Deep magic second coll.., p.32
Deep Magic - Second Collection, page 32
part #2 of Deep Magic Collection Series
Illyia tried to listen, but her heart had been tossed into a medical waste basket long ago. The heart she currently possessed told her that as long as it was still beating inside the wrong chest, she would never ever be happy.
Jean at this time was happier than he had ever been in his life. Sports gave him a wide range of things he could take from other people, such as their bases, their ball, their pride, and their girlfriends. Of these last, Jean took many. He was not the type of nice young man who gave his sweetheart a promise ring and made plans for the future. He was the type of young man who bullied the nice young men into giving him the keys to their parents’ cars so he could take their girlfriends to secluded, dimly lit parking lots on Friday nights after the ballgame.
It was at a football game between their two schools that Illyia and Jean first came into contact.
Jean had just been red-carded for taking the referee’s whistle straight from the man’s mouth, not because he was angry over a call, but because the whistle had looked shiny, and his murmur had told him that it might be the thing to finally make him happy.
Illyia’s murmur had been telling her all night that the thing that might finally make her happy was to give away the rest of her self-esteem, and that she could best accomplish this task by taking off all her clothes and streaking from end zone to end zone. Thankfully, Illyia had been having regular sessions with one of the best therapists in the world, and he had convinced her to carry a purse full of mints, political flyers, gum, and coupons for free gelato. So instead of going streaking, Illyia had gone around giving away the worthless things in her purse until her murmur subsided to a dull ache. When she was done working the bleachers, she started giving worthless things to the players on the sidelines, who were happy to receive anything, however strange, from a pretty young girl.
Jean looked suspiciously at the coupon he was being offered for one free cappuccino-flavored gelato.
“What’s gelato?” he asked.
“It’s like ice cream for rich people,” Illyia said.
Jean shrugged and took the coupon, and their hands momentarily touched. A mysterious and unexplainable exchange of energy took place. Jeans’s heart skipped a beat, but he did not notice because it was currently residing in Illyia’s chest. Jean and Illyia stood frozen, touching hands, experiencing a feeling they had never felt before. This feeling was called happiness, but the connection that caused it was broken almost instantly when Jean’s coach slapped him on the rear and told him to get back in the game.
Illyia was skeptical that any boy could be the cause of such happiness (and a somewhat ugly boy at that), but she nevertheless looked for Jean after the game. He could not be found. This was because recruiters from the University of Quebec had lured him into a van with promises of a scholarship and a red sports car.
The next time Illyia felt happiness would be on the day she decided to kill herself.
That day would coincide with her eighteenth birthday, which was also Jean’s birthday. On that day, Jean and Illyia would each be visited by a very polite robotic messenger bearing some very bad news.
* * *
It was the Saturday after graduation, and her birthday, and Illyia was having a late breakfast. She was alone in her parents’ mansion. She had killed the family dog with kindness years ago, and her parents were away making the hajj in their private jet.
Her murmur had no one it could tell her to give her breakfast to, so she was giving it to herself: three pounds of honey-drenched baklava, coffee darker than crude oil, a cake of dates, and twenty deep-fried falafel balls smothered in tahini. None of these things could make her happy, but they would at least make her full.
She was eating her way toward the tray of falafel with a predatory look in her eyes reminiscent of her therapist’s snake, when there came a strange knock at the door. It was a strange knock because it was not the careless, rhythmic sound that a fist of flesh and bone made against a wooden door; it was the cautious, halting sound that a fist of rubberized-metal made when it was trying not to damage a wooden door in any way.
The food-smeared table became a screen that showed the view from the front door’s security camera, where a blue-and-white police robot waited patiently. Illyia wiped her mouth on her fuzzy bathrobe and hurried to the door.
“Assalamu alaikum, Ms. Sharik,” the robot said.
Illyia forwent the customary response. Robots played havok with her murmur. They usually didn’t want anything, but when they came uninvited to your door they usually did. “We’ve already donated to the policeman’s charity this year,” Illyia said, “but if you’ll wait right here, I’ll see what I can find.”
“How very generous. However, I’m afraid that is not the purpose of my visit. May I come in?”
Illyia frowned. “Of course.” She stepped aside and followed the robot into the living room. “Would you like a chair? If you need to recharge, there are several outlets.”
The robot tilted his sensor stalk to the side. “No thank you, Ms. Sharik. I topped my battery off at the station.”
There was a lapse in the conversation filled only by the whirr of the robot’s exhaust fans. The uncomfortable pause and the excessive heat were both the result of an array of EI processors suddenly coming online and overclocking themselves. EI stood for emotional intelligence, and thanks to recent advances in this field, the police department was confident that they could trust a robot with carrying out the delicate task of telling Illyia that her parents were dead.
“Ms. Sharik,” the police robot said. “I regret to inform you that your parents have been the victims of a terrorist attack.”
Illyia stood with a blank look on her face as the robot delivered a speech that was perfectly designed to be received by the grieving daughter of a wealthy secular Muslim family who had suddenly found herself alone in the world. There were appropriate details, such as “At nine o’clock Geneva time, your parents’ jet suddenly rerouted itself and crashed into a wing of al-Masjid al-Harām in Mecca,” and “We have reason to suspect an extremist sect of Jehovah’s Witnesses known as the Burning Watchtower is responsible,” along with statements of sympathy and offers of support. But it was entirely the wrong speech for Illyia. She spent the whole time wondering if the robot would mind if she gave the dirty spots on its chassis a good scrubbing.
Illyia’s other visitors that day were far easier to deal with. They were lawyers who needed her signature on the papers that would put the family fortune in her name. She gave signature after signature, and when they were gone, she was left utterly alone in the enormous house that belonged only to her. Her murmur seemed to echo in the cavernous silence. It told her that she had one last chance at happiness now. The reason she had never been happy before was because she had never had enough to give. All she had to do was give away her entire fortune to charity. If that didn’t work, she could donate her body to science.
At that very moment, Jean was having a miracle of science put into his body. A scalpel sliced through the upper layers of dermal tissue on his shoulder to make room for the insertion of an incredibly thin and flexible screen. The surgery was done so quickly Jean did not have time to wince, and when the surgical arms retracted and the band that held him in place released, he returned to the lobby of the parlor and stood before a dirty mirror as he browsed through artwork on his phone.
Jean bought the designs he liked and uploaded them to his newly installed dynamic tattoo, then stood gazing at the reflection of his shoulder muscles as he toggled between selections. The design he finally settled on was an animated pelican that opened and closed its beak whenever he flexed.
The door to the parlor opened, and a robotic messenger strode in. “Jean Dufranc?” it asked.
“That’s me, Shiny,” Jean said, admiring the reflection of his pelican in the messenger’s chrome torso. “Who sent you?”
“The University of Quebec,” the messenger said. “I have news that pertains to your scholarship.”
“Full ride,” Jean bragged to a teenage girl who was waiting to have the cartilage in her ears replaced with bioluminescent plastic. “All I gotta do is play ball.”
“That was the prior agreement, Mr. Dufranc,” the messenger said. “At the time, the university was unaware of your condition.”
Jean stopped flexing and grabbed the messenger by the sensor stalk. “I don’t have a condition.”
“Forgive me,” the messenger said. “I intended no insult. I meant to say that your current scholarship was based on the understanding that you would play in the standard league. A review of your medical record revealed an implant that disqualifies you.”
“You sayin’ there’s no scholarship?” This would not have been so upsetting to Jean, who cared little for higher education, except for the red sports car that was to accompany said scholarship.
“I’m authorized to sign a new deal for a lesser amount,” the messenger said, “provided you agree to play in the special league.”
“Retards or twinks?” Jean asked.
The voltage running through the robot’s EI processors suddenly doubled. It rapidly searched through a databank of new slang words and found that twink referred to a person who went to extremes to modify their bodies for performance in a particular field of interest, such as sports, but more commonly sexual activity. The only socially acceptable response available was “You would be playing with others like yourself,” and so that was the response the messenger chose. It was the wrong response.
“I ain’t no retard,” Jean said, easily ripping the sensor stalk from the messenger’s chassis. “And I ain’t no twink either.” He left the headless body standing and went outside, where he tossed the clustered strand of cameras, microphones, and other sensory devices into the road. Traffic effortlessly rerouted around the foreign object without any noticeable loss of speed.
Jean, whose parents ran a nearly bankrupt antique business, had never owned a car. If he needed to go somewhere, he’d always run, or take the shuttle, or bully someone else into giving him their keys. The recruiters from the university had told him that a fancy car would be his, and now his murmur told him that a fancy car must be his—immediately, and by any means necessary.
And over the electric whine of minivans’ engines, he heard the deep and rumbling siren’s call of a real combustion engine. A high-end luxury car came around the corner, as glossy and black and out of place as an oil spill. It turned into the parking garage of a nearby hospital.
That one, Jean’s murmur told him. Steal that one.
The parking garage was twenty stories high. Illyia told her father’s favorite car to take her to the very top. This was her last stop for the day. She had just given St. Jakob’s Hospital the last of her inheritance, and now she was penniless. She didn’t feel the least bit happier.
Illyia got out of the car. There were other cars around, but no people. She was alone. She walked to the fence that bordered the roof. It was low. She set her purse down. She took off her heels and set them aside.
“Hey, lady,” a gruff voice called from behind her. Illyia turned around. It was a young man around her age. He was huge and rough-looking in a skin-tight camo tank top, and he was holding a knife. He had a tattoo of a cute cartoon pelican on his shoulder.
“I don’t have any money,” Illyia said. “I gave it all away. Would you like my car? You can have it if you want.”
Jean frowned. “I never said I was going to rob you.” He was used to taking things, not having them given to him. Now that she’d said he could have the car, he was feeling very confused.
Illyia stooped down and took the keys from her purse. “It’s the long slender one with the crescent,” she said, and tossed Jean the keys.
“Why?” Jean asked.
“Why what?”
“Why don’t you want the car anymore?”
Illyia frowned. “I’ve never been happy, so I’m going to jump off the roof.”
“Oh.”
“I left the parking brake on,” she said, turning to climb the fence. “There’s about half a tank left.”
Jean looked at the keys in his hand. His murmur was utterly baffled.
He went to the car, opened the driver’s side door, and climbed in. The seats were all leather, and the interior smelled like sesame. He put the key in and started the car. The engine sounded like a thousand horses stomping their hooves in anger. It did not make him happy.
Jean got out and went back to the fence. The girl was sitting on top of the rail, looking out at the sky. “Hey, lady,” he said. “I don’t want your car.”
“Give it away for me, would you?” she said, and she leaned forward and fell off the building.
Jean was quick and strong from years of competitive sports, and it only took him a heartbeat to leap onto the fence and catch Illyia by the hair.
“Please let me go,” Illyia said, dangling there.
“I don’t think so,” Jean said. The car had not smelled like sesame, he realized, the girl had. “I’m going to pull you up.”
“Why?”
Jean shook his head. He tried put his feelings into words. “It’s like there’s this voice in my head—”
“Oh great,” she said. “You’re crazy too.”
Jean grinned. “Maybe.”
Illyia looked down at her feet. The cars below looked very small. For the first time, she became afraid. “What does it say?” she asked.
“What?” Jean said. The muscles in his arm were starting to burn and tremble. The pelican on his shoulder looked like it was having an aneurysm.
“What does the voice in your head say?”
Jean blushed. It made him look younger, less scary. “That you might be the thing that can make me happy.”
“Seriously?”
The fence was biting into Jean’s armpits; he felt like he was losing circulation in his arms. “Why not?” he said through gritted teeth. “Look, just give me your hand.” Straining, he reached out for her.
Even now, Illyia’s murmur would not be quiet. She looked at the huge, calloused, trembling thing reaching for her. Nothing she had ever given had worked before. She gave and she gave, and the murmur always came back.
Just give this one last thing, the murmur told her. Then I will be silent forever.
Against her better judgment, she gave Jean her hand.
* * *
When Jean and Illyia were older, when they would tell people of the way they met, their version was different than this one.
Jean had not been following Illyia to steal her car, no. He’d seen the most beautiful girl in the world go into the parking garage, and he’d chased after her.
Illyia had not been trying to throw herself off the roof. She’d slipped. And they both neglected to mention, for decency, that their relationship began as a purely physical one.
That day, and many days after that, Jean and Illyia would drive out to a quiet, secluded spot and turn the car off, and they would hold each other for hours. The only sound would be their breath, and sometimes Illyia would lay her head on Jean’s chest to listen to the beating of his heart, and sometimes Jean would lay his head on her chest to listen to his.
And as long as they were together, neither ever heard a murmur again.
ABOUT MICAH HYATT
Micah Hyatt is a disabled veteran of the war for Iraqi Freedom. His favorite books are those that take him to fantastic new places, and show underdogs overcoming their difficulties.
Facebook: micah.hyatt.3
Public Email: micahjhyatt@gmail.com
HANGING TREES
By Christoph Weber | 4,400 Words
I WAS TWELVE the day I found the hanging trees.
We’d just had a marsquake, which is serious business when you live in the karst, Mars’s underground network of tunnels and caves. Geothermal vents can open, flooding the colony with scalding water. Fissures can form to the surface, letting our artificial atmosphere escape into space. The ceiling can come down, burying entire caverns.
But sometimes, quakes open new caverns.
As a marsborn, the karst was the only world I’d ever known. Later in life, when I read Plato’s allegory of the cave, I laughed—it was about me. But in that story, the prisoners who spend their lives trapped inside a cave don’t know that a great world exists beyond their walls.
I did.
I understood why we’d settled underground: the karst provided radiation shielding, heat and power from geothermal vents, liquid water, and decent containment for our artificial atmosphere. But I hated it. I longed to see Earth, to hear a bird’s song, to feel the sun’s warmth, to climb a tree. So to me, a quake was not something to fear, but a potential friend that might open a door to something new, some place more exciting than my drab, lifeless prison. It was a childish hope—I imagined I’d discover a cavern full of singing Martian birds and blooming wildflowers.
As it turned out, that wasn’t so far off the mark.
The marsquake in my twelfth year collapsed part of a cavern wall, and there near the top was a darkness that had not existed before. I knew, for I had explored every meter of our karst.
I ran and fetched my friend Bodi. Bodi was earthborn, and he had these blue eyes with flecks of green, like a pair of Earths seen from space. When he looked up at where I wanted to climb, his eyes were wide with fear. “No way, El.”
I climbed a few meters, looked back down, and laughed.
