Chapter 2 - Aliens and Gameshows in the Killing Chambers
Ensign McBride still flinches at the sight of my face when she looks up from her keyboard behind the killing station’s register. Little flesh survived on the right side of my skull in the blast that claimed my right arm in that raid on the Black Sun Temple’s supply depot. The injuries sentenced me to serve what remained of my military term on this cold penitentiary built upon Ganymede. I don’t sigh anymore when my peers step back from my jawbone grin, from my face of knotted scar tissue, from the tracks of my scars that run across my scalp to show how the field medic robots pieced me back together. Maybe a day will eventual come when Ensign McBride doesn’t cringe at my features. I would welcome the day, but I don’t truly expect it.
“I’m delivering Simon Lansing for processing.”
Ensign McBride quickly turns her eyes back upon her monitor. “The sirens are waiting for him in killing chamber fourteen.”
“I know the way.”
Simon doesn’t budge. His feet have turned to stone. The enormity, the finality and the terror of his fortune strike him square across the face, and it steals the breath from him so that he gasps for the courage as not to crumple onto the hard, tile floor. He is far from the first to turn to stone at this late stage in the processing of execution. Now beyond that hall lined with caged brothers and sisters of the temple, Simon feels alone, with the mechanical bureaucracy of his murder clicking and clacking all around him. A mockery of computers record his name beneath a number. One uniformed sentry after another escort their prisoners into a multitude of killing chambers. I’m sure that Simon feels small. Only now do I think Simon finally comprehends.
“This way, Simon.”
The walls to the killing chambers are thick, but they are not thick enough. Sounds of killing and suffering bleed into the reception area. Beasts roar behind a door a second before a gurgled scream echoes down the halls. Machinery of dismemberment buzz while prisoners babble in an incoherent language of fear. Concussions of laser fire and explosions rumble through the floor. The lights flicker. A hum fills the air, and a terrible and strange smell seeps from one of the chambers.
“What was that?” Simon stammers.
Ensign McBride doesn’t look up from her keyboard. “That was an electrocution.”
Simon drops to his knees. Ensign McBride no longer notices such displays of panic.
“I won’t take another step forward, Gunner.”
“You must and you will. You’ll see, Simon.”
I make no movement to grab Simon’s wrist and pull him ahead. I will do nothing to push him onward. I only have to wait a few moments.
And then Simon hears the sirens begin their song.
One song is never the same as another. The sirens specifically shape their song for each soul who faces execution on Ganymede. Sometimes, the melody sounds as if it’s blasted by an army of angels blowing giant horns. Sometimes, the sirens sound like they’re playing instruments like violins. Sometimes, the sirens pound only drums. Many prisoners hear sounds like soft flutes, as if the sirens are shaping the very wind into music. I know that I am only a jailor and executioner. I know it’s my duty to deliver the sentence passed to all of those of the Black Sun Temple. I know I have good reason to despise all those prisoners I escort to their deaths. My shattered face and the phantom pains in my missing arm remind me of that every day. And yet, did I not hear for myself the songs those sirens play for every prisoner I escort to his or her end, I doubt I could fulfill my duty one day longer.
“They’re singing for you, Simon.”
I wonder how the sirens decide what song they will play for the condemned. I wonder how the sirens know what combination of notes will give the condemned the courage to step forward. Chimes and tones compose Simon’s song. The bells lift Simon from the ground and urge him ahead without any push or prod from me. Simon listens to the music, and his hands cease their shaking. The bells ring, and color returns to Simon’s face. The bells chime, and Simon smiles.
Simon pauses at the door to his killing chamber. He looks at me as if seeking the permission to continue.
“Go ahead, Simon. It’s not locked.”
Simon gasps as he opens the door and enters his killing chamber. A near decade shivering on Ganymede, and I still get goosebumps when the sirens greet my prisoners. A trio of sirens play their instruments in the the chamber’s center, their forms flickering in and out as the sirens wink across dimensions. Watching the sirens’ shapes blink is a strange sensation that tends to blur any of the aliens’ sharp lines. Our penitentiary’s engineer, and hobbyist physicist, has attempted to explain to me time and again the theory that proves that the sirens truly exist upon several dimensions at any moment. The engineer has frowned at my thick brain each time I fail grasp how it’s possible that the sirens exist on numerous, different strands of possibility. She tells me that the math suggests it’s all possible. She tells me that poor mankind is doomed to know only one possibility, doomed to live on only one dimension, while the sirens sing across a multitude of realities.
Sometimes, I don’t like our penitentiary’s engineer so much. I get tired of her pushing all her equations at me, and I wish she could just let me believe that the sirens are simply a strange kind of cosmic magic. One doesn’t need science to be spellbound by the sirens. The sirens’ thin forms are not so much unlike our own - a pair of arms, a pair of legs, a torso and a head. But the shape of the sirens is elongated in comparison to our own, so that the aliens loom many feet above our heads as they flicker across space and time. They dress in light robes that hug their shape, sewn from a material that changes its hue as the sirens flicker across their spectrums of existence. No one’s ever seen a siren’s face to know if they have features like our own, for each siren wears an elaborate mask over his or her visage. The sirens do not differ in shape and scale from one creature to the next, and all of us stationed upon Ganymede lack the hearing to distinguish one voice from another whenever the sirens perform their songs. So us guards have come to distinguish one siren from the next according to the elaborate geometries and patterns with which the sirens adorn their masks. The masks shimmer as the sirens flicker, and the aliens appear to take great pride in their masks’ decorations.
Crowns top every mask, and every crown is topped with tall tines that stretch several feet further above us. The tines remind me more of antlers than of headgear, for they elegantly curve from those crowns that I often suspect the tines to be an extension of the sirens’ bodies. Some sirens sport more tines than others, and so those of us working the penitentiary assume the curving tines must indicate some kind of ranking within whatever hierarchy the aliens possess.
The sirens are incredible to behold, but it’s the sirens’ penchant for music that has truly mesmerized mankind. Wonderful music has been difficult to find since the Black Sun Temple committed its heinous crime. Few human players remain in the universe. So everyone appreciates the melodies the sirens offer. The sirens who greet Simon hold glowing instruments of crystal that chime and pulse as their players strike them with slender wands, filling the killing chamber with a melody that makes my heart ache. Strangely, the musical crystals do not flicker in synchronicity with the sirens, as if those instruments remain in our dimension so the song will not be broken as the sirens wink across so many planes of possibilities.
The sirens flicker but do not otherwise move as they strike their song for Simon. It’s difficult to know if they play a dirge or a proud march. For the sirens’ song remains alien. Simon’s back straightens as he listens. His knees no longer tremble, and he holds his head high. During the several months we have held Simon in his prison cell, we have given him nothing more than tasteless sustenance for his body. In the short time it takes to play their song, the sirens give Simon much, much more.
Even the sirens’ songs, however, eventually reach a coda. The killing chamber turns quiet as the last crystal chimes.
“Thank you.” Simon s
miles at the trio of decorated masks that considers him.
The fear has left Simon’s face when he turns towards me. He does not flinch as he again sees my scars. He does not flinch as he sees how different the tools his kind has gathered in this chamber are from the instruments the sirens played for him.
“What now, Gunner?”
I remove the cuffs from Simon’s wrists though I know that I will receive a demerit on my record for doing so. I think Simon’s soul, however misguided and foolish, is gentle. I will not force him to face his executions with his hands tied. My record has survived many demerits. It will survive this one demerit more.
“You only have to stand in that circle painted on the floor.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it, Simon.”
Simon’s eyes drift over my shoulder. A dozen soldiers stand at my back, all of them dressed in strange period costumes - the heavy wool and blue uniforms of the Union army during the the American Civil War that raged nearly three centuries ago. Each of the men holds a replica musket of that conflict. I accept a flat-topped hat from one of the men, and I wince as I squeeze it over my scarred crown. I hate such props that Jackson Hardcase and his gameshow weekly deliver to Ganymede. Because of Jackson Hardcase and his gameshow, I’ve witnessed the cruelest kinds of death within these killing chambers. I’ve been forced to decapitate prisoners with antique, curved swords. I’ve watched prisoners gasp for the breath to scream as they are crushed beneath the weight of stacked stones. I’ve pulled the lever, and I’ve watched the hangman’s noose snap the necks of the condemned. Because of Jackson Hardcase, because of all of those spectators who cheer for death while watching that man’s gameshow in their comfortable homes, I’ve been forced to deliver suffering when I kill.
“What’s going on?”
“You don’t need to worry about it, Simon. It won’t do you any good.”
I quickly wrap the blindfold around Simon’s eyes. My hands tremble. I do not want to tarry in any of these last rituals. I do not want to give any of Simon’s fear the time it needs to return and again reduce him to a cowering victim. I want Simon to stand tall when the muskets level upon him. I finish tying the blindfold a second before I hear someone clear his throat behind me.
“The bossman back home needs you to step about six feet to your right, Gunner.”
I take a breath. It’s the cracking voice of one of the gameshow’s cameramen. It’s a sacrilege, if you ask me, to ever let any of those cameras into these killing chambers. But policy is policy. The gameshow is our poor penitentiary’s primary sponsor. Still, I don’t have to like any of it.
I turn and glare at the cameraman, who ducks his head back behind his whirling camera equipment.
“Screw the bossman.”
The cameraman doesn’t peek back out from his viewfinder. “It’s what the bossman wants, Gunner. Says you’re standing in front of the prisoner. Says the folks like to see if the prisoners do anything unpleasant because of all their fear.”
I step aside because it’s no good to resist Jackson Hardcase. Fighting with that gameshow host, who’s no doubt squinting at a video monitor back on Earth, will only draw it out for Simon, who I already fear is starting to again shake. I hate those cameras, but I despise even more all the civilians Jackson Hardcase’s gameshow ships out to us. Every execution conducted on Ganymede must be witnessed by some schmuck from back home. Every guard has one guess or another as to why policy demands that we let those civilians witness our killing, why policy makes us conduct our executions according to the whims of those gameshow contestants. Some guards like to think that a civilian’s presence helps insure that our execution bureaucracy never gets out of hand, like the John Does and Mary Janes who giggle when they first enter the chambers are smart enough to maintain a system of checks and balances. I think we let those civilians into the killing chambers simply to be spiteful to those who have the black sun tattooed upon their heads. I think we let them watch for no reason more complicated than revenge.
The woman who a pair of sentries escort into the killing chamber is a real ball of dough. Her sneakers squeak as she shuffles across the tile flooring to the cushioned seat waiting for her. I guess her to be in her middle sixties, with her stained-black hair piled into a tight perm that glistens beneath the chamber’s harsh lighting. The woman’s red blouse has the same gold sequins as her red glasses, and I hear the boxes of chocolate mints jangle as her capri pants stretch as she hops into the chair. I get that old urge to stride over to her and backhand that woman’s face again and again until I’m satisfied with a new arrangement of her teeth.
My duty, however, forces me to approach the woman for a very different reason.
“Is it all to your liking?”
The woman’s perm bobs. “It’s wonderful. You’ve even got the proper buttons on those uniforms. It’s my husband who’s so wild about all this civil war stuff. But could I get him to come out here to Ganymede along with me? Not a chance. He’s terrified of zero gravity. A shame. All these civil war touches are really for him.”
“So it’s all fine? It’s very important that we get all your details just right.”
The woman finally flinches as she turns away from the line of assembled men and looks straight at me. My face always shocks those the gameshow sends to witness our killings. It’s like all those civilians understand that injuries, hurt and death are indeed parts of the warfare. Yet it’s like they can’t accept the reality of such hurts when it faces them in all its unfiltered carnage. I do my best to remind myself that it can’t be easy for that woman sitting in that cushioned chair to accept that reality can be more wicked than what even her nightmares suggest. I do my best to remind myself of it so that I don’t relent to that urge to rearrange the woman’s teeth.
“Did you get the ammunition just right?” The woman’s eyes dart away from the right side of my face.
“Minie balls for the muskets. We’ve got the caliber just right. Even have the same powder that would be found during that war.”
The woman scrounges through a handbag and her fingers withdraw with a handful of chocolates that she tosses into her mouth. “Oh, thank you. My husband will be impressed. I’m sure he’s glued to the television back home to notice those details.”
Often, it feels like conversing with the civilians takes a bigger chunk from my soul than does the actual killing. That woman is all smiles now. They’re always smiles in the minutes before the execution. But they always crack when the blood flows. That woman chomping on her chocolate hasn’t seen anything yet. She sounds satisfied with the arrangements, and so I give her my biggest jaw-bone grin before I take my position in this business.
“Simon, are you ready?”
The sirens’ song must stay with a person for a while, because Simon doesn’t flinch when I ask him. He holds himself a little straighter and nods. I face the dozen men dressed in the silly soldier uniforms from three centuries ago.
I raise my left arm. “Make ready.”
The soldiers raise their rifles and aim their barrels upon Simon.
“Aim.”
I take a breath. I’ve observed so many killing rituals. I’ve set the flame to the bonfire. I’ve cracked the whip that has sent the horses darting to tear a person apart. I’ve eve pounded the stakes of the crucifixion. None of it is ever easy to me, no matter the ceremony. I must always pause in order to find the steel my heart requires before giving the killing order.
I peak at the woman who’s chomping on her chocolates. I’m under no obligation to look back at her, but I always do, just to make sure those civilians are watching whenever I give the final order.
Certain that the woman is watching, I drop my left arm.
The replica muskets bellow. The executioners are trained well in all kinds of weaponry, and the musket balls deliver terrible destruction. Simon’s right eye explodes. Shards of skull and matter splash across the wall behind him. Another ball tears off Simon’s lower jaw. Several
rounds tear through Simon’s chest, and blood fountains from the exposed ribcage. More musket balls strike Simon’s abdomen with a sickening thud. Simon is a ruin before his broken body has the time to collapse upon the tile floor.
Though the dozen musket balls of well-trained executioners have destroyed his bone and flesh, Simon’s body convulses upon the floor. He is not dead yet. His injuries would demand that he suffer for a little longer. Simon’s remaining face gurgles. Perhaps he is crying. Perhaps he is screaming. Despite all that I have witnessed in these killing chambers, I am unable to tell. I unholster my modern firearm from my side, and I don’t hesitate as I discharge another round into Simon to end that condemned man’s pain.
I’m sure that those watching this execution from the comfort of their homes are hissing in their sofas and love-seats. I’m sure Jackson Hardcase is swearing into the cameraman’s ear. I’ve denied the gameshow that luxury of exhilarating in the victim’s long suffering. I’ve had a negative impact on ratings. But I don’t care. My record will survive any coming demerits.
I holster my sidearm and return to the woman delivered by the gameshow to witness this killing. She is bent forward in her cushioned chair. She gags, and her stomach full of chocolate vomits onto her white sneakers. She shakes from head to toe. Like all the others who snicker and grin upon first entering the killing chambers, she has been shattered by what she has witnessed. Being present in the killing chambers during the execution is very different from watching it all transpire on television.
I wait a few breaths while the woman continues to shudder in fits of vomit. Her body eventually stills, and when she refuses to look up into my broken face, I lift her chin with one of the fingers upon my remaining hand.
“Was the execution carried out to your liking?”
The woman says nothing. She opens her mouth. Perhaps to cry. Perhaps to scream. But she cannot find the air, or the volume, to do either. A pair of sentries appear to softly lift the woman into a wheelchair they have prepared for her before gently rolling that civilian witness out of the killing chamber.
I turn to the camera. “Simon Lansing. Member of the Black Sun Temple. Processed.”
The guards dressed in the antiquated uniforms need no further command from me before breaking their formation to exit the killing chamber and retreat into warmer barracks deeper within the Ganymede installation. The coroner will soon appear to roll away Simon’s body. Simon’s corpse will be jettisoned out into space, given to the embrace of the mighty, red-eye king of a planet that looms beyond our penitentiary’s walls.
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