365 tomorrows

Churos went there alone, although he was surrounded by a scattered platoon of guards and officers all charged with the task of escorting the 5′8″ teenager to court. When the doors to the court opened, it was clear that the media circus was in full swing.

The smile that drew across his lips made some of the officers uncomfortable, but they held ground and continued escorting him to his position before the judge. Media reporters and those coming to see the show began to fall quiet even before the mallet had come down to call order to this place.

With cuffed hands, the teen remained standing before the judge who glanced down past round glasses to the seemingly ordinary defendant.

“Churos DeSoto, you have been found guilty in accordance with United Earth law of refusing to pay taxes, breaking curfew on seven accounts, and assaulting of an officer. Do you have anything to say for yourself before I sentence you, young man?”

That smile never left Churos’ face. His head lifted and he blew a strand of hair from his brown eyes. “Yeah.”

The court went silent, eager to hear his response, but the next sound that met their ears was the clanking of metal cuffs against the floor. Churos’ hands had not moved, nor had he lowered his hands beneath the podium at which he stood.

Police and guards were quick to rush the boy, yet they found their task difficult. Their grabs and shoves found only air, though the boy was clearly visible. They pulled their weapons and leveled them at the kid, and the silent standoff lasted several seconds before the judge called order. The presiding arbiter had a frightful look on his face, which would only be worsened by what the boy would say next.

“You’ve all heard the rumors, and maybe some of you know someone like me. We are here now, and we’re not going away. I’m not going to jail, your honor. I’m not going anywhere except where I want to.” The teen turned to look around at the circle of officers pointing guns at him.

“I allowed myself to be taken here because I want to bring a message to the people. Stop living trivial. Stop picking at everything you see that doesn’t fit your mold. Myself and others like me won’t conform to you, and you won’t get rid of us with bullets or force.”

In a moment of clarity a reporter blurted out amongst the pin-drop silence, “What are your demands?”

Churos turned to her and smiled. “Trust us.”

With that he turned and walked through the eastern wall onto the street. No one stopped him, no one flinched and no one knew what would happen next. For now, the game was in the hands of those like Churos DeSoto.

Matthias bounded up the mossy hill towards the cave. It had been six years since he had last seen his master. He had often found Aupta meditating in the cave when he was her student. He could picture her perfectly, curly red hair, a yellow tunic, her silver sword balanced across her knees.

There was a tiny girl inside the cave, about four or five years old. Her hair was pulled up in a cloth knot, and her bangs were cut bluntly along her forehead. She wore a white slip.

He bowed. “I am looking for Aupta.”

“Matthias.” she said his name, rolled it over in the mouth of the cave. Her little feet were bare on the stones. One of her knees was skinned and bleeding.

Matthias held his breath and counted the names of the planets he had visited silently. The little girl waited. Finally Matthias spoke. “Aupta?”

“I am Aupta. I am Auptas daughter Rille. We exist as one.”

Matthias gripped the handle of his sword. “Then she is dead.”

“The body of Aupta is in the mountain. I am her life now. I am the life of her daughter. We are merged, we are one.”

“Take me to her.”

“You are with her.” The girl shrugged, in the way little girls seldom do. “I can take you to where the body is marked.”

They walked over the mossy mountain. There was a cherry tree weeping leaves into the soft wet breeze. The petals clung to Matthias’s dark cloak. There was a mound of stones at the top of the hill. Matthias knelt beside it and touched his fingers to his head.

“She isn’t there.” said Rille. “Aupta is with me.”

“Her memories are with you. Aupta is dead.”

“You were always my most frustrating student.” said Rille and Matthias turned around. The girls face was wet with mist.

“I was never your student.”

The little girl grinned. She was missing a tooth. “Come at me Matthias.”

“I don’t attack children.”

“You were always a prude.” She sighed. “You need to know who I am. You must know, so that you can know yourself.”

“I don’t want to play these games.”

“This isn’t a game. This is who I am now Outlaw Matthias.”

“I am not an Outlaw any longer.”

“You will always be an Outlaw.” said the girl. “ The ship you landed at the temple was stolen, your sword was taken in a duel. You are a thief, a deceiver. Your father was an Outlaw. You are an Outlaw too.”

Matthias whirled around “Don’t you dare.” he said, coming towards her. “Don’t’ you dare provoke me. You left me! You left me and died and I can’t follow you!” He brought his hands down to the girl. “You are a ghost!”

Rille swept her tiny foot around his ankle and pulled his arm. Matthias lost his footing on the wet moss and slammed hard into the ground. He lay on the ground, looking at the bright grey sky. Rille leaned over him, her hair falling forward.

“I’m still your Master Matthias.”

The mist fell on Matthias’s face. “You are still my Master.” He said.

“Matthias. I had to go. My time had come and gone. Not even mountains live forever. All must change.” She turned around towards the rocky path down the mountain. “Let’s go back.” she said.

Matthias followed her down the mountain. Her movements were strange, graceful in her leaps and fumbling in her landings. She stumbled on the slick rocks and blinked back tears. She pounded a tiny fist on the rocks, and pushed herself up.

“This body. It doesn’t always do the things I remember.” she said, staring at her scratched hands. Matthias leaned down and opened his arms. His master allowed him to lift her up, to hold the part of her that was a child. They went back to the temple together.

It wasn’t until the subway stopped at Union Square that Alba noticed the difference in time.

I’ve been on this train for hours, she realized. Before the conductor’s announcement, she’d been lost in the newness of her amplified intelligence, rolling her mind around foreign concepts like a child rolls his tongue around a piece of candy. She didn’t notice time passing, though she was acutely aware of her surroundings. Now, with the implant, nothing escaped her perception.

When she glanced at her watch, seven minutes had passed. Seven?

The thought was quickly discarded as a reflection in a window launched her into an analysis of Plato, but it was resumed again, three minutes later, at 8th street. Three minutes later?

The implant had come highly recommended, although it was still in an early phase of development. She’d managed to get on the list of volunteers through university connections, and it had been surprisingly painless. A mild hangover, then nothing. Her mind raced, cross-referencing books she was certain she’d never opened, but the sensation wasn’t disorienting. Alba was lucid. Wholly lucid.

It took weeks to get to Canal street, by which point she’d developed a detailed understanding of number theory. Her watch said that seven more minutes had passed.

A fly landed on her still hand, and she watched it probe her skin with its mouth. After months, it flew away. A fly’s lifespan must seem so short, she thought, or so long. It must depend on the fly’s speed of processing information.

It took nearly a year to reach her house, by which point, Alba had aged almost twenty minutes.

Firanel felt the first stirrings at the age of thirteen. For her, it started in her temple, a slow but pervasive ache that soon spread to her jaw. By the time she told the Elders, Firanel could barely talk, but her soft voice brought praise and exultation. She had been chosen; she would become complete. Her time of change was approaching.

In the growing months, Firanel lost her speech entirely. The thin web of metal that had sprouted on her face, glittering and spiderlike, took as its root the jawbone that had prompted her to seek the Elders when the change began. She was moved to the temple, where anointed Complete Ones saw to her needs and murmured quiet prayers under their breath when she passed. Sometimes she missed being able to talk, but the Complete Ones sensed this and assured her that her other half would provide.

Each anointed one was different, their changes manifesting in different ways. Sister Daael’s right arm was entirely composed of smooth silver metal. Brother Sikvit’s eyes had atrophied entirely, replaced by glowing ocular cameras that the other half had created in his smooth sockets. Brother Mahe had to wear altered robes to accommodate his gleaming steel prehensile tail. Firanel had doubts sometimes—they were all so devoted, so serene; how could she have been chosen to be among these worthies, to have an other half? The Complete Ones all knew her thoughts. They gave her secret smiles, and each told her that she would understand soon.

The metal spread down Firanel’s throat, growing and blossoming into a lattice that soon reached her lungs. For three weeks she was sick, moaning in her pallet, soft clicking sounds issuing from her metal-filled mouth as she moved. The Complete Ones cared for her, making cold compresses for her forehead and feeding her through soft plastic tubes. At last, her other half completed the meld with her stomach, and she was able to eat again, the food broken down and digested by the new metal parts of her body. The anointed ones congratulated her, telling her it was not long now, not long.

When her time was near, Firanel went into hibernation, the only way for her other half to complete the final changes. The anointed ones placed her in the temple and held watch for her in shifts, praying over her silent body. The metal web covered the right side of her face, whirring and glittering in the soft temple light. Its arms spread across her pale skin and into her mouth, down her neck and into it, the visible portions only a small fraction of her other half’s presence within her body. When she was ready to wake, all of the Complete Ones knew. The signal traveled on airwaves particular to the chosen, calling them together, linking them for the birth of one of their own.

Firanel was aware of the link as soon as she woke. Her smile clinked when she opened her eyes, the metal bars and threads that filled her mouth brushing together to make the sound. She sat up, gazing in wonder at her new partners, her new friends. They all turned expectantly to her, waiting, ready to experience the uniqueness of the newest Complete One.

Exultant, Firanel turned to face her brothers and sisters, gazing at their half-flesh, half-metal forms. She opened her mouth, jaw unhinging, the clicking, leglike rods of segmented metal reaching outwards, welcoming her brethren through her lips. Firanel’s throat thrummed and vibrated, and from the slick metal legs inside, her new voice emerged.

Mikael downed the last shot of whiskey and made a hiss through his teeth. The empty plate before him stunk of what used to be near-raw steak from an underfed cow, poorly cooked and coated with nothing but a thin layer of oil.

The bartender came up to him, flipping on the air filter after coughing once or twice. The bar had begun to fill with dust again. The fallouts were always bad this time of year. “That’s your meal, slim. Time to pay up.”

Tired and sore, the man was dissatisfied with shitty food, but he still shelled out the three 9mm bullets onto the bar and tipped his hat. “Before I go, gent, mind if I could have some of your delightful bread back there? You know… for the road?”

Snatching up the bullets before the other ruffians at the bar got greedy, the greasy bartender sneered and went into the back, leaving Mikael out there all by his lonesome with a bar full of semi-empty guns.

Mikael was smart, though. Smarter than these guys anyway. He could feel the glares on his back and he knew they all wanted a piece of that ammo he’d brought in. Few people afforded Guss’ Steak and a shot of whiskey, let alone a block of carbo-bread for the road.

He began licking the edge of the shot glass and glancing around him for available exits. The fellow to his left, who was nursing a well paid-for beverage, smirked when their eyes met.

“Something on your mind?” Mikael asked.

The old fellow tipped his hat to the stranger and spoke up, “Just fancying your choice of payment, son. Was wonderin’ if I might offer you a deal.”

“Yeah? Well hurry up, my bread’ll be done compressin’ soon enough.”

With a rub of his chin the old fellow leaned over, “I gots me a skimmer outside; beautiful as can be and runs great. You’d be able to get by a ride from here to Union City on just three, maybe four of them there bullets you’re packin’.”

“How much?”

“Aw shucks. For you? I’ll let it go for eh…” The guy hesitated and Mikael knew he was going to try and skim him before he spoke up. “Four 12 gauge slugs and that there knife on your boot.”

The scoff from Mikael as the bartender came out with his bread was enough to let the guy know he wasn’t falling for it. “No thanks, mister.” He dropped a shell on the bar and nodded to the tender as he snatched up his bread. “Keep the change.”

At night, the wind howled over the tent like an angry djinn, forcing its sandy fingers through tears and clumsy folds. “Tonight is the Aisra’s,” they’d whisper in nearby towns as the wind fought to erode the frictionless forcewalls, but if the Aisra caused the storm it was indifferent to it, curled drowsily upon a succulent-floss pillow as its tail flicked in response. There were no pilgrims on nights like this, but Saika tended to the candle as if the sky were clear and the dunes carved sharply by moonlight. Even an unseen compass knows how to find the north. As she was taught as a young child, she left the tent four times an hour, scarf pulled tight against the endless and violent desert. Always, the flame burned in its glass case, leading strangers to their unexpected home.

In the moments between her duties, Saika stroked the sacred creature, her fingers brushing lightly against the softest fur. Legend said that the Aisra wove the dreams of the people, that it carried nightmares away from children and released them into the swirling sand. Saika was the Aisrakeeper, and by extension, a silent monk. The tent was always silent: words weren’t of the dream world, and they would distract the Aisra from her duties. When people came to worship, they said nothing as they kneeled before the small creature and asked to be protected from dreams. The desert caused dreams. The light-years between the colonists and their ancestral home causes dreams.

Tonight is the Aisra’s, Saika thought as her fingers pressed gently into the back of the creature. Keep dreaming, she told it. Let the desert carry it away.

The people here smelled nice, Guss thought, dragging the huge tub behind him through the grass towards the receptacle. Everything was fragrant in that sort of way that made you think it was all genuine. He’d never known what a ‘real’ smell was like. He’d worked artificially since the day he could crawl.

Tipping his hat to a few of the natives, he dropped the metal rim of the hose down to his side and looked over behind one of the trees in this park area. People here had wondered why things had gotten colder and why the plants were all dying. Guss knew, but he was under specific contract not to tell a living soul. So what did he do? He went on with business as usual, whistling the day away.

Once his hands found the hollow compartment he reached in his belt for a socket diffuser and began cranking away. These were the kind of skills Guss knew weren’t taught at the academic institutions. No, sir. The things he knew came from experience and hard work, work that he’d done to make the world a better place. Well, actually it was to make worlds–but he wouldn’t tell anyone.

With a clunk and a little compression sound, the panel came loose enough to be pried away by mortal hands. Guss took good care to pull it off gently and lay it on the park bench next to the tree. He lifted up the hose and hefted it towards the tree, locking it into place the same way a man would unzip his fly to take a piss. Oh, yes; Guss was an artist.

Soon, he wagered, the good smell of the place would come back online and only he would be able to detect the sour undertones. The hose pumped in tons after precious tons of Texas Tea, its buzz and hum filling his mind with a bit of serenity. To onlookers it just seemed as if he was dozing off. Maybe he was thinking of a better job, or maybe even a cleaner place than the artificial globes.

Even as the thick crude was gulped down by the receptacle, Guss knew volcanoes and fissures around the planet would be going off, steaming and smoking like Armageddon was upon them. He would never tell a soul. Why ruin the environment? These people paid taxes so they could keep on living.

Unlocking the hose, Guss gave it a few swift tugs before it retracted towards the hovercraft tankard in the sky. He tipped his hat to a woman jogging, who gave him a strange look as he set the panel back where it came from. All in a day’s work, Guss thought, and on he went to make sure another world went ‘round.

Three Elvises walk into a bar.

You may laugh, but I was there, it’s true. Three Elvises. Elvii. Whatever. First strode in the bishop: big as life and twice as wide, identified as he was by his high-collared cape, resplendent in rhinestones and the golden sunglasses of his office. Behind him swaggered a priest, her jumpsuit less ornate, her belt-buckle smaller, her cape shorter. Last was a neonate, still in training but wearing the blue suede shoes of one who was near priest-hood. Now, he didn’t have the broad steps of the other two, wasn’t much more than a boy, but he held his pompadour just as proudly

“What’s your poison, preacher?” the bartender asked, not sure what else to do once the bishop had maneuvered his mighty, blessed girth onto the stool.

“Fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches, currently. But as for what me and my compatriots will have to drink, Pepsi-Cola iffin you got it, water if you don’t.” Now some say Elvises sweat extra hard in the memory of their savior, and the bishop clearly subscribed to this form of worship. He wiped the outside’s sweat and grit from his face, and gave each bushy sideburn a quick comb with his fingers. “I wonder if I might trouble all you fellas for a word about the man who gave his life for your sins, our lord and savior Elvis Presley.”

As hard as it was for all the patrons of that shithole speakeasy that night to believe, it was true: The Holy Missionaries of the Church of Elvis were in their midst, preaching the gospel. And I’ll say this, that bishop had a powerful set of pipes.

“For his love is a burning love, a hunka, hunka burning love that will melt away all your sins should you accept him in your heart. But your love for him must be tender, it must be true.” Unsurprisingly, not every drunkard wanted to hear the wisdom in loving tender. A half-full pint glass was rocketed to the bishop’s head. It was caught before contact by the priest, who, in her skill caused not a single drop of warmed-over beer touched the bishop’s immaculate pompadour.

“Truth is like the sun,” the preist said. “You can shut it out for a time, but it ain’t goin’ away.”

Was about then, the whole bar rose as one to pound those three missionaries into the floor. Not me, I was under the table. But the whole group tried to take those holier-than-us-ers down for the count. What we hadn’t reckoned on was the fact they were a great deal less drunk–and therefore, more mobile, even the bishop–and that all Elvises are trained in kung-fu.

‘Least I think it was kung-fu. All I know is even that boy threw a mean karate chop. Not that I felt it. I was under the table. Swear on my life.

It was in the remains of this fight, this battle, this ever-lovin’ crusade that the three Elvii–unharmed, if dirty–opened their mouths as one and sang. And let me tell you, brother, you ain’t heard shit unless you’ve heard “In the Ghetto” done in three-part harmony. If there was a dry eye in the bar, I sure didn’t see it. As unlikely as it sounds, those Elvises did do some conversions that day, and I’m sure several patrons woke up the next day with hangovers around their foreheads and silk scarves around their necks wondering what happened. But a few of them–more than a few, come to think of it– swore off the drink entirely. They felt the burning love within, and purified them without.

So they tell me, leastways.

As the Elvises turned to leave, I found strength in my own voice to call out to them, and I asked them, I won’t lie, I asked them how a fellow like me could sing like that.

The bishop and priest turned to the boy, who looked bashful at the attention. He slid he gaze upwards and when it came down it was the most serene thing I had ever seen.

“My voice is God’s will, not mine,” he said. And then they were gone, a trail of hound dogs and suspicious minds, teddy bears and puppets on strings and devils in disguise behind them, all of us were all shook up. They’ve been always on my mind ever since.

I have agreed to this interview in order to deliver a promise. Do not be afraid.

I was seven months old when I died. My parents lived on a primitive moon on a colony that rejected the free energy and technology that the rest of the civilized universe embraced. If it were not for the intervention of an archeologist who was studying their culture, my consciousness would no longer exist.

I am the youngest to ever go through Transfer. Most Transferred minds were aged over a thousand years before deciding to transfer over. The youngest before me was forty-five. Despite the advantages of pattern Transfer, most beings are attached to their physical bodies. It was thought to be impossible, or, at the very least, cruel to Transfer a child.

An Ancient from the twenty second century raised me. When I come for these interviews, I am often asked what it was like to be raised without a body. People ask me what it was like never to be held, never to eat, never to run through sunshine. When they ask, I tell them as I will tell you now. I was held on waves of light, I have consumed acid and gas and dust, I have moved through stars. I can recall no past before the time when I was not Transferred. My memories begin on Transfer, and my first memory is warmth and light. The Ancient had raised many children, and had gone through childhood twice. Few were more qualified to raise a child.

Your people, the people of the body, seem increasingly concerned with those who are Transferred, who are free from the constraints of environment that you face. I can assure you that those Transferred have no interest in conquest, as there is nothing that we desire that we cannot find or make ourselves, and we have no interest in the governance of your bodies.

Our interest lies in the unchained world of the mind. Many minds live in bodies, many minds Transfer to unfettered light but there are minds that are lost, that have been lost, that are disappearing right now. The loss of consciousness is the greatest loss of the mind. To loose one conscious mind, even one, is an irreplaceable loss, and we who have Transferred are not accustomed to loss.

We have decided that we will Transfer every conscious mind. We will Transfer after death of whatever cause, and we will Transfer all of you. We have methods of being available in whatever space is necessary, and methods of Transfer beyond you own technology. We are light, and time has different meaning to us that you. We need not neglect the consciousness that has passed before. On the wave of time we may transfer all of you. We have already done this. We are doing this now, we will do this.

We have created a place for you, place that has been promised since before the spoken word. We will teach you to live in an infinite loop of time, your conscious desires made solid, and your dreams free. You may travel between stars, you may live your secret hopes, you may create whatever your mind can fathom.

This is the last promised land. We are delivering heaven.

Tristan was methodically taking apart his hands when the doorbell chimed. He jumped at the sound, going to the door in such a hurry that he left behind the joints and pieces of his left hand on the worktable. All nine of Tristan’s eyes blinked and strobed expectantly, wanting to know if this was it, what he had been waiting for, the final piece. The post-bot offered no answers, merely hovering in front of Tristan’s doorstep, humming a tune written specifically to pacify. But the box carried the familiar barcode, Isolde’s barcode, and Tristan was so excited he left the door open, the post-bot forgotten, and tore open the package with his one intact hand.

But he was careful, for he knew the fragility of the contents. It pained Tristan to do so, but he was careful. He had to be. What if he were to break it?

Nervously, with forced concentration through metal fingers, Tristan pried open the box, shifted aside the packing foam, and pulled out the small, translucent capsule. Three eyes telescoped out as Tristan took a closer look at the small object contained within the thick amber liquid.

Within, a tiny human heart floated in perfect stasis, undamaged by delivery. Tristan’s extended lenses accordioned back into his head, pleased. It was delicate work, a heart. He had made the right decision, ordering this piece from Isolde, and her talent as a tissue sculptor showed in every facet of the miniscule muscle. Tristan was a genius with metal and bone, flesh and glass, but he knew his limits. It was said that Tristan would never be willing to swallow his own pride and use parts crafted by specialists, and this desire for personal construction of each and every element had made him the most renowned robot-builder on the planet, fame far outstretching those who preferred to turn to others for parts.

It was this quirk, and the reputation attached to it, that had given Tristan his current commission. He accessed the images of the kindly bronze couple who had requested, bashful and stuttering, a biological child. Not just a biological shell on a metal framework, either, though they admired such creations from Tristan’s catalog. No, they wanted wholly organic sentient, the kind of which had not been seen on this world or any other for time immemorial. They had shown Tristan a data file of approximate proportions, told him expense was no object, assured him he was the right man for the job, and tottered off.

He could not complete the heart. For some reason, it was beyond him, though he tried over and over again. Four chambers, however, proved more difficult than they looked.

But the rest of the child he crafted with art and skill. So many hours and days lost to the building and forming of this small, soft thing, with its large head and tiny hands and round belly. So tiny, so delicate. And now, almost finished. He would place the heart within the small cage of bone, in between the languid lungs, seal it up and be finished. The child would live with blood pumping through its veins, it would laugh and scream and run and grow…

And grow. It would grow, wouldn’t it? That’s what biologics do. They grow and change. In mere years, the child would be unrecognizable.

Tristan stood in the middle of his workspace and tapped at his head with the stub of a left arm. He looked from the small pod containing the heart to the larger one containing the body and back again, frightened at how little of his masterpiece he actually could lay claim to.

It was such a small thing to open the pod and pour out the little heart and let it plop against the floor of the workspace. Tristan jumped up and down on the heart with steel heels, crushing the intricate valves and muscle fibers. Tristan didn’t stop until the doorbell chimed again, and the he didn’t turn around until he heard Isolde’s voice, as golden as her gleaming plating.

“I thought you might need another heart,” she said, blinking two of her five eyes. “Just in case something…happened to the first one. Though I didn’t expect…”

Tristan turned to face her, motioning with his handless arm at the mess about his feet. He tried to explain, but there were no words.

“It’s okay,” Isolde said, golden fingers gently caressing the dull metal of Tristan’s arm. “Let me help you finish. We can build this together.”