They must have some rule against non-conformity, Risole thought, taking the offered hand. White lab coat, first stage of male pattern baldness, fishy brown eyes, beginnings of a second chin. “Yeah, that’s me. What’s the latest on Dr. Marina?”
“Not very good, I’m afraid.” A professional shrug. “Her kidneys have failed, lungs are disintegrating. We’re giving her as much neomorphine as we dare. It would appear the patient’s condition will finalize in a few more days.”
“Finalize? You mean die?”
“Well, yes.” His mouth drooped in regret. “The ironic thing is her research data is right on the mark. I believe in a short time we can produce a vaccine which will inoculate both humans and Kloakans from the plague. Yes, it really will be a shame to lose her.”
“So into the astral toilet for poor old Doc Marina, huh?” Risole had a mental picture of his hands wrapped around that fat, complacent neck. He pushed his face closer, nose to nose. “So tell me sawbones, how do you think it would feel if you were finalized?”
“Well, not something I would find enjoyable…” He inched back from the latent menace in Risole’s eyes.
“Do you know what I am?”
“Er…yes,” he replied, sweating. “I believe you’re a military-issue cybernetic andrex, plasteel skeleton overlaid with protoflesh exterior and full sensory inputs.”
“Right on the mark, Doc,” said Risole relaxing into affability. “I hear they started producing a female model lately.”
“Yes, that’s true,” he admitted. “It’s a pretty standard model, although there is an outlet, here in Cleveland as a matter of fact, that can replicate original features. But I understand it can be quite expensive.” He shrugged, pursed his lips. “I trust you’re not thinking we can initiate an andrex transfer for Dr. Marina, Mr. Risole. Our medical facility is sadly overworked and our budget is so underfunded.”
Risole looked out into the ward, at the lonely sheeted figure on the table. “Okay, doc. Here’s what I want done. And forget about your budget, it’s on my tab.”
~*~
Sunlight. Flowing past the frilled curtains of the private room, splashing over the pillow and sheets. She stirred as the warmth touched her face. Her eyes opened, blinked and looked slowly about her. A man sat in a chair by the bedside.
“Morning, sleeping beauty,” smiled Risole. “Don’t expect a kiss until you’ve brushed your teeth.”
Dr. Marina stared at him, at the curtains and the sunlight beyond the window. “I’m alive,” she whispered. “Why am I alive?”
“I’d say you beat the odds.” He brushed a strand of hair from her forehead.
She shook her head. “I know the odds, Risole. Mortality rate is 98.2 percent for humans. And…I feel strange, so strange.”
“Here, try these out.” He passed her a mirror and her glasses. She settled the glasses on her nose, pondering the reflection in the mirror. She ran fingers over her hands and neck, exploring.
“I’m an andrex duplication,” she declared, “That’s why I’m still alive. Why do I get the feeling you’re somehow involved?”
“I have two cases of Aghaid beer left and I hate drinking alone,” he admitted.
“I thought having the Kloakan plague was bad enough but now I have to put up with your chest-beating male pomposity,” she retorted but her hand reached out, covering his. “I’m exactly the same as I was?”
“Well, they forgot to duplicate your butterfly tattoo, so I had them add that later.
Dr. Marina nodded. “That’s right, it was on my left shoulder.” He pulled down the sleeve of the hospital gown, searching. “I don’t see it.”
“Nope, I told them to ink it someplace else.”
“Somewhere else? Where?”
Risole looked down at her and smiled.
Copyright 2010 by Kurt Heinrich Hyatt
Kurt Heinrich Hyatt is originally from Canada and came down to join the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War. He’s had science fiction stories accepted by publications such as Starwind, Space and Time, Aphelion, Orion’s Child and Allegory Magazine. Currently residing in Arizona, his hobbies include raising tropical fish, weightlifting, and building custom motorcycles.
(Return to the Table of Contents)
FULL MOON GALA
by Lachlan David
It was only Gabe’s second week on the job as a part-time security guard, and he was already running late. He grabbed his hand radio and pulled on his jacket while he raced toward the front door. He didn’t even take the time to acknowledge his wife, Valerie, who was sitting in the living room watching some late-night talk show.
“I don’t even get a kiss good-bye?” she asked when she noticed he was leaving.
“Yeah, but hurry. I’m supposed to be there in fifteen minutes. I don’t want Larry waiting on me.”
Valerie caught up with him just as he opened the door and gave him a quick kiss. “I wish you didn’t have to work two jobs,” she said as she followed him out to the porch in a pair of sweats and an old t-shirt.
“I’ll be fine. It’s just temporary, you know, until we some of these bills paid off.”
“Yeah, I know. But by the time you get home from the plant then take off for work again, I feel like I never see you anymore.”
Gabe looked at his watch. “Listen, can we talk about this when I get home? Seriously, I’m going to be late.”
Valerie didn’t even answer him. She shook her head, went back in the house and closed the door. Gabe considered whether he should go back and apologize, but he really didn’t have time. Instead, he got in the car and left for work.
He only had a minute to spare when he arrived at his assigned patrol, the Desert Fashion Hub. It was a collection of small boutiques and eateries surrounding an open air plaza landscaped and decorated with a Southwestern flavor. Paths ran like wheel spokes from the outer perimeter to a wood-slatted patio in the center. The middle of the patio was open to the sky, and except for where the Palo Verde trees in nearby planters hung over the edge, the moonlight shone down on a brick mosaic in the shape of a playful Kokopelli on the ground. That was where he found his partner, Larry, waiting for him. Gabe noticed his short, round silhouette when he entered the mall. Then his silver moustache, comb-over hair and twinkling, gray eyes came into focus as he approached him.
“Eight o’clock, right on the button. Cutting it kind of close, there, aren’t you?” Larry said as they met under the patio.
“Yeah, sorry. I had to put in a little overtime at the plant today, so I was running late.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that.” Larry gave him a slap on the shoulder. “I was just afraid maybe you’d talked to some of the guys at the main office and decided not to come back.”
“I’ll admit, this isn’t the most exciting job I’ve ever had. But I think I can handle more than a week or two of it. Maybe even three or four,” he laughed.
Larry smiled, exposing a set of crooked, tobacco-stained teeth. “You sound like me when I first started this assignment. But that was seven years ago.”
“Seven years? Seriously? They don’t move you around once in a while?”
“They’ve offered a few times. But the truth is, this is the most interesting assignment they’ve got. And right here,” Larry pointed down at the Kokopelli mosaic under their feet, “is the best place in the whole mall.”
Gabe looked around at the patio overhead and the planters that framed the outside of it. The trees and flowers were just beginning to bloom, and on that particular night, while the gibbous moon was shining overhead, it created a somewhat serene setting. “Yeah, this isn’t bad,” he admitted. “If I could just sit here and watch the stars or something, it might be kind of nice.”
Larry laughed. “Oh, the others haven’t told you the stories yet, have they?”
“I guess not. What stories?”
Larry leaned in close as though someone in that deserted mall might overhear them. “This place is haunted. I’ve seen it myself.??
?
“Haunted?”
“That’s right. That’s why they can’t keep any security guards on this assignment. Except me, anyway.”
Gabe studied the old man for a moment. He wanted to believe Larry was just giving the new guy a hard time, but the look in his eyes was dead serious. If this was a joke, Larry was doing an excellent job of pulling it off. “That’s nothing unusual,” Gabe said. “There’s always a lot of turnover with security guards.”
“Yeah, but not as much as here. About once a month, when the moon gets full, strange things happen. This spot under the patio builds up some kind of energy, almost like it’s alive. Then things start moving around. At first, you just catch a little something out of the corner of your eye. You think it might be a shadow or something. But then it happens again and again until you find yourself spinning in circles trying to catch whatever it is that’s running around here. But you never do.
“Yep, it’s happened to all of us here. Scared the bejeezus out of me when I first started, but I was so curious about it, I stayed to try and figure out what it was. All the other folks, though, they won’t stay. Next thing I hear, I’m getting a new partner. Sometimes they leave even before they’ve seen it. The guys who’ve been here before start talking about it. Then before you know it, the new guy’s requesting a transfer. That’s what I thought might have happened to you.”
Gabe chuckled and shook his head. “No, I haven’t heard anything about this place being haunted. You’re the first to mention it. You still come back, though, huh?”
“That’s right. I wait for it every time there’s a full moon and try to catch a glimpse of it.”
“So, what is it? Some kind of lost spirit? A goblin maybe?”
“Not sure. I never get a good look at it. The only thing I know for sure is it’s harmless. No one’s ever been hurt by it. Sometimes I almost think it’s playing with us.”
Gabe looked up at the moon that was just edging over the opening in the patio. “It looks like we’re going to have another full moon pretty soon.”
“Four more days.”
“All right, then. I can’t wait. I want to see this thing first-hand.”
Larry smiled when he realized Gabe wasn’t afraid. “I’m sure you will.”
The two men began patrolling their sections of the mall, Larry circling the parking lot on the outside, and Gabe circling the plaza on the inside. They finished their shift at midnight, and Gabe was finally able to go home to be with his wife.
When he pulled up in front of their small house, it was dark and quiet all except the front porch light and their cat, Mookie, meowing to be let in. She purred and rubbed against his legs as he fumbled with his keys. Then she slipped past him through the door when he opened it. By the time he got to his bedroom, Mookie was already waiting for him.
He opened the door slowly to avoid waking Valerie, but the horseshoe her mother had insisted they hang over the doorknob in hope for future grandchildren rattled against the door. Mookie ran in, jumped on the bed and began purring loudly as she kneaded the blanket near Valerie’s feet.
Valerie shuffled her legs under the blankets then rolled over. “How was work?” she murmured almost incoherently.
“It was okay,” Gabe said as he undressed for bed. “Not much happening. You know, same as the last time.”
Valerie didn’t say any more but fell right back to sleep. As Gabe slid next to her under the covers and placed his arms around her, she sighed and snuggled against him. He kissed her softly on her bare neck and considered waking her up, but they both had to work in the morning and needed their sleep. They would have to wait until the weekend to try again for their first child, something that had eluded them since they were married three years ago.
~*~
Four nights later, Gabe was still assigned to the Desert Fashion Hub with Larry. He hadn’t forgotten the old man’s story, but it had escaped him that this was the night of the full moon. The two men met in the parking lot when Gabe arrived.
“I’ll take the parking lot tonight,” Gabe told Larry after they greeted each other. They had developed a pattern of alternating which side of the mall they would patrol. Gabe took the plaza the night before, so it only made sense that he would take the parking lot that evening.
“Nope, not tonight,” Larry said. “You get the plaza again.”
Gabe was curious about the old man’s insistence. “Why?” he asked.
Larry’s eyes gleamed, and a mischievous grin curled up the ends of his moustache. “It’s a full moon tonight. Remember?”
“The ghost?”
“That’s right! It usually comes out around the end of the shift, and I want to make sure you see it.”
Gabe laughed mostly from amusement, but there may have been a little bit of uneasiness, as well. He didn’t believe in haunted places, but Larry was so determined to prove it was real, he began to doubt his own skepticism. “Okay, that…that sounds like a plan. You take the parking lot and I’ll take the plaza. We’ll see if the goblins come out tonight.”
The men parted ways and Gabe circled the plaza for the first half of his shift with little more than the gnats and an occasional mosquito to keep him entertained. Everything else was still and quiet as he shined his flashlight into dark storefront windows and planters filled with desert flora. At ten o’clock, he heard footsteps echoing through one of the entrances. He shined his flashlight in that direction to find Larry coming back to check on him mid-shift. He had stopped in front of a soda machine and was feeding a dollar into the slot when Gabe found him.
“Have you seen anything yet?” Larry asked when Gabe’s light landed on him. He leaned over and fished his coins out of the change dispenser then stood up with a cold can of root beer.
Gabe met him in front of the machine and pulled a dollar out of his own pocket for a drink. “Not yet.”
Larry took a few gulps from his can and belched. “Don’t worry. It’ll happen. Some nights I can feel the energy building up under the patio beforehand, but nothing happens until the moon’s straight overhead. It’s like it has to shine right on that little Indian guy with the crazy hair. I think he might have something to do with it.”
“You mean the Kokopelli?”
“Yeah, that thing. I can never remember all those Indian names.”
“Maybe he’s the one who’s running around here.”
“Could be. Like I told you, I can’t get a good look at him.”
The men finished their drinks together then went back to patrolling. As Gabe strolled around the plaza, he tried to convince himself that the ghost story was no more than an old man’s yarn. But after a while, he caught himself wandering toward the middle of the plaza to see if he could feel the energy. He stood on top of the Kokopelli and waited. After a few seconds, he even lifted his hands in the air, palms flat, as though he was expecting rain.
“Do you feel it?” he heard Larry’s voice cutting through the semi-darkness.
Gabe’s face flushed hot as he realized he had been caught. He expected Larry to start laughing at any moment then tell all the seasoned security guards at the main office how he had suckered the new guy into thinking this mall was haunted. “I can’t say I do,” he admitted and turned around to find Larry standing at the end of a path with a large, meandering snake etched into the surface. “I guess I fell for it, after all.”
“You didn’t fall for anything,” Larry insisted. “You just wait. When the moon gets higher, you’ll feel it.”
“Yeah, okay.” Gabe walked out from under the patio feeling like an idiot, while Larry retreated back to the parking lot.
The rest of the night moved slowly. After walking countless circles around the mall, Gabe finally stopped at a bench located alongside one of the concrete paths and rested his feet above an etching of a large bear. He wasn’t supposed to sit down on the job, but he had a good view of the entire mall from where he was, so he doubted it would get him in trouble. Besides, he had caught Larry doi
ng the same thing just the other night.
The mall became quiet with only the slightest breeze to rustle the leaves on the Palo Verdes and a few crickets chirping in the shrubs. He looked up to see the moonlit sky, but it was difficult with the trees overhead. One grew in each of four large planters, and when they were much smaller, they probably made a nice compliment to the sage and agave that grew around them. But over the years, they had been allowed to grow too large for such a confined space. They created a canopy over the entire plaza and even covered much of the patio. They looked unkempt and out of place.
Gabe was pondering all of this when something skittered through the shrubs next to him. The same thing happened on a previous night, and it turned out to be a stray cat that kept him company for the rest of the evening. It had probably returned to visit him. As he approached the shrub to coax it out, he heard the sound again. This time, it sounded like it was in the tree above him. Gabe looked up, but he didn’t see anything.
“Here kitty, kitty,” he said and gave a little whistle. Then he noticed it. Something moved just out of sight and headed toward another tree. Gabe turned around to see it, but again, nothing was there.
There was more movement in the tree tops, then in the shrubs. Then something pattered across the concrete path to another planter. When he turned in the direction of the movement, the leaves were still moving as though something had been there, but he never caught sight of what it was.
A chill ran through him as he realized this could be the ghost Larry was telling him about. “This is crazy,” he whispered to himself. He knew it had to be a cat. Just to prove it, he went straight to the patio and felt again for the mysterious energy Larry had mentioned. This time, the hair on his arms and the back of his neck stood up, and the air around him buzzed with a lively, melodic current that made no sound. There was music in the air, but it was tangible, not audible.
The trees rustled again, and this time, he saw the leaves scatter. He tried to follow the movement, but as Larry said, he found himself spinning in circles while trying to catch a glimpse of the creature. He came close a few times, but it was always just out of sight.
When he had completely lost track of where the creature had gone, he finally looked up at the sky through the opening in the patio. Some of the tree branches had grown past the edges, but for the most part, he had a clear view. The full moon glowed right overhead. And when he looked down at the plaza floor, a jagged beam of moonlight broke through the branches and framed the Kokopelli under his feet.