Short Skates: Rendezvous


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VIII | IX | X | XI | XII | SSV | XIII | SSVI | XIV | SSVII | XV | SSVIII | XVI | XVII


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The hotel foyer was almost empty.

A bored concierge scrolled through social media feeds on his desk computer. A businessman talked animatedly on his phone, babbling in a complicated system of jargon; a system perhaps not even he fully understood.

At another desk, a very irate American woman argued with a manager. She was demanding a refund. Beside them stood the woman’s daughter, whose embarrassment matched her mother’s anger. She turned her head away, holding her left bicep with her right hand, staring at the ground. She was seemingly hoping her mother would give in.

The mother would not give in. Her trip to London had been ruined, she protested, because she hadn’t expected there to be so many police cordons, checkpoints and soldiers patrolling around. The manager kept insisting that she should have read the advice before she travelled. Evidently, the American response to the Episode had been markedly less extreme than that of the British government – though the American military establishment had been moved to DEFCON 3 since last May.

In the middle of it all, sat opposite the businessman on his phone, was a young lady clutching a plastic cup with the Starbucks logo on it, sipping iced coffee out of a paper straw. Her eyes were covered by two heart-shaped shades, and she wore a wide-brimmed sun-hat atop her head.

She waited patiently, idly kicking her crossed leg up and down (distracting the businessman somewhat), and kept her eyes on the front door.

The American woman finally became too angry to continue the argument. She stormed off, embarrassed daughter in tow, departing the hotel just as someone else arrived.

Through the front door entered a withered-looking old lady with a walking stick, who slowly ambled her way into the foyer.

The young lady stood, approaching the old woman. She was bent double over the stick and appeared small, almost turtle-like, with her sagging neck, which receded into a teal cardigan and magenta shawl.

“D’you need some help, Grandma?” she asked.

The old woman peered up at her, then scowled.

Her creaky and old voice hissed out of a dry desert of a throat.

What the hell are you doing here?”

“Let’s get you up to your room. I’ll explain everything.”

She reached to take the old woman by the arm, but the old woman batted her away.

“Is there a problem here, Madam?” the manager asked.

“Not at all,” the young lady replied, beaming. “She’s just getting rather grumpy in her old age.”

The old woman grumbled quietly, shuffling over to the lift with the young lady following close behind her.

The door opened, and a blonde woman and a brown-haired man stepped out of the lift, dressed in evening wear. The old woman barged straight into them, growling: “Move.”

The blond-haired woman made a sound of disapproval, and the young lady apologised to the couple, letting them past before following the old woman in and pressing the button.

Together, they rode up to the fifth floor.

The corridors were all floral carpets and tacky wall-art.

The old woman huffed and panted her way along the corridor, with the young lady following behind. The walk was long and winding, taking them through the hotel’s almost intestinal internal structure. The old woman did not tire on the walk, but the young lady did, unused to having to plod along in such a slow way.

At last, at the end of a long corridor, they found themselves in front of Room 510, beneath a flickering lightbulb. The room was situated next to another room. There was no sound from this remote part of the hotel, just the occasional distant kramp! of a door slamming, or the kajunkah! of a handle being turned, a door opening.

With trembling fingers the old woman reached into her pocket, inserting the electronic key into the magnetic lock, and stumbled into the room.

The young lady checked behind them to make sure they weren’t being followed, then closed and locked the door.

“You did that on purpose, didn’t you?” she asked, indignantly.

The old woman simply strode into the room, seating herself on the edge of the freshly-made bed. She sat before a cheval mirror, which was turned slightly upwards.

Looking down at her old fingers, she reached up and rubbed her palms against her face.

The young lady watched as the old woman’s skin tightened up once more, her back straightening, her clothing shifting and dissolving, her legs lengthening, her grey hair now returning to its natural colour, as her feet were once more beclad in golden skates.

There sat K-Os, eternally youthful once again.

“I did do it on purpose,” she said, turning to her unwanted guest. “You’ve annoyed me, Dolly.”

Dolly scoffed.

“Well, at least when you take that form you look more like your true self,” she said. “You old hag.”

K-Os rolled her eyes.

“And to what do I owe the pleasure, Dolly?”

Dolly folded her arms, leaning against the door. She was dressed in a pair of skinny jeans, brown loafers and a ruffled white blouse. She raised her right foot up and placed it against the door, so that it was parallel with her left thigh.

“I’ve come from Manchester,” she said, sullenly. “That’s where we’ve been hiding, me, Chelsea and Daisy. Socks and Liberty are elsewhere, we haven’t been in touch.”

“…Manchester?” K-Os replied, incredulously. “That’s hours away from here.”

Dolly planted herself back on two feet and reached into her pocket, withdrawing a small, thin piece of corroded metal. She held it out to K-Os, who took it.

“What’s this?”

“I got it a few days ago, in a fight,” Dolly replied. “It lets me go where I need to be. So it brought me here.”

K-Os turned the object over in her hand, then gave it back to Dolly.

“And why would you need to be here?” she asked.

Dolly pocketed the shard.

“At the start of this year, we rescued a chaote from the Government,” Dolly replied. “The night after she came to live with us, she was visited by someone. A ghost.”

“If it happened months ago, why come now?” K-Os asked, indignantly.

“Because I wasn’t told about it until last week,” Dolly replied. “When it happened to me.”

There was a pause.

“What was the name?” K-Os asked.

“I didn’t get one,” Dolly replied. “But Nas – the girl we rescued – did.”

“And that name was—”

“Naomi,” Dolly said. “Naomi Carter.”

K-Os stood, suddenly, wheeling herself around to Dolly.

“But that’s—”

“The girl who went missing on the night Daisy was taken away,” Dolly said. “We know.”

K-Os shook her head.

“She didn’t just go missing,” she said. “Naomi disappeared completely. Entered another world where nobody else exists. So completely and totally alone, it would be a wonder if she didn’t lose her mind. How could she have returned?”

“I don’t know,” Dolly said. “But she has found some way to manifest herself back in our world, in short bursts. It appears that she can’t fully manifest. She appeared to me at first as a skeleton.”

“She’s trying to break through,” K-Os surmised. “It must be taking all her energy even to do it for a few minutes.”

“She said something,” Dolly said. “She said…‘Armageddon draws near’. Any idea what she could mean?”

K-Os’s mouth fell open, then she turned away.

“What?” Dolly said. “K-Os, don’t play games. Not with me. Not now. What is it?”

“Someone else said that to me, a while ago,” K-Os said. “Something is happening, Dolly…”

“You’re telling me,” Dolly said. “The government has started using that rubric stuff more and more frequently. There’s something very fucked going on.”

“Yes,” K-Os said, distantly.

Dolly narrowed her brows.

“There’s something you’re not telling me,” she said. “What is it?”

K-Os paused in thought.

“What do you make of Barnabas Mortimer?” she said, abruptly.

Dolly raised an eyebrow.

“The Prime Minister?”

“There’s something about him,” K-Os said. “The way he carries himself…and his eyes…I have seen that look in a man’s eyes before.”

Dolly rubbed her chin.

“Well, I mean, he’s a Tory. They all look like that.”

K-Os sniffed, disdainfully.

“Gabriel Seymer died suddenly and under mysterious circumstances. The following day, he is replaced by his deputy. The same deputy that, Westminster insiders have told reporters, had a falling-out with Seymer not long before his death.”

“What are you driving at, K-Os?” Dolly asked.

“It’s all very convenient,” K-Os said. “How quickly the government, police and military have put into place this period of martial law. The introduction of rubric into the ammunition supply. This isn’t just politics, Dolly. There are greater forces at play, here. We’re building up to something. Something big. Something bad.”

For a few moments, Dolly could not answer. She hated it when K-Os was right.

“She said…something else, Naomi,” Dolly said. “To Nas. She said she was ‘making arrangements’, something like that.”

K-Os idly rubbed her chin.

“Now, what could that mean?” she asked.

“I had hoped you’d know the answer to that.”

K-Os shook her head once more. “No such luck.”

Dolly gripped her forehead lightly, racking her brain for any more information she might be able to give K-Os.

“Something about…” she murmured. “The Second Coming…beware the Blood Moon…beware the Second Sun…it was a load of cryptic nonsense, I thought, but—”

K-Os’s eyes bulged.

“Oh no,” she said.

“What?”

Dolly had never seen K-Os look so frightened, even during their assault on the water-tower the previous spring.

“Where could she be getting this information from?” K-Os wondered aloud. She shook her head again. “No time. Dolly, I need you to find Socks.”

“What?” Dolly asked. “You’re not making a lot of sense.”

“If I’m right, and I hope I’m not, things are going to get very bad, very quickly,” K-Os said. “I need as many people here, in London, as soon as is possible. SAID-MI5 are no longer our concern. There are far worse things afoot.”

“K-Os, they tried to drop a nuclear warhead on us.”

“Yes,” K-Os said. “And I assure you, if we lose this war, you’ll wish they had.”

Dolly was startled by this proclamation.

“Shit,” she said. “That bad?”

“Use the shard,” K-Os said. “Meet at the Lucky Devil.”

“I told Chelsea I’d be home in the next couple of hours,” Dolly said, indignantly.

“You’ll have to work something out,” K-Os said. “Tell everyone you can that they need to get back to London.”

“What about Daisy?” Dolly asked. “She’s guarding Nas at the moment.”

K-Os thought for a moment.

“Keep her out of it,” she conceded. “But get Chelsea down here. We need as many people here as we can gather.”

“Roger that,” Dolly said. “I’m sure I’ll think of something.”

Dolly turned, reaching into her pocket for the metal shard, then held it before her.

She made a quick motion at the air. Nothing happened.

“Damn thing,” she muttered. She reassumed the position and tried again.

With a swift motion, she split the air in front of her, creating a sound like polystyrene squeaking and tearing.

“Dolly?” K-Os said.

“Yes?” Dolly replied.

“Thank you for coming.”

There was an indecipherable expression on Dolly’s face.

She said nothing, and stepped through the hole in space.

*

In a forest in Wiltshire, there came a sound that scattered the birds.

Through a strange slit, filled with light, stepped a young woman, her red hair spectacular against the dull browns and greens of wood bark and algae, and the dark grey of the overcast sky.

Dolly’s first thought was: Where the hell am I?

The aperture closed behind her.

“Hello?” she called. “Socks?”

“Who goes there?” came the reply.

The voice sounded familiar. It sounded like a woman’s voice, though she couldn’t place where she’d heard it before.

“Dolores Mykhailiuk,” she replied. “Dolly Mixture.”

There was silence.

“Don’t move.”

Then came a sound, which echoed through the dark woodland.

Brrrrt-clunk-a-CHING.

Brrrrt-clunk-a-CHING.

Brrrrt-clunk-a-CHING.

Dolly slowly turned.

There stood Monica Eno, smiling broadly.

“Monica?” she said.

“That’s me,” Monica said. “Nice to see you again, Dolly Mixture. Before we continue, let me apologise for the damage I caused to your kitchen. My father has told me that it’s polite to apologise for any wrongs you have done to others. I hope you will forgive me.”

“Father?” Dolly asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Hi, Dolly.”

From behind a tree came a man with a thick black beard, long, unkempt hair, and ragged clothes. The expression dragged through a hedge backwards came to mind, though Dolly could not rule out that this had in fact happened to the poor wretch before her, who looked as though he had lived twenty years since they had last met.

“Socks?” she said. “My God, you look like shit.”

“Nice to see you again, too,” Socks said, wearily. “I see you’ve met Monica.”

“She’s…different,” Dolly said. She felt rude talking about her like she was an object, something, she noted, she would not have felt before.

Monica did not seem to take offense, though. In fact, she interjected.

“Yes. My father and Liberty – she doesn’t want me to call her my mother – they combined their base patterns inside my internal matrix, imprinting me with a base pattern of my own. And, well, here I am.”

Socks!” Dolly said, scandalised.

“It’s not what it sounds like,” Socks said.

Monica looked between the two of them for a moment, confused.

“I don’t understand,” she said.

Socks turned to Dolly, lowering his voice.

“I haven’t given her the talk yet.” He turned back to Monica. “Monica, why don’t you go and fetch Liberty? I have a feeling that she’s needed.”

“Okay, Dad,” Monica said, lumbering off into the forest.

When they were sure she was gone, Dolly turned back to Socks, nonplussed.

“So…you’re a Dad now…” Dolly said.

“And somehow, it still isn’t the weirdest thing to happen to me in the last year,” Socks said. “What brings you here?”

“I’ve just come from London,” Dolly said. “Rendezvous with K-Os. She wants us to travel to London.”

“All of us?”

“As many as we can manage, yeah.”

Socks shook his head.

“Things really are getting bad, aren’t they?”

Dolly idly rubbed an eyebrow with her thumb.

“Yes,” she said. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t scared shitless.”

There came the sound of clockwork, of heavy footsteps breaking twigs and disturbing dead leaves, and of bare feet quietly tramping behind them.

“Good to see you, Liberty,” Dolly said.

Liberty’s face was hardened, sour. Dolly could tell that she was frayed. She looked to Socks, who seemed not to notice. Typical bloke, she thought.

“Monica tells me I’m needed,” Liberty said.

“Yes,” Dolly said. “K-Os wants us to travel to London.”

Liberty wrinkled her nose, disgusted at the thought.

“Does she have any information regarding the whereabouts of my father?”

“If she does, she didn’t mention it to me,” Dolly replied.

Liberty scowled.

“Then what use is she to me?”

“Don’t I know it, sister.”

Socks shifted uncomfortably.

“It’ll be good to see her again,” he said. “Take a shower, too…”

Monica looked around at the other three, and like a precocious young child, saw fit to interject in the conversation.

“I do hope that K-Os isn’t cross with me,” she said. “I hurt her quite badly, I seem to remember. If I could take it back, I would, I really really would!”

Dolly laughed.

“I like this new Monica,” she said. “She’s a sweetheart.”

Monica, despite being the tallest of any of them, bowed her head and tugged shyly at the hem of her dress, like a little girl.

Liberty said nothing.

Dolly reached into her pocket for the shard once again.

“We’ll head north, first,” she said. “To Manchester. Then, south to London.”

“Are we sure this is safe?” Liberty asked.

“We’ll be safe in London,” Dolly said. “Or, at least, so K-Os says…I’d take her words with a grain of salt.”

Clutching the piece of corroded metal, Dolly made a sweeping motion with her hand.

Nothing happened.

“Sorry about this,” she said. “This thing can be so finnicky…”

She made the motion again.

Then again.

Still, nothing happened.

“Something the matter?” Socks asked.

Dolly held the piece of metal in her hand, and realised that it was no longer a piece of metal. It was a filthy flake of rust that left orange marks and flecks on her fingers wherever she touched it.

In creating the portal to get here, whatever vestige of power left within it had been used up.

She was trapped.

She dropped the crumbling object to the ground and turned to the other two.

“Well,” she said. “Bliat.”

“What’s up, Dolly?” Socks asked.

Dolly clasped her hands, closed her eyes, and took a breath.

“Change of plans,” Dolly said. “Looks like we’re taking the long way ‘round.”

“Jesus,” Socks said. “You’re not suggesting we walk it?”

“Don’t be daft,” Dolly said. “We’ll have to catch a train. Where’s the nearest mainline station from here?”

“Swindon, probably,” Socks said. “Are you sure that’s a good idea, Dolly? We might get spotted.”

“This Blood Moon stuff takes precedence. So K-Os tells me.”

“I don’t know, Dolly…” Socks said. “This is a big risk we’re taking…”

“I don’t like it either. But it is what it is.”

Dolly bit her thumb then, and turned away.

“One problem, though,” she said. “I need someone to head northwards. Chelsea is expecting me home. I need someone to fetch her.”

“I’ll do it,” Liberty said, without missing a beat.

“You’ll be able to find her?”

“I will search for her in the strings,” Liberty said. “Plus, I’m the only one of us who can fly. I’ll meet with Chelsea and explain everything.”

“Alright,” Dolly said. “Head towards Manchester. Don’t be too long, or she’ll worry.”

“I won’t,” Liberty said.

“Also, tell Daisy and Nas to stay put!” Dolly called.

“Got it,” Liberty replied.

She turned away from them.

From her back unfurled six wings of crystal, and she ran into take-off, pushing herself up through the branches of the tall trees, and out of sight.

“Is she doing okay?” Dolly asked.

“No,” Socks replied. “But then, who is, these days?”

Monica had been standing, listening to the conversation politely. She was beaming.

“Does this mean I get to ride on a train?” she said.

“Yeah, I guess it does,” Socks said, looking at Dolly disapprovingly.

“Oh, goodee!” Monica said, jumping up and down, making the ground shake around her. “So exciting!”

Dolly smiled softly.

“Well, we’d best be getting on our way,” she said.

“I really, really hope you know what you’re doing,” Socks said.

The three of them began to trudge northwards.

Overhead, the thick cloud layer began to dim. The sun was setting.

Before long, it began to rain.

Oh, how Dolly wished she’d brought an umbrella.

*

K-Os gazed at herself in the cheval mirror, her arms planted firmly on the mattress.

Sixty-six million years. That was too long to live. Far too long to live. She had been far, far too greedy with her years. Lived too many lives.

She was ancient, older than Qomolangma. When she had first come to be, shocked into existence on the day the sky fell in, the Himalayas had been but coastline on the vast island that now formed the Indian subcontinent.

Why had she assumed this ape-form, all those years ago? To what end? Curiosity? Fear? Or merely hunger?

She remembered being all spread out, under the ash-darkened skies, freezing and thawing. The snows fell before the rains came, bringing back the sunshine after almost half a decade. Formless, without identity, without language. She had been at her most rude, then, knowing nothing but hibernation and photosynthesis. It had been peaceful.

Then, one day, something small, four-legged, and hairy had strayed off the beaten track, into the pools where others dared not tread. It had died as she had taken it apart, cell by cell, learning what it was. Animal life.

It had not had time to scream.

She had found it fascinating, this thing called ‘consciousness’. Supreme chaos out of a structured and orderly brain. Familiar, she was, with plant life, with fungal life – but plant life and fungal life had no need of thought; both made their survival in slower ways. Yet animal life, animal life wastes no time or energy. It reacts to its environment in real time. It knows light, knows sound, knows smell, touch, and taste.

It knows the fear of death.

It was no wonder that she had emulated it: Become a rat-thing, with violet fur, violet like the spectra of light those eyes could not see, the light that burned their skin and caused cancers, that aged and withered all these mortal things, until they were naught but dust.

What had she wrought in her jealousy? A paradox: The life that does not die. The inevitability of destruction that itself refuses to be destroyed. Was she not selfish for embodying entropy, for watching them die in their trillions in the time it took to blink an eye, while she went on living, greedily, refusing to succumb to her own disorder?

And now the vampires. Her own kin, in a sense. They belonged to an aspect of herself she tried to bury, and they sought to unbury it, to bring it out into the open once more, and with it, end the world. They would inherit a dead world, and would rule the gutted and devoured waste.

Was this the way of all life? Was this what evolution had been, all along – an exercise in futility, the random interactions of unguided chemicals, driving themselves towards a neutral state, to an endless inertia?

At her birth, she had been the harbinger of a new age of life, in the wake of the last great extinction. She had been their pilot-light. Now, driven by animal impulse, she too was coming to be their destruction.

At last, she could deny it no longer.

Armageddon was coming.


Another time, another place…


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ARC FOUR: BLOOD MOON
I | II | III | SSI | IV | V | SSII | SSIII | VI | VII | SSIV
VIII | IX | X | XI | XII | SSV | XIII | SSVI | XIV | SSVII | XV | SSVIII | XVI | XVII