The Plague of Man

—

The last thing I remember is dying.

The Doctor stepped back into the ring of hard-faced men standing over me. “That’s it,” he said. I could see Mary behind them, crying, her voice muted, her palms pressed fish-belly white up against the glass. The low tink-tink-buzz of the fluorescents above, and the rhythmic gasp and hiss of the machine behind me, filled the room. My arm tingled with a slow spread of warmth. I was strapped down, I couldn’t move, my body felt… heavy… I was… was… tired… The bright lights above me blurred… and I was…cold…

I…

*

He sat up, gasping and choking and splashing.

He slipped and splashed and flailed about, trying to steady himself. His fingers squeaked on the slippery smooth white surface around him.

He was in a bathtub. That much he recognized.

He was naked in a white bathtub with cold porcelain sides, waist deep in a sloshing, clear viscous goo. He was drenched with it, slimed and half-blind from it, his eyes stinging and watering. He managed to brace his arms against the side of the tub, to steady himself, and sit up.

An octopus-tangle of colored wires, clear plastic lines of fluid, and thick accordioned tubes were draped all over him, resting on his shoulders, a curtain of soft plastic dangling all around him. They climbed up from him, up to the ceiling, past the hanging lights overhead, and into the darkness above. He swiped at them, and they held, pulled at him. They were on his face, on his body, connected to him. Suction cups were stuck to his body. Needles were stuck in his arms. Blood welled up where they had pierced him, trickling red lines. Plink. Down into the clear viscous goo, and a pinkish-tinge spread across the watery surface, plink-plink-plop.

Confusion froze him in place. He couldn’t think straight. Where was he? He didn’t know this place. What is all this shit on him? Had he been asleep? His thoughts were a slow, stumbling jumble. He tried to speak, to call out, but there was something in his mouth. It was down his throat. He looked down at it, cross-eyed. It was a length of fat white tubing, jammed into his mouth. He felt it threading down his throat.

Panic lurched in him, his heart pounding. Adrenaline kicked him awake. He gagged, weak fingers clawing at the tube. He pulled and felt it slither and move down in his stomach. He pulled more, and felt the ribbing drag up the inside of his throat, the burning dregs of stomach going back down. He threw his head back, squinting up into the blinding racks of light, pulling hand over hand, dragging the long length of tubing up out of his guts, up and out, goo dripping from his hands and arms, falling, stinging his eyes. He pulled.

It finally came free with a pop.

He coughed and gasped and retched, letting the tube drop. It flopped in the viscous goo with a slapping splat, a plastic snake pulsing like a vein, and slowly sank into the thick slop he was sitting in. A sluggish spurt of orange paste leaked from the tube’s end, and a creeping orange stain slowly spread from the tip. He retched again, down into his lap, down into the gel. A strung of bubbly acid-spit dribbled from his lips. He hung there a moment in the shivering chill of the tepid goo bath, bent over and gasping, his heart hammering.

Silence.

Plink-plink-plop.

Anger and frustration blared through him. He lurched up, smacking at the tangle of wires and tubes that were draped over him. They dragged at him, stuck to him, tangled in his arms. What the fuck? What the fuck? He flailed. What the fuck! He was doused in confusion and mad panic, sobbing wordlessly. He ripped at the wires, yanking the needles loose, prying at the suckers, desperate to be free, slipping and sliding and splashing in the tub, a puppet fighting its strings. He finally knocked the tangle away, out over the edge of the tub, and it swung out and back again, metal needles clattering against the tub’s outside, click-clicking and dripping.

He swiped the tangle away again, and they swung slowly back again.

Clitter-clatter, drip-drip-drip.

He slipped again, and flopped, going under with a salty cold splash. He lurched back up in a burst of goo, spitting and coughing and sputtering, pulling at the tub’s side, slick fingers gripping the edge. He clung there a moment, gasping, wiped at his face and stared around. The long line of lights overhead was bright enough he had to shield his eyes when he looked up at them. Somewhere up there the bundle of wires and tubes began. The cold bite of the recycled air carried an antiseptic tang to it.

White.

The whole room was clean and bright and white. White tub. White floors. White ceiling. White walls… Except one. The wall behind him was a bank of gray equipment with green screens, all humming quietly.

What is this place? A hospital? It certainly felt like a hospital, a weird one, sure, but still… It definitely felt like a hospital. It’s not the prison hospital. He turned about in the tub, looking all around, Did I survive the…? He dimly remembered being strapped to the table, and the ring of hard faces above him, the warmth spreading up his arm, but it was all dusty and sluggish. I must have survived, but… He didn’t know what to do next. The goo was cold. His skin was pebbled in goose bumps. He shivered in the white-tiled chill.

Where the fuck am I?

There was a hiss and a thunk, and a section of the far wall slid open.

For a brief moment, he saw stars in the white-edged windows beyond the opening, a sparkling expanse set in a black velvet abyss. At the bottom of the window, he saw the curve of an orange and blue world. It was covered in wispy white whorls of clouds that flashed with flickering green forks of lightning…

Then the thing walked in.

His mind reeled. Frozen in the tub, struggling to even focus, as the thing glided slowly toward him. Reality tilted beneath him like a ship tossed in the storm. The thing, the creature, it raised its hands at him—long and three fingered with skin that was a cool blue-gray—and it seemed to smile at him with a tight little oval of a mouth crammed with too many sharp little teeth, gleaming row upon row.

He skittered back, scrambling at the tub’s far side, sliding and sloshing, no balance, no grip, all panic. His legs shot out from beneath him and he slipped under the goo’s surface, swallowing a salty mouthful, all sound a sudden muted roar in his ears, and then he broke the surface again, gasping. He squawked and slipped, panting and gasping and whining, flailing, splashing, swallowing more goo.

Long, many-knuckled fingers curled on the tub’s edge. Dark blue nails click-click-clicked against the smooth sides. A too-long oval head bent down at him on the end of a long thin stalk of a neck. Big black eyes like smooth bubbles of tar ogled at him, and slowly blinked a series of multiple eyelids.

It cooed at him, a soft trilling.

He flailed back, kicking and slipping and splashing, and hit his head—

*

“I don’t want to be cremated,” Mary said, shaking her lighter, her thumb flick-flick-flicking the wheel. Poof! It burst alight, and she cherried her cigarette. The flickering light played along her face in the darkness of the car’s backseat. Then it was gone, the darkness back, her cigarette was a baleful eye in the dark. “I wanna be buried,” she drew deep, and the paper crackled with fire. Then she leaned forward, reaching out, and handed the cigarette to me, “But you have to cross my feet.” She said, and exhaled, leaning back against the door, her legs stretched out across the back seat, over my own legs, and crossed her bare feet as a demonstration.

Through the car’s open window, the crickets were a nighttime symphony. Fireflies bumped and bobbled, flickering and fading, floating among the tall prairie grass. I could smell our cigarettes and our sweat, a mingled musky reek of backseat sex, summer heat, and the pent-up pungent tang of a long road trip. The cool lilt of the lilacs on the night time summer breeze was pure and clean, and smelled like backyard childhood memories.

“Cross your feet?” I drew at the cigarette and then reached across the back seat to hand it back to her.

We were parked on the far side of the lot, hidden at the edge of the shadows behind the rows of quietly idling big rigs. I watched the little convenience store sitting on the opposite end, on the other side of the gas pump islands. Inside the store, it was noon-bright, a fluorescent oasis in a sea of grass and corn in the middle-of-nowhere, in the middle of the night, somewhere just off of Interstate 80. The people inside were fish in an aquarium, mouths opening and closing, slowly trawling the aisles for snacks and knick-knacks. Under the lights, their skin was puffy, pasty, and waxy pale.

My arm hung out the open window, the pistol dangling heavily from my hand, and knocked it quietly against the outside of the door.

“Yes,” she said, the glowing tip of the cigarette bobbed in the dark. “Cross my feet. At the ankles. Left over right. That’s important. Left over right, not right over left. I hate right over left.” One half of her face was moon silvered, the other half was lit orange by the glare of our cigarette.

“Why?” I asked.

She shrugged and exhaled a plume of smoke. “It’s what I want.”

“Alright,” I said. “Sure, whatever.”

“Really? You’d do that for me?”

“Yeah, sure. Why not?” A shrug. ”To be fair… if you’re dead, then it probably means I’m dead too, so…”

She pushed off the door and crawled over to me, her smile bright in a sudden passing sweep of headlights. “So romantic.” We pressed together in a rough kiss; she pressed her soft body against mine. She tasted like sex and booze and cigarette smoke. She giggled and broke free, smiling. She dragged at her cigarette, drew deep, and then flicked the rest out the open window, exhaling a plume of smoke out the side of her mouth, up and away from our faces.“Everyone laughs at me when I tell ‘em.”

I shrugged, forgetting the store, thinking about those big tits hanging in her tshirt, and that sweet little ass. My cock strained against the front of my pants.

“What about you?” She asked.

“Me?” I didn’t give a shit. I was just talking. Killing time before Killing Time.

“When you die…” she prompted.

I’d never really thought about it before. Why would I? Who cares? I was either gonna live forever, or I'd be dead, and why would I give a then, right? That was the plan. But the memory bubbled up out of nowhere, and suddenly I was back in the library during my last turn inside, idly thumbing through a magazine, and spotted a weird ad, a rocket ship rising out of the clouds on a pillar of fire…

“I want my ashes shot into space.” I said.

She laughed, a braying hoot, “Fucking brilliant,” she said, and roughly kissed me again, her hand finding my cock.

*

He opened his eyes.

He was laid out on a table, flat on his back.

He was dry, except for his hair. It was slicked back, the back of his head wet and cold against the table’s smooth surface. He was dressed in loose-fitting grays, but he was barefoot. He could see his toes sticking up down there at the ends of his feet. He lifted his head and stared at them, wiggling his piggies.

It was quiet and he was calm.

He felt comfortable, at ease, but somewhere far off, he felt like maybe he shouldn’t be. His emotions were muted, far removed, flashing like distant forks of heat lightning across the surface of his soul while he sat within a cool fog. He realized he knew this room. He turned his head and saw the tub and the dripping hang of tubes and wires dangling next to it. I’ve been here. Then he remembered the alien thing.

But still, he was calm. I am so fucking baked, he thought.

“we apologize for the sedative. you awoke earlier than anticipated.” The voice that spoke was quiet and warm. It rose and fell like a song, one lilting sentence sliding smoothly into the next one. “we did not mean to startle you.” The voice cooed softly at him, a gentle caress coming from behind him. He turned and looked back.

Willowy. Reedy. Thin. Definitely tall. That was the main way he would describe it. Tall. The thing was seven, maybe eight feet tall, and thin as a rake. It was long legged, long bodied, long fingered, long necked and long faced…

And pot-bellied.

And it was blue, of course, its skin. It was blue. Or maybe gray. It was definitely blue-ish-gray, and it shone like wet vinyl. He imagined it would feel like how he had always imagined a dolphin’s skin would feel. Slippery, but catching. Smooth, but tight under his fingers. Squeaky.

The creature stood before the bank of flashing machines, the screens an endless scroll of strange green symbols. It was wearing a long robe of soft blues with a red gem clipping the robe at its throat. The rest of the robe was open in the front, billowing out behind. He couldn’t see anything between its spindly, knobby-kneed legs, just a smooth patch. No cock, no pussy, no nothing. The creature swayed toward him on its fat knobby blue toes, its long nails clicking on the polished white floor. Its hands were up, palms out, and making soothing gestures. Its eyes were black pits, a shiny oily-smooth surface with a strangely expressive depth. It was smiling at him with its rubber-faced little smile.

“Where am I?” he croaked, his voice rough, gravelly. He could feel the drugs splashing at the shores of his mind, dousing the bursting flares of panic.

“you are—sssQQqqqqwwwwwwwwwwwwwzzaawwwaarrrkkkkk—“

The noise was like a dentist’s drill, boring into his mind. He winced and flinched, his hands going to his ears.

The thing spread its long hands. “apologies. our translators occasionally have difficulty.” It touched at the red jewel hung around its slim neck.

He realized he was wearing a red gem too. It was warm and heavy on his chest. It was hard to lift. His clumsy fingers couldn’t quite get a grasp on it. Was it attached to his shirt? He stopped trying. “Who are you?” he asked.

“we are guuuuuuuuuu,” it purred, reaching out to him. It moved with slow graceful movements, like a dancer underwater. Its touch was like pliant foam rubber on his face. “be at peace, Edward Farrow,” it said, “you are safe.”

At that, he remembered a tumble of things, like pulling the wrong box from the upper shelves of a packed closet. “Farrow. That’s my name…” he said this quietly, more to himself than the creature, more wonder than anything else, more a statement than a question. “Edward Lee Farrow. Eddie Lee.”

guuuuuuuuuu nodded, a slight bow of its massive head.

He remembered dying.

“But how…” Edward Farrow swallowed, unsure how to frame the thing he wanted to ask, the thing he almost knew, the impossible thing he almost suspected. He shook his head. “How did I get here?” was all he could manage.

guuuuuuuuuu held out in its thin-fingered blue hand, a dull metal vial the size of a halved pencil, topped with a black plastic cap. Eddie Lee could see words etched in black along the side: On Angel’s Wings, to slip the surly bonds of earth and dance among the stars.

“What the fuck…” Eddie Lee breathed.

“we grew you.” guuuuuuuuuu said.

*

The judge heaved a sigh.

He shook his head, a balding, liver-spotted dome rung with salt and pepper, and fixed those little black eyes of his on me, peering down through the little glasses perched at the end of a nose the color of burst blood vessels. “Second chances,” his voice echoed in the dim wooden hall of the courtroom, rolling, sonorous, and undeniably Southern. “That’s what some folks think you deserve, suh.” God damn Foghorn Leghorn sitting on the high bench in deep black robes, glaring down at me. “Rehabilitation,” said with a distasteful twist to his mouth. The crowd groaned, paper fans fluttering with contempt. “Parole.” The crowd groaned again. “Therapy.” Another groan, and tut-tut mutterings. “You’re a young man, they say, his whole life ahead of him.” He sniffed an unimpressed sniff. He looked like he wanted to spit. “But all I see are those bodies.” Murmured agreement from the crowd. “All of those lives ended. Spree killer. Wild Eddie Lee, is what the papers say,” He made a face like the whole world was sour in his mouth. “Second chance?” He slowly leaned forward then, his chair creaking beneath him, long and loud and dangerously final in the heavy funereal quiet of the courtroom, his face red, his jowls shaking.

The Judge slowly shook his head, and behind me, I heard Mary start to wail.

*

He wanted to touch the glass.

He didn’t, he couldn’t, but he wanted to. His hand reached out, but he pulled back at the last moment.

It was just glass, a thin sheet of nothing between him and endless space, so clear, so clean, it was almost invisible. The slightest pressure and it would shatter and he would be sucked out into the void, he was sure of it. Out there, he would choke and freeze and slowly drift away, doomed to an eternal slow tumble, floating forever over that strange orange and blue planet below, with its white swirls of storms, their edges rippling with green lightning.

“I’m in outer space,” he whispered, and leaned back in, still careful not to touch the glass, feeling the deep chill of the universe seeping in through the glass. He peered out, his mouth open. Space went on forever, an abyss with no up, no down, no nothing. Looking out, gazing into that endlessness, he felt the floor tilt up beneath his feet, and he had to close his eyes against the crash of nausea.

guuuuuuuuuu tittered behind him, its laughter like glass chimes.

It leaned in over his shoulder with a smell like latex. “always the same. be calm, Edward Farrow, the habitat is safe. the habitat protects and serves us, like we to you, like we to all.” The alien was serene, assured, and it smiled at him with its little squeaky-skinned rubber smile.

“What? Protect and serve?” Edward Farrow turned and looked up at the thin creature that towered over him. “Are you guys cops?”

guuuuuuuuuu titled its head, quiet a moment, while the red gem at his neck sparkled and glimmered. Then: “guuuuuuuuuu protects life, serves life. we are as we are intended.”

Edward wasn’t sure if it was the drugs that these aliens had given him, or maybe it was just the shock of actually seeing a real live alien, not to mention an alien world from the deck of an alien space station, or maybe it was the realization that he had died and the aliens had apparently found his ashes drifting in space and had used them to bring him back to life, or maybe, it was the fact that after traveling for who knows how far, for who knows how long, all the way across the galaxy presumably, he had been found by cops, alien cops, but either way, he didn’t have a response to the alien’s answer, so he turned back and looked out at the endless abyss of space again.

It was probably mostly the drugs.

guuuuuuuuuu’s long neck bent low. Its head twisted around, and it smiled, showing its sharp little teeth. “we were so joyful to discover your instructions. It has been a very amendable symbiosis. your construction is unlike any other being we have encountered: intelligent, capable of reason, highly adaptable. you are weak and yet so strong. where do you originate?”

“Uh… Earth,” Edward Farrow said.

“where is Earth?” guuuuuuuuuu’s long arm asked and gestured, taking in the star scattered expanse beyond the windows.

Edward Farrow looked out at all the stars before him, spread out across the black of space, and shrugged, “Beats me.” He turned from the glass and peered down the hallway. It curved off out of sight in both directions. He pointed one way and then the other. “Where does this go?”

“it follows its own path until it eventually winds back to here.” guuuuuuuuuu said, a wistful, but hurried dismissal, and then returned to him, leaning down, focusing on him. “where is your Earth?”

Edward Farrow could see his distorted reflection staring back at him in the oily black pools of guuuuuuuuuu’s eyes, cold suspicion floating far out beyond the calming waves lapping at the shores of his mind. “I don’t know.”

guuuuuuuuuu paused, seemingly considering, then nodded, resigned, but not looking very surprised. “always the same.”

This last bit made it past those tranquilizing waves. It paddled out to open water, into the free, connective thought beyond the soporific breakers. “Wait, what? What do you mean: always the same?”

*

The door groaned open onto the exercise yard.

I stepped out into a late winter sun, my hat pulled low as I bundled my jacket close around me. The concrete pad radiated a frigid tundra chill up through the soles of my sneakers.

“One hour,” the guard drawled and slammed the door shut behind me. The heavy metal door boomed and I was left standing in an eight by eight chain-link cube all by myself.

I sniffed and walked as far as I could across the concrete pad.

Seven steps, all the way to the edge, my hands stuffed deep in my jacket pockets, and my breath fogging. I stood against the fence, close enough to feel the cold creeping off the metal links, and watched the herds of inmates in prisoner orange and brown drift across the big exercise yard. I watched the guards walk along the high gray walls; rifles pointed up at the slate gray sky.

“Hey there,” a voice called.

Three men stood on the other side of the fence, across the little scrub grass track that separated the chain-link cubes like mine from the main yard. Two of them were just muscle, nothing but brick shithouses, one with long blonde hair hanging in his eyes and a big nutcracker of a chin, the other had a giant afro and sideburns that grew into a thick moustache. They scowled and lurked, hulking shadows in the third man’s wake. The third man was short with a big round head on big round shoulders over a big round gut, all of it sitting atop a pair of tiny little legs.

“Bulldog” Mike McGonagall.

“You’re Eddie Lee Farrow, right?” He strolled over and stopped in front of me, the brick shithouse twins floating around his edges. “Wild Eddie Lee, yeah?”

I nodded.

“You know who I am, yeah?” He asked.

I nodded.

Tax evasion. That’s how the Feds got “Bulldog” Mike, but only because nothing else would stick. He was a big man on the outside, and now he’s a big man on the inside. He was the real deal, a main man, a shot caller. “Good.” He nodded at me, smirking, satisfied. “I’d shake hands, but…” gesturing to the chain-link. “Folks say you’re a hard man, eh? Yeah? Dealt a bad hand and don’t give a fuck about nothing or no one, ain’t that right? Nowhere to go, and nothing to lose, right?”

I shrugged.

Afro brick shithouse slipped up quick, his left hand held low across his body and poking something through the chain-link at waist level. Plastic rattled. I took the shank. It had once been a toothbrush, but now it was taped and melted and as sharp as a razor. I slipped it up my sleeve, nestled it against my wrist.

The PA blurted noise, once, twice.

“Inmates, move away from the fence! Inmates, move away from the fence!”

“Bulldog” Mike and the brick shithouse twins slowly stepped back across the scrubby grass and frozen sandy dirt. “The skinny one,” Bulldog said. “The hick with the asshole attitude and the stupid little mustache, right? Today,” he emphasized. “I’ll owe you.”

I shrugged and nodded.

The locks on the big door behind me clanked and banged.

“Good man,” Bulldog drifted away across the yard, the brick shithouse twins following close on his heels.

The heavy metal door squalled open on its rusty hinges.

“Come on, fuckbag.” The guard’s twangy drawl. “If you can’t remember the rules; you forfeit your time in the sun. Move it.” The guard in the door was a skinny little son of a bitch. He was swimming in his big brown winter uniform coat. It was unzipped; it hung open, exposing the thin gray fabric of his uniform shirt. Beneath a nose as sharp as an ax, he wore a pencil-thin little lip ferret of a mustache.

I turned to him, and took the seven steps back across the cube, smiling.

“You keep eyeballing me, boy, and we’re gonna have ourselves a problem, understand?” He peered over his shades at me, fingers tapping the thick handle of his nightstick. It was the last thing he said.

I let the shank drop into my palm.

*

Edward Farrow and guuuuuuuuuu walked the habitat’s quiet corridor, an endless star field to the right of them, and smooth gray walls to the left, both going on and on, broken occasionally by the outline of a door.

“This place is huge,” Edward Farrow said.

“in comparison to some things, yes,” guuuuuuuuuu replied.

As they rounded a long curve in the corridor, in the wall of windows, some of the habitat came into view. A massive structure, flowing and organic, with outer walls as smooth as pearl. It was covered in windows that blazed with lights, and the myriad domed gardens glowed brightly. A forest of gleaming towers grew from the outer hull in multitudes, long, slim needles jutting out into space, each sprouting long, latticed frameworks along their glimmering length, all strung with gossamer spider webs that looked as delicate as aged ivory. The webbing was made of accordioned umbilicals, and those umbilicals were all tethered to…

“Holy shit,” Edward Farrow whispered. “Fucking space ships.”

There was no mistaking their purpose, not with their sleek shark-like profiles, with their gray porcelain hulls, swooping crystalline fins, and hot-rod looking rack of engines stacked on the back end. It was an armada, and their numbers seemed endless, sitting at dock, hulls glimmering, throwing off sun flares. Most were completed, silent and dark, waiting. Others were in various stages of construction, some nearly done, in pieces, or nothing more than naked frames open to the darkness of space beyond, the many floors and sprawling inner workings within exposed.

“A shipyard?” Edward Farrow stood at the windows. His breath fogged the glass as he strained for a view. “Those are all your ships?”

guuuuuuuuuu nodded and smiled. “conveyances.”

There were tiny figures out there, crawling over the ships like ants. Edward Farrow could see them in their suits, the sparks from their welders, the various pieces and bits of equipment being moved around, and set in place. But what really stopped him, what really drew his attention was the proportions of those workers, their heads in comparison to their bodies, their arms compared to their legs and torsos.

“Are those… humans?” Edward Farrow turned to guuuuuuuuuu.

guuuuuuuuuu smiled and nodded.

“But—” Edward Farrow started.

He stopped as a pair of figures rounded the far corner of the corridor. It was an older man, accompanied by another guuuuuuuuuu, another guuuuuuuuuu that looked exactly the same as the guuuuuuuuuu he was standing next to, and they were coming toward him and his guuuuuuuuuu. Also, somehow, this other man, the older man, was instantly familiar to him, so very familiar, strangely familiar. For a second, he thought it was his dad, or maybe his grandfather, but that couldn’t be. Still, he was sure that he knew the older man somehow. Somehow, from somewhere, he didn’t know where or how exactly, but he was sure that he knew him, in fact, he was positive that he did. It tickled at his brain… Edward definitely knew this older man walking toward him with another guuuuuuuuuu. But… from where?

And how, honestly, out here in outer space?

The older man smiled, and raised his scruffy chin in a companionable nod.

guuuuuuuuuu let loose a high purring trill next to him, and spread its long arms wide. The other guuuuuuuuuu mirrored them. They glided together, cooing, and touching palms. Their long necks swayed as they sang. Edward Farrow ignored them. He stared at the older man. How… And then a sudden realization fell out of the sky.

He stumbled, staggered.

The older man had ten years on him, maybe more. His head was shaved, and his jaw was dusted with dark stubble. His face was craggy and scarred, and carrying a few more miles on it, but Edward Farrow could no longer deny how he knew the older man. He knew that face because it was his face, his smile, and his eyes. It was him. The older man was him.

The old man was Edward Farrow too.

The fact that this wasn’t the craziest thing that had happened to him today made it easier to deal with. That, and the drugs.

As he looked at the older man, there was something else Edward Farrow recognized too. Not because it was his own face, but aged, like everything else about this man; no, it was the air of assured experience the older man carried. There was a glint in his eyes. It was his cocky, shoulders-back, smirking stride. It was the knowing look of a wise elder, the cooly assured stance of a hard man, a man in charge. He was the real deal, this older version of himself, a main man.

He was a shot caller.

The older him was dressed in velcroed boots and a zip-up, one-piece, multi-pocketed jumpsuit of dark grays, and Edward Farrow—in his bare feet and gray scrubs—suddenly understood clearly. He was a new fish on his first day inside again, a stranger in a strange land, and very much in need of friends, so when the older man tilted his chin, and nodded Edward Farrow over, he went.

“I heard they’d hatched a new one of us,” the older Edward Farrow said. Hearing his voice coming out of this other man was like listening to a recording of himself, strange, and off-putting, still recognizably his own, but also at the same time, somehow not him.

Edward Farrow just stared, gaped.

“It’s a trip, huh?” The older Edward Farrow said. “The real crazy part is… I’m me.” He touched his chest. “You’re you,” a finger tapping Edward’s chest. “I’m me,” touching himself again, “you’re you…” tapping Edward’s chest again, “But,” he held up a finger, motioning back and forth between them, “we’re the same.”

“But…” Edward Farrow started and stopped.

“Yep,” the older Edward Farrow nodded. “Like I said… it’s a trip.”

Edward Farrow didn’t know what to say. He and the older him watched the guuuuuuuuuus trill and sway and touch their palms. The older Edward Farrow shook his head and rolled his eyes at Edward, smirking. Looking at the older man was just too strange, so Edward Farrow turned away and looked out at the massive shipyard with its hundreds of ships and multitudes of tiny figures moving over them, and then another thunderclap realization fell from the sky. He turned back, and found the older Edward Farrow watching him, smiling, waiting.

“How many of us are there?” Edward Farrow asked.

“There you go...” The older Edward Farrow smiled and stepped in close, eye to eye. “We are Legion, kid.” he said. “We are Legion.”

The older Edward Farrow stuck out his hand and they shook as the two guuuuuuuuuus finished their trilling. The aliens bowed low and shuffled back from each other with several hurrying steps, their arms spread and their hands extended, before finally straightening again, still nodding, still smiling. The older man held Edward Farrow’s hand tight, held him in close, and Edward Farrow felt the man press something into his other hand, a cylinder of cold metal and contoured rubber. Edward Farrow quickly tucked it into his waistband, and the two of them smoothly separated, as the guuuuuuuuuu that came with the older Edward Farrow was already gliding off down the hallway.

“Soon,” the older Edward Farrow whispered, “You’ll know when.” Then he glanced very deliberately at the guuuuuuuuuus, then met Edward Farrow’s eyes again, raising an eyebrow, before sauntering off, following his companion down the hall.

Edward Farrow turned to his own guuuuuuuuuu. “You grew us.”

A nod. A smile.

“So we build your ships?”

Another nod. Another smile.

“Do we fly your ships?”

A third nod and a third smile.

“What else do we do?”

guuuuuuuuuu gestured around, another all-encompassing gesture, and then pressed his hands to his chest with a serene smile. Nictitating membranes slid slowly down the oily black curves of its eyes click-click and then back open again.

“We serve you?”

“peace.” The alien corrected him, patient and loving. “protection. the universe,” it sang, and gestured to the endless star-scattered darkness beyond. “you bear the weight where we can not. you are an industrious species.”

“Where do those ships go?” Edward Farrow asked.

guuuuuuuuuu chittered, head back and eyes blink-blink-blinking as his necklace glimmered and processed. Then he looked at Edward Farrow and smiled. “where ever the course is plotted.”

“The whole galaxy?” Edward Farrow asked.

“the universe.” guuuuuuuuuu corrected again, patient and loving again, as it held up one long, many-knuckled finger.

“We serve… protection? Are there weapons on those ships?” Edward Farrow watched the tiny figures—the tiny hims—crawling along the sleek ships and their big rack of engines.

So many hims.

“regrettably.” guuuuuuuuuu’s head drooped, his oily eyes glistening. “the universe is not kind, but we endeavor to make positive change.” it said. “come,” and it glided off. The light of a close star blared in around from the far edge of the corridor’s curve. It was blindingly bright, and guuuuuuuuuu was a tall, dark silhouette ahead of him, long arms stretched wide, trilling as it luxuriated in the light.

Edward Farrow lagged, discreetly pulling the cold metal from his waistband. It was a slim silver tube with a molded black plastic handle. There was a button.

Sh-tack!

A six inch blade snapped out, wickedly curved, wickedly serrated, wickedly sharp. He hit the button again and the blade snapped back into the housing.

Sh-tick!

*

The skinny, balding man in the cheap brown suit, cleared his throat and read from the clipboard in his hand. “Edward Lee Farrow, for the unrepentant murder of seventeen people across three states, you have been sentenced to die, by a court of good standing, from lethal injection. Do you have any final words?”

The air conditioner hummed, the fluorescents overhead were too bright. The machine was just over my shoulder, at the edge of my vision, and I could feel the man standing there, waiting to start the flow of poison.

I closed my eyes and remembered striding among the dead, fire and thunder flashing from my fist. Like the very devil himself.

“Fuck all of you.” I laughed.

*

guuuuuuuuuu waved his hand and a door hissed open. “your dorms—“

The floor thumped beneath them. They staggered as the habitat lurched beneath them. Edward Farrow heard the distant rumble of the explosion a second later. He pressed to the cold glass and peered out.

There were searing lances of light in the shipyard, flashes of silent fiery flowers blooming in the dark. In the many windows, along all of the hallways and walkways he could see, everywhere there were Edward Farrows. Everywhere, the habitat was choked with a hazy murderous murk, a flickering and bloodstained mist, an unstoppable tide of killing and killing and killing, everywhere he looked, he could see Edward Farrows everywhere, killing guuuuuuuuuus as more explosions rumbled and flashed and the habitat trembled.

He saw the guuuuuuuuuus gathered in chittering, arm-flapping clumps, bobbling and unsure. Their oily black eyes were wide as the Edward Farrows emerged from the smoke and fire, gunning them down in waves, splashing the white walls and clean glass windows with streaks and splatters of purple blood.

Edward Farrow turned away from the window, and the carnage. He turned to guuuuuuuuuu standing behind him as he reached into his waistband, as he crossed the short distance of the hall, as he quickly closed the gap between them.

guuuuuuuuuu cocked its head at him quizzically.

*

Boom!

The clerk slumped back, streaking the counter with a bloody smear of brain, thudding to the floor. The shattered fluorescents flashed and sparked, throwing spastic flickers of light and shadow. People ran before me, screaming, bent over, hands over their heads as I fired. Boom! The bright roar of fire, and the splash of blood and bone, as the choking bite of cordite hung in the air. Boom! Freezer glass exploded, spraying shards and sticky black jets of soda. Boom! Bodies fell, skidding, smashing through the displays, spilling chips and candy. Boom!

No more sobbing, no more pleading, just gunfire thunder.

Boom!

The flickering dark was suddenly bathed in the rolling flashes of red and blue lights, the blinding glare of headlights blaring in through the convenience store’s wall of windows. I heard sirens and bullhorned voices.

I headed for the door, and I came out shooting.

*

The silver tube was in Edward Farrow’s hand. His fingers wrapped the molded black plastic, his thumb pressed the button. Sh-tack! Six inches of razored metal, light skittering its gleaming length.

*

The shank sank deep in his neck. I yanked it out fast, hot blood spurting, coating my hand, my arm, my face. The skinny guard latched onto me. He clutched at me, spitting, grunting, and sputtering. We spun, tangled together, my arms blocking his hands, blocking his gun. I shoved him against the wall. His sunglasses fell off, his eyes were wide and frightened. I pressed in close, stabbing again and again, the blade scraping bone. There was blood on his lips, speckling his pencil thin ‘stache. I heard shouted alarms and running feet. New hands latched onto me, dragging at me, hitting me with their batons, and pulling me off of him as I laughed. The shank came free in a fountain of blood, and the skinny guard crumpled.

*

guuuuuuuuuu blinked, once, twice, its knobby, long fingered hands clutching at its blue-gray potbelly, purple blood spilling past in a torrent.

“Edward Farrow?”

Out in the shipyards, he could hear the fleet starting up. The habitat thrummed, a slight trembling as the sleek multitudes cycled up, whining, their big hot-rod engines booming to life in the darkness of space, like the distant rumble of a gathering storm far off shore, while an unsuspecting galaxy slept.

Edward Farrow smiled, purple blood dripping from the end of his blade. “The universe is not kind.”

The End