“He did, but his son has become far too problematic. He must be sent away.”
Whistler nodded. He held the silver ball up to the light. “This one will work.” He looked into Maire’s colorless eyes. “I won’t fail you.”
“I know, James. Just bring her home. It’s time to begin
draining from the chamber after the vessel slammed to a halt. She surged forward against her restraints, her curls lazily swimming out before her, reaching for something that her half-decade could not yet comprehend. She heard the muffled clang of metal against metal, felt the pressure within the chamber change. Exhausted eyes looked at the top of her prison, where she could see the phase flux level dropping quickly. The surface fell to the level of the top of her head, continued withdrawing. She strained upward, her nose and mouth rising above the flux surface, gasping as she vomited the invasive gel from her stomach, coughed it from her respiratory system. She shook her head, the oily silver spattering from her hair, drizzling from her ears, eyes, nose. Tear ducts released and mercury stained her cheeks. Lily was left wet with the dissolving flux, belted into her chair, shivering with the freeze of deep space.
The last traces of the phase drained from the room and the air began to warm.
The child sobbed, replacing silver tears with clear and salt.
The chamber door sparked with static release and opened across the walkway before her.
The angel strode across the catwalk to the restraint node in the chamber’s center. It looked Lily over from head to toe, checked a monitor just out of the child’s vision besind her. The restraint hub on her chest sighed with pneumatic release and lifted. The chair freed her arms and legs.
“Nan?”
“Are you in pain?”
Lily frowned. She didn’t think she hurt, but she wasn’t sure. She knew she was afraid, but she didn’t know exactly what hurt.
“I don’t know.”
“You’re bruised. We’ll take them away.”
“Okay.”
The angel lifted the child from the seat.
“Nan?” but she knew it wasn’t. This angel was different. Lily couldn’t feel the
“No. You may call me System. Or Arch.”
“Ark? Like Noah and the animals?”
The machine frowned. “What?”
“You look like Nan.”
“Call me Arch. Like Noah and the animals.”
The child smiled. “It’s cold here.”
“It will get warmer.”
“Are we home again?”
The angel carried Lily across the walkway toward the chamber entrance. “No.”
“Where are we?”
“This is your new home. We’re between the stars now.”
“Can I play with the boys now?”
“Maybe for a little while.”
“Arch?”
“Yes?” The chamber door cycled open.
“Can I have some chocolate milk?”
He fell from his vacuum chair into a withdrawing puddle of flux, splashing the lazy fluid up with a meaty slap. He heard similar splashes all around him, but his eyes didn’t work. He couldn’t see.
The little boy pushed himself to all fours, sat back and wiped gelatin-slick hair from his face, scrunched his fingers into his eyes in an attempt to clear his vision. He couldn’t stop coughing. Vomiting. He’d had the flu once. This is how it had felt.
Blink, blink. He heard crying.
Metal crash and warm wind filled the room. The floor was drying.
Click and the room was red. His eyesight hadn’t disappeared; the lights had just been off. Now, he saw everything as it must have looked in Hell. Mommy had whispered to him about the places they’d go after this world: one was happiness and clouds and angels, and one was fire and red and screaming. From the screaming and crying and red, Hunter wondered if he had died. He wondered if he’d done something wrong and ended up where the bad people went when they died.
The lights grew brighter.
A giant snap like the firecrackers that his father had brought him, set off down in the sand by the water. Hunter jumped. The room shimmered as phase shielding dissembled.
There was a smaller boy sitting on the floor beside Hunter. He was sobbing. Hunter helped him to his feet.
“I’m Hunter.”
Through sniffles: “I’m Br-Brendan.”
“Are you okay?”
“Where’s Mommy?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where are we?”
“I don’t know.”
Brendan covered his face and cried some more. Hunter didn’t know what to do.
The chamber door slid open with the slosh of phase. Hunter and Brendan looked on with fear and confusion. Other boys stood in silence.
A procession of angels entered the room, surrounding a middle-aged man in a charcoal gray suit. He looked over the boys with a gaze like fire; Hunter felt he was human. He felt the angels weren’t exactly angels. There was none of that tugging he’d become used to from the projections. Eight, ten, twelve: the angels walked amongst the boys, helped some to their feet, gently held the weeping, surveyed the little soldiers for damage.
The man cleared his throat.
“My name is Captain Pierce. You may call me ‘Uncle.’ Welcome to your new home. His name is Archimedes.”
An angel bent to Hunter’s level, turned his face from side to side, looked him over. “Do you hurt?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“My Mommy’s dead.”
For an instant, the angel froze, head cocked, as if listening to a voice from within. “Your mother is safe now. You will be reunited with her soon.”
“You’re lying.”
Motionless non-human: the pause was longer this time. “Are you hungry?”
“No.”
The angel didn’t respond, but moved on to Brendan.
Uncle walked around the room, patted the heads of his new soldiers. “We’ve come a very long way, boys. We have a lot to do. We have a lot to learn. But first, we’ll have something to eat. Who’s hungry?”
There were a few noncommittal affirmatives.
“Good. You have to eat and become strong like your fathers!”
Hunter wondered if Uncle’s father had been killed somewhere between the stars, too. Somewhere deep and black, a place with two stars, where the squeal of shattering glass had been the last sound before—
“Let’s have some supper, boys!”
“Three days.” Hunter sighed.
Lilith cradled his face in her hands. She knew he was thinking…too much.
