto a parapet that curled around the tower.
The purple cephalopod, now much larger, oozed its way into
the chamber they had just vacated.
Leader and his Followers trudged up around the tower. The
blue distance shimmered, the heads of massive statues emerging from the sand
until the plain was dotted with colossi. Then the colossi flew into the sky,
flicking weird shadows over the trio. The statues vanished in the infinite
blue. Leader said nothing, but F1 and 2 looked at each other, their fear
visible, even with their dark glasses on.
“Look!” exclaimed Leader, pointing up to a set of silvery
doors just a little ways up the parapet. “That’s the way up!”
“Ah!” replied F2, who had just glanced behind and seen the
cephalopod rolling towards them on its nine tentacles. Leader whipped his head
around and gasped.
“Run!” he yelped.
Spindly limbs flying, the three beings fled up the parapet
towards the silver doors. They thudded into the doors side by side, white hands
splayed, searching for a handle, pushing on the doors. They didn’t budge and
there were no handles. The cephalopod was closing in with elated squelching
noises.
Leader saw the set of two buttons. He pushed one. Nothing
happened. He pushed the other. Still nothing. He turned to face the cephalopod.
The doors dinged open behind him. F1 and 2 spilled through. Leader leaped to
follow. The doors began to slowly close. Leader and Followers turned to run,
but there was nowhere to go. They were in a tiny room.
A purple tentacle came through the door, reaching for F1.
The door sliced it off. It wriggled on the floor for a moment, squirting pink
juice, then lay still.
Leader looked around the room.
One wall was covered in buttons. Leader scanned the buttons.
“Hmm…ah,” he pushed one and the little room jolted.
“What was that?” F2 asked.
“What a peculiar feeling!” remarked F1.
“We’re going up!” explained Leader.
Leader consulted his watch anxiously, tapping his foot.
“Takes a long time,” he muttered. At last there was a quiet ding! And the doors
slid open.
The three beings cautiously stepped out. A hallway led to
the right, another to the left, and a third directly ahead. There were more
pictures along the walls, even more realistic than the ones in the chamber with
the stone. And all of them were decorated with words.
Leader spun on his heel, looking down each hall. He
scratched his head. F1 was looking at a picture with the words “Escape!
Starring Mia Wasikowska and Ben Barnes.” F2 pointed tentatively down the
left-hand hall. Leader shrugged.
“I’m afraid I can’t rightly remember,” he said, his
shoulders falling. He was supposed to be leading and he couldn’t even remember
a simple map.
“It’s left,” F2 said. “I remember clearly.”
“Left?” Leader asked.
“Eh?” said F1, looking away from the poster to his
compatriots.
F2 nodded. “Are you sure?” Leader asked. F2 nodded again.
Leader pursed his lips. He checked his watch. Time was getting on without them.
They needed to hurry. “Left it is,” Leader said, marching down the hall.
F2 and F1 hurried after him. “Didn’t bother consulting me,” muttered F1.
“If you’d pay attention to what’s going on…” F2 pointed out.
The hall led to some weird waist-high gates, barred with
sets of rotating tripods. Beyond that a flight of stairs led up and out onto
Landing Platform A. There was a large red sign and beyond that, the vessel
loomed, pieces of it lying here and there, the thruster engines sparking and
smoking. Several of the stone formations had cracked and fallen off. A large
section was completely gone, presumably over the side of the tower, and the
interior was visible as a network of ant-like tunnels, caverns, metal catwalks,
stairs, and machinery.
Leader’s heart sank. It was more damaged than he’d imagined.
Should have guessed, he said to himself.
“Eh?” said F2 pointing at the red sign.
“It says: This area off-limits to civilians.”
“Are we civilians?”
“No. A civilian is a member of the public.”
Leader swept past the sign and marched into the shadow of the
vessel. Rubble and dust coated every inch of the platform. The odd sparking
noise of the thrusters was the only sound. There didn’t appear to be anyone
about. He wondered if it would be a bad idea to shout to attract the attention
of the crew. They walked around the vessel to side of the platform where the
bridge connected it to the third tier of the Terminus.
“Oooh” said the three beings in unison. A huge ramp lay open
in the side of the vessel with stone steps and lampposts lining the ascent into
the vessel’s interior. There was still no sign of anyone. Leader mounted the
steps cautiously.
He crept up, F1 and 2 on his tail, all the way to the top.
The ramp led into a massive chamber filled with struts and fountains that
burbled from rock faces into natural stone pools. There were reptilian bodies
in spiny jumpsuits lined out on the floor. Some had been smashed, burned, or
partially melted. Others bore less apparent damage, but all were unquestionably
dead.
“What-what are those?” F1 asked.
“People, I think,” Leader said, inching closer and peering
at one. It’s yellow, slit-pupil eyes were open and glassy, it had more of a
snout than a nose and a wide maw lined with jagged teeth. It was covered in
dull yellowy green scales with odd black markings. It had little ear-holes with
scaled flanges that swept up into points.
“What’s wrong with them?” asked F2. “Are they asleep?”
“Do they have a disease?” F1 asked. “Why is their skin
flaky?”
“They’re dead and they have scales,” Leader pronounced.
“Dead?” said F2.
“Scales?” said F1.
“Yes.”
“All of them?”
“No,” said leader. “Someone laid them all out here.” He
turned and led the way back down the ramp. At the bottom he saw something he
hadn’t noticed earlier. Tracks in the dust headed towards the bridge, three
sets of three-toed footprints.
He checked his watch.
This wasn’t good. If only two tickets were valid for exit,
then the three of them added to the three sets of reptilian tracks equaled an
unfortunately large number. Where were the aliens headed?
“Do you happen to recall anything else about that map?” he
asked F2.
“Yes.”
“Departure Gate 3B?”
“Up that way,” F2 replied, pointing across the bridge and up
at the highest tier of the Terminus. Leader set out across the bridge without
further delay. F1 and 2 scurried after him. They were halfway across the bridge
when the entire Terminus trembled to its core. Leader and F2 toppled over and
F1 collapsed on top of them.
Leader looked out at the plain. The sand was heaving in great
waves with spouts of dust and steam spraying into the sky. The Terminus wobbled
and tipped, threatening to slide Leader and his Followers off the bridge and
down onto the spires far below. Leader and Followers crawled along the sloping
surface of the bridge as it slowly righted itself. The waves of the plain
subsided and the sky started to change color.
Leader and Followers leaped to their feet and ran. They
skidded to a stop, clinging to several gargoyles at the end of the bridge and
gazed with impassive sunglasses, but fearful mouths, upon the plain. The sky
bled darker and darker. The sand sank and drained away as if through a screen,
leaving large carved chunks of stone, statue fragments sitting on nothing,
suspended invisibly in a dark blue void.
“Egad!” exclaimed Leader, whipping out his watch.
“What’s happening?” asked the Followers together.
“It’s breaking up,” Leader said, putting away his watch.
“The Annums are individualizing! Which way to Gate 3B?”
F2 pointed up a wide flight of stairs to a set of silver
doors, gleaming out of a forest of twisted pillars.
They ran and piled into the elevator. Leader hit the
Departure Gates button, and they sat in the shaky silence for a veritable
eternity. The doors dinged open at last on a massive hall. The ceiling
disappeared in darkness and huge squarish pillars filled the vast expanse like
trees. There was one window, above the elevator doors, casting light down into
the otherwise dark room. There was a torch in a bracket on each side of the
doors. Leader took one and stepped into the darkness.
The trio had gone maybe a hundred and fifty feet into the
room when a clicking sound came from behind. Leader and Followers spun around
and looked up at the window. A large humanoid head, the size of Leader’s torso,
fused to a large black spider’s abdomen, stood on eight spindly limbs.
“Ticket punch,” said the creature in a tinny voice. Its eyes
were sewed shut and a red blinking light had been implanted in its forehead.
“Ticket punch.” A red beam shot out of the blinking light and scanned Leader
and his Followers.
A bweep bweep sound emitted from the creature and it said,
“Negative, non-ticketed passengers. No ID. Security forces.”
“What—” began Leader.
A teeming sound reached his ears. It grew impossibly loud as
the creature lowered itself on a steel cable to the floor in front of the
elevator. Then thousands more of the spidery things poured through the window.
“Run!” Leader yelled.
The spiders swarmed across the floor, ceiling, even jumping
from pillar to pillar, gaining on the trio at an alarming rate. Leader caught
sight of another door, flanked by torches, in the distance.
Then the spiders started to shoot cables.
“Ow!” yelped F2, falling and rolling several yards, a cable
wrapped around his ankles, up his legs and manacled to his wrists.
“Help me carry him!” Leader yelled, turning back. F1 wheeled
around and the two of them hauled F2 towards the door, ducking and leaping as
cables lashed out all around them. A spider with too much lipstick snapped at
Leader’s back. He bashed out her light with his watch. She staggered back into
her fellows, piling up and tumbling into several cables. The resulting mess
slowed the horde down enough to allow Leader and his Followers to reach the
door, shove it open, leap through, and close it. Metal shrieked as the spiders scrabbled
at the door.
Leader rammed his torch through the door handles. A spider
voice came from the other side, “The unidentified travelers have entered Grand
Terminal Hall. Door obstructed. Forced entry to commence.”
Leader and Followers backed away from the doors, right into
three weapons.
“What’s this?” a slithery voice asked.
Leader turned around to see three reptilian beings in
armored jumpsuits decorated with spines and flanges, especially around the neck
where they formed a kind of frill. All three creatures had large canon-like
handguns, made out of some smooth bluish grey chitin.
“Hello,” said Leader, “Are you naturally generated
lifeforms?”
“I asked first,” the middle reptile hissed, its long purple
tongue shooting out.
“Ah, that’s a difficult question,” Leader said. The middle
reptile growled and reached into its pocket with one set of talons. “I think,”
continued Leader, “that in light of the security commencing a forced entry, we
had best take this conversation elsewhere.”
The reptile pulled a large watch from its pocket and flipped
it open.
F1 and 2 gasped.
“You’re spontaneously generated!” the reptile leader
exclaimed, looking up from its watch.
“Yes. Now, might we get on with it?” Leader suggested as the
door behind him started to screech open. The reptile leader pocketed its watch
and turned, signaling for the other two reptiles to follow. Leader and F1
dragged F2 forward.
The hall they’d entered was enormous. The ceiling, far
above, was blue-green with constellations mapped out in gold. There were tall
square arches along the sides with half circle windows cut into the curved
ceiling. In the center was a kind of kiosk or round booth with glass windows
and labels like “MTA METRO-NORTH TIMETABLES.” Crowning this monstrosity was a
round golden clock, like a large head on a skinny neck. Beyond this, on the far
side of the chamber, was a double staircase leading up to another set of silver
doors with a large sign above it that read: “To Departure Gates B-C.”
The door behind them burst open and the sound of skittering
legs rushed in like a tidal wave. The reptiles stopped in front of the booth
and clock, hefting their weapons. Leader and Followers skidded to a stop beside
them. Leader took another look at the spiders and pulled F2 and 1 behind the
kiosk.
The spiders skittered up to the reptiles. A large one with
lipstick and buck teeth stepped forward. It had lightning markings on either
side of its abdomen and the letters TSA emblazoned on its forehead, just above
its blinking light. It proceeded to scan the reptiles.
“You are TSA pre-approved,” it said to the lead reptile.
“But the female is smuggling drugs.”
“It’s a scale fungus medication!” protested the female
reptile in a voice that only slightly betrayed her gender.
“Seize her,” commanded the spider. Another spider leaped
forward to shoot out a cable. The reptile leader raised his hand canon and
blasted a burning hole in the spider’s forehead. The spider collapsed in a pile
of limbs and slime.
“Terrorist alert!” wailed the TSA spider. The female reptile
blew its brains out. The spiders surged forward, shooting cables like there was
no tomorrow. Which there wasn’t.
The reptiles ducked and joined Leader and his Followers
behind the booth.
The reptiles leaned out, fired a few blasts and ducked
behind the booth again as cables flew everywhere, some live with electricity. The
glass shattered, sparkling in the blue-green light of the plasma lasers.
The Followers cowered, clinging to Leader. The reptiles
blazed away, felling spiders with every shot. Leader worked at F2’s handcuffs,
consulting his watch. He finally entered the right sequence and the cuffs fell
away. F2 proceeded to untangle himself.
The spiders had swarmed around the booth and now had the
little group completely surrounded. The reptiles continued to barrage the
spiders with plasma lasers of varying sizes. The reptile leader glanced at the
three beings, then tossed them a couple of smaller weapons. Leader grabbed one,
F1 the other. They took aim and fired at the spiders. The smaller blasts were
still quite effective.
Spiders began to mound around the kiosk. The spiders were
thinning out! A cable shot in, wrapping around Leader’s ankle. It went taut and
Leader flew off his feet, dropping the pistol. The spider started to reel him
in.
“Help!” yelped Leader. The spider clutched him with its
forelegs, lifting him up to its mouth, all bright red lipstick and shiny steel
teeth.
F1 raised his pistol and fired into her sealed eye. The
stitching tore open and her black eyeball fell out, dangling from wires and
dripping dark goobers. The spider shrieked and snarled, opening her mouth to
feast on Leader. F1 fired again.
The spider’s light shattered and she fell to the ground,
dropping Leader and spilling black fluid all over the marble floor. The
reptiles gunned down the remaining spiders as Leader disentangled his ankle and
stood, slipping in spider guts. His Followers ran to him.
“Thank you!” Leader exclaimed, hugging both Followers.
The last spider went down in a shivering mass of charred
flesh and bubbling slime. The reptiles, apparently completely unshaken, marched
towards the elevator.
Still shuddering, Leader followed.
The reptiles turned on them.
“Only two can leave Terminus, spontaneous things,” the
reptile leader said.
The female reptile aimed her canon at his chest. “We’re from
a real world,” she said, “we existed prior to slipping into this place by accident.
We shall continue to exist!”
“What are you?” added the third reptile. “You never existed
before, you don’t deserve to take our tickets back to lives you never had.”
“We may not have existed before,” Leader said, raising
himself up to his full height, “but we have come to love existence in the last
forty-five minutes of it. We do not want to cease, we have just as much right
to go on as you.”
“Only two tickets,” repeated the reptile leader, turning and
hitting the call button on the elevator. The female held the three beings at canon-point
until the elevator arrived. F1 still had his pistol.
He whipped it up and shot at the female. She blocked the
bolt on the chitinous barrel of her canon. Then she fired at F1. Leader bowled
him over and the blast of plasma laser shot overhead, flying across the room
and decapitating the clock. The three reptiles jumped in the elevator and the
doors closed.
Leader sat up, his shoulders sagging.
“Now what?” asked F2.
“We go up once the elevator is free,” Leader said
dejectedly.
“But they’ll have left by then!” F2 exclaimed.
“There’s nothing else we can do,” Leader said, pulling his
knees up to his chest and burying his face in his arms. He’d failed them, they
wouldn’t escape. They would cease to be. He wasn’t Leader, he was Failure.
“Don’t give up,” F2 said, patting Leader on his plastered
hair.
“Wait,” said F1, standing and staring through one of the
archways along the side of the hall. “Is that a vessel?”
Leader and F2 followed F1 through the arch into another
large hall, the entire wall of which was one massive window. A small biplane
sat on a pedestal. Other modes of transportation sat on pedestals with little
plaques, including a motorcar, a broomstick, a mechanical bull, two mummified
horses, a bicycle, and a pair of rocket boots.
“Yes!” exclaimed Leader, reading the plaque. “It’s an aero
plane! We can fly it up to Gate B3.”
“How do you fly it?” F2 asked.
“Oh, I’m not sure…I think you start it with that propeller
and then drive with those pedals and that stick there.”
Leader looked at his watch.
“F1, you’d better drive,” Leader said, climbing into the
backseat. “F2, man the machine gun.”
F1 spun the propeller. The engine coughed and hacked and
then roared to life. F1 jumped in as the biplane rolled with a thump off its
pedestal. F1 floored the gas and the plane zipped towards the window at full
speed.
Glass flew everywhere and the plane shot out into empty air.
It wasn’t enough of a take-off. The plane began to fall. At that moment,
however, the Annum shook. Out in what used to be the plain, there was a golden
flash as something snapped. The colossi fragments broke loose of their grid and
floated free through space. The entire Terminus tipped on its side as the
foundation was torn from underneath and the plane smacked down onto the now
horizontal side of the Fifth tier.
F1 somehow knew what to do, as if it had always been there
in his head somewhere. He floored the gas again and the plane shot along the
side of the Terminus…and up into the air.
Not a moment too soon, for the Terminus’ essence reasserted
itself and gravity returned to normal. F1 whooped as he spiraled the plane up
towards the top tier of the Terminus. F2 clung to the machine gun, not making a
sound. Leader smiled to himself. Perhaps they would make it after all.
The biplane soared above the Terminus. They looked down on
the final citadel, standing on the massive ledge that formed the top of the
giant rock that jutted up through the entire Terminus. The ledge tapered out
from the citadel into a point, empty save for the dead tree perched on the edge
of a pool in front of the citadel’s door.
“Land there!” Leader called to F1. F1 turned the plane down,
descending towards the pointed end of the massive ledge.
The plane swept onto the smooth stone, touching down with a
rough bounce. F1 slammed the brakes. The plane skidded towards the citadel,
tires smoking.
“Look out for the tree!” F2 yelped. The biplane hit the
pool. Its wing smashed into the tree. Tree and wing went down in a tangle and
the rest of the plane flipped, bounced, and crumpled against the door.
Leader crawled out of the mess, coughing. F1 was lying
nearby. F2 had fallen out in the pool. “Look out!” yelled F1. Leader ducked as
the plane’s fuselage exploded, knocking down the citadel’s door.
Leader stood and brushed himself off. “Well done!” he said,
helping F1 to his feet. “Is everyone alright?”
“Yes,” said a soggy F2, climbing out of the pool. “Too bad
about the tree.”
The three of them climbed through the doorway into a white
marble hall lined with statues. At the far end there was an elevator and
another door, larger and more ornate, with the words “Departure Gates B-C”
engraved in a curving script.
“Come on,” Leader said, striding through the door.
They found themselves in another mirror hall, but in this
one, each mirror was framed in elaborate gold with a labeled panel and glowing
button.
Leader scanned the panels. He consulted his watch.
“Here we are,” he said. “Gate 3B, Manhattan.”
“How do you know that’s the one?” F1 asked. “There are
thousands of options!”
“Not all are functioning,” Leader explained. “See, the blue
glowing buttons are working, the red are out of order. And we have no idea
where they go, some might take us to unsafe places, some to the void. Some back
to another section of the Terminus. But this one, 3B, is our best chance at a
continued existence.”
“How do you know?”
“I just know.”
“That’s an awfully big gamble,” F1 complained. The elevator
in the other room dinged.
“Uh-oh,” said F2.
“Quick, the two of you must go!” Leader said, pushing them
towards the mirror.
“Why aren’t you going?” asked F1, resisting. “Which gate are
you taking behind our back?”
“Only two can—” Leader began.
“Don’t move,” hissed the reptiles.
The three beings froze and turned slowly to face the
hand-canons. F1 had left his pistol in the transport museum. “Step away from
the mirror, faux-organisms,” the female said.
“What makes you more real than us?” Leader asked.
“We evolved properly out of the primal substances, ever
fighting for existence, struggling to survive, for generations, millennia. You
were just suddenly here today, you have no souls,” the lead reptile said.
“We also have fought ever since our genesis,” Leader
countered. “Because you were born of the biological does not make you more real
than us. Our generation must also have given us souls. Though spontaneous, do
you not think it must also have been planned, as your metamorphosis was
planned?”
“You are an accident,” the reptile sneered. “While I
wouldn’t terminate you merely on that basis, I feel no remorse in allowing your
abortion in favor of our escape.”
Leader was about to speak when the citadel shook.
“Blimey,” cursed the lead reptile. “We’d better hurry.” He
marched over to the mirrors and consulted his watch. The third reptile
followed, but the female kept the three beings at canon point.
“Aha, Gate 7B,” the lead reptile said. “Azhekaht. City of
Life.” The reptile blew a kiss at the air. He reached to push the button. The
female turned her canon on him.
“Who’s going through?” she asked.
“I am,” the lead reptile said.
“I suppose you’re taking junior with?” she said.
“Well, of course,” said the third reptile.
“You’re abandoning me?” the female said, narrowing her eyes.
“Only two may exit,” the lead reptile reminded her.
The female fired her canon at him. He ducked and the blast
shattered Gate 7B. “Fool!” exclaimed the lead reptile. The third raised his own
canon and fired a shot at the female. Leader shoved his Followers against a
mirror. The blast went burning past, skimming along several mirrors before
shattering one at the far end.
The female laughed, a leathery sound, and shot back. Plasma
laser blasts filled the room as all three reptiles engaged each other.
Leader pulled the Followers to the ground just before a
blast shattered the mirror above their heads.
“Come on!” Leader urged, crawling towards Gate 3B.
“I’m going to escape!” shrieked the female, letting loose a
barrage of crackling energy.
“No! I am!” yelled the third reptile.
“Neither of you fools is coming with me, then!” screamed the
lead reptile.
Leader reached up and pressed the button on Gate 3B. The
light turned green.
“Ha ha!” cheered the female as the smoking legs of the third
reptile toppled to the floor. A stray bolt from his canon obliterated the
mirror next to 3B. Leader shivered in horror as a crack rippled the surface of
3B.
The lead reptile ducked a shot from the female and blew her lower
half out from underneath her. She toppled with a squeal as Terminus shook
again, cracks spreading down more of the mirrors.
“Followers,” Leader said, “go. Go through!”
“No you don’t,” said the lead reptile, turning his canon on
them. But the female hadn’t expired quite yet.
As the lead reptile pulled the trigger, so did the female.
Her blast knocked him off his feet and his shot went high, blowing a hole in
the ceiling. Both reptiles deceased.
Leader stood, brushing himself off. “Right,” he said, glancing
at his watch. “You two, get going.”
“What about you?” F2 asked, alarmed.
“Only two tickets are valid,” Leader said, “now go through
the mirror.”
“It’s cracked,” F1 said distrustfully, glancing at the other
mirrors.
“This is the way,” entreated Leader. But F1 had already
wandered down the hall to the last undamaged mirror. “No!” Leader begged. “Come
back, go through 3B!”
“I’m not a Follower,” F1 said. “I am my own Leader.”
“Yes, yes, that’s all very good,” Leader said, “but this is
the way out!”
“Don’t do it!” F2
begged. “Leader’s sacrificing himself for us! You have to trust.”
“Is he?” F1 asked. And he pushed the blue button.
It was one of the gates that looped back within the
Terminus. And there was something waiting in that part of the station. Purple
tentacles exploded from the mirror and pulled F1 through. F1’s scream was cut
short by the glass.
Leader fell to his knees, tears dripping out from behind his
impassive glasses. The mirrors on the far side of the hall trembled and
shattered, glass rained like sand and the walls behind them crumbled to dust.
They could see out into the statue hall and beyond to the biplane crashed on
the ledge. The ledge was beginning to break apart.
“Come on!” F2 urged, yanking on Leader’s arm.
“You go,” Leader said, his listless gaze settling on the
smoking remains of the lead reptile, whose skin had turned bright green in
death. He was supposed to sacrifice himself for his followers and he’d failed.
“Come with me!” F2 begged.
“Only two tickets…” murmured Leader.
“F1 went to another part of the Terminus,” F2 said. “The
cephalopod is here. F1 didn’t exit. Come with me, I need you!”
Leader looked up and grasped F2’s hand. F2 heaved Leader to
his feet and pulled him through the mirror, careful to duck the crack. Behind
them, the Terminus heaved and shattered, dissolving, reforming briefly and then
simply…ceasing.
The Annums were in disagreement.
Leader and F2 stumbled off the train into a mass of people.
Leader looked about with alarm. F2 with awe. They were in a hallway, lined with
realistic pictures covered in words. People were everywhere, teeming. The mass
pulled them away from the train, fighting the mass that surged on. Leader and
F2 jumped as the train started to move behind them. Then it shot off into a
tunnel.
The two spontaneous beings stumbled past a man in dreadlocks
beatboxing into a microphone. F2 covered his ears. Leader stared agog, his ears
twitching to the beat. They stumbled through the turnstiles and up the stairs
into the streets.
“We did it,” Leader sighed, breathing in the cold, gasoline
laced, but beautifully sweet air.
“We exist!” F2 cheered, attracting only a few glances.
Leader consulted his watch. He paused, noticing something he
hadn’t before. A black sword engraved in the casing.
“Now,” he said. “Let’s go find a Starbucks.”
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