Introduction: In 2010, I completed a work, in screenplay format, of which I was very proud. This story, which I called 'A Body of Wings' was submitted as my undergraduate dissertation and helped me to graduate within the top 11% of students in the UK. In fact, a copy of the manuscript was actually kept in the Southampton Solent University library as a reference for future students to use. I am extremely proud of that fact.
Anyway, 'A Body of Wings' was eventually published online (via a blog site that I have since taken down) and actually got a pretty positive response from those that read it. So positive, in fact, that I decided to write a sequel, this time in prose. I began preliminary planning/character outlines in 2011-12. In late 2012, I found a site that paid handsomely for serial fiction and submitted a sample chapter to them, hoping to get paid to complete the next part of my mammoth story cycle. Of course, it was rejected (which, considering the quality of writing on the site, was rather surprising). However, I continued to develop the story and the characters, safe in the knowledge that, one day, come Hell or high water, I would complete the story.
I have been tinkering with it, on and off, ever since.
Now, I have banded together with a talented group of young writers and joined a website that I feel is the proper home for this particular story. The first instalment (probably a second prologue), should be available from early October. Here, then, is the first prologue to my story, published for the first ever time (outside of my Facebook page). I really hope you like it enough to check out the rest of the story, which will be published monthly, in bitesize chunks, from next month and onwards into the foreseeable future. CQ
The dark room burned all around her, but the flames didn’t hurt.
Red.
The thick, centuries-old cobwebs clung desperately to the cave walls even as the harsh flames weighed them down. Her own etchings on the stone borders of the cave were lost in plumes of grey smoke. The few possessions she had were becoming engulfed by hungry fire. The air was heavy and dense. Her eyes were watering. Ariadne was blind to the physical world, but these flames represented something she could see, a fire of the mind. She didn’t know it yet, but it was this fire that would leave nothing but ashes of tomorrow.
Blue.
The orange flames flickered and bit the air around them, like an untamed animal gorging itself in a frenzy of destruction. Then, without warning, the flames turned from orangey-red to a deep, electric blue, rising towards her bedsheets and licking at her exposed feet with mercurial cold fury. She glanced at the far wall, the eight sided star engraved into the rock by her mother was untouched by the fire. In fact, it seemed to be illuminated by these freezing flames. To her right, her teddy bear, ‘Baldy’ (so named by her Dad because he had no fur) was being reduced to smoke and soot and the walls of her room were becoming blackened and darker. There could be no escape now. Everything around her was being engulfed, swallowed whole.
Black.
Suddenly, without warning, the flames swallowed her up as well, covering her brittle young body like a shroud. The fire began turning from icy blue to an inescapable, oily black. In less than a heart skip, the flames were as dark as the night outside. As the hot, dense oblivion swirled all around, Ariadne instinctively held up her hands and tried to scream. The black flames formed a dark cocoon around her and she sank deeper and deeper into a shadowy death.
There was nothing.
Endless.
Hopeless.
Agonizing.
Nothing.
‘We are all going to die and nobody can save us’ she realized.
Ariadne gasped, but no air came.
White.
So white, in fact, that if the flames weren’t so hot, she would have thought it was snowing. The dazzling white flames caressed the air, their edges burning a brilliant gold and shining like nothing ever shined before.
That’s when she saw it, all three sides of the Phoenix, but brought together as one. The great bird shrieked when it saw her and then, before she could blink, the goddess emerged from its flaming feathers.
The feathers burned around the naked Goddess, but she did not react. A prism of light ignited behind her as the spectral fire raged.
“Do not be afraid,” she said, running two slender fingers across her bald, brown head. “I am, as ever I have been, proud of all children. Especially him.” She smiled serenely, giggled, then turned away and walked towards the light.
Then, without warning, Ariadne found herself tied to a stone slab, naked and cold. Her legs were tied together and her wrists were bound above her head. Dwarfish creatures crowded around her, speaking in a strange, stunted language of growls, low whistles and clicks.
Their calloused fingers prodded and poked her supple body and from their mouths shot long, proboscis-like tongues. Their breath was hot on her face and stomach. Every one of them walked bow legged and they swung their long arms in an ape-like fashion. They smelled of wet soil.
Ariadne wanted to cry but the tears would not come. She wanted to scream but no sound escaped her throat.
The largest one whistled shrilly and the others fell silent. It looked at her with eight small, pointed spider’s eyes, each as black as midnight’s dread silence. Then it whistled again and the room full of round, blank, expressionless eyes blinked in unison.
The machine announced its entrance into the room with a puff of thick grey smoke. A word shot across her mind’s field of vision.
‘SURGERY’
Cogs and gears moved in a rusted, creaky symphony. An old motor roared to life with a deafening howl. Wet smoke shrouded the big metal box and ash from the fumes flaked upon her exposed skin. With her blood rushing cold and a slow loss of feeling in her lower body, Ariadne realized that when this Godless procedure was completed, she would no longer be a Human being.
“We will change you,” a stream of words said.
“We will forge you in fire”
Click.
“I am everyone now” came the voice, as the shining, silver Woman in the doorway spoke. “Do not be afraid. I am proud of all my children. Especially you.” Ariadne screamed as the first of the needles pierced her sightless eyes.
Growl.
Benjamin rushed into the room holding a potato light and hastily pulling his robes over his boxer shorts. The room was dark and cold again. There were no oily little hands around her, no serenely smiling Goddesses and no flames choking the life from her helpless young body.
Ariadne followed the sound of her older brother’s voice as it bounced off the cave walls. She was blind once again.
“Arrie? Are you OK?” he asked, his voice trembling slightly.
Ariadne did her best to slow her breathing, but it was difficult.
“I am alright,” she said, managing a weak smile for her brother’s benefit.
“What is it? What did you see?” Benjamin asked, voice still trembling.
“I...Its nothing”
“Arrie? You have to tell me”
“I don’t have to do anything of the sort!” she shot back, folding her arms somewhat haughtily. Ariadne knew that in the morning Oberon would question her and go over and over the minutiae of her nightmare until she was completely sick and thoroughly tired of re-living the experience. She had no desire to begin this practice any earlier than necessary.
“Its...I’m fine, please go to bed, Ben” she managed.
“If you’re sure,” he said. “I could stay with you, maybe bring a book, heat up some chocolate...”
Ariadne smiled “no, thank you” she said.
“Suit yourself,” he said with a smile. His voice always sounded different when he smiled.
As her brother’s footsteps echoed down the long, narrow passageway, Ariadne thought about the vision. Those small creatures and their machine had chilled her to her very bones.
It was the worst dream she had experienced since the virus that had claimed her mother’s life had whispered to her in the night, gloating of its cruel success in consuming her and countless others. Still, while she was mostly certain that the latter was a just a vivid nightmare and nothing more, this was something different. Ariadne was the last seer left in the world and she knew a vision of the future when she had experienced one.
In a funny way, the darkness comforted her. When she couldn’t see anything, she knew she was awake. Which was why the small creature with eight spidery eyes and long, probing fingers that was still standing in the doorway of her room scared her so much.
It put a finger to its moist, amphibious lips and made a ‘Shhh’ sound. Ariadne dived under the covers as the whistles and clicks began filling the darkness once again. This was no dream, this was...
...Surgery.
“We are building you from your dreams” a word-stream said.
“You will be re-purposed. Inside and out”
Whistle.
Ariadne felt a weight settle at the foot of her bed. She pulled the animal pelt covers away from her face. She could see nothing, but her mother’s voice spoke softly. It was that silly old rhyme she always used to say.
“When the red flame burns, the blue flame conceals. While the black flame kills, the white flame reveals”
“We will take away your heart and put the fire in its place” Her mother’s voice, now cold and guttural, said.
“I am proud of all my children”
“Do not be afraid”
The covers were pulled out of her sweaty grip by the dwarfish, now invisible hands. Hot breath coated her face and the shallow breathing of the lead dwarf boomed in her ears. She could feel the moisture from its tongue as it flicked and tasted the air around it.
“That’s all for tonight. You can scream now,” her mother’s voice said.
She did.
Benjamin poured hot cocoa into her mug. His sister couldn’t read the ‘World’s Best Dad’ slogan on the side, which was just as well, as mugs were in short supply in the Last Village. He sat on the side of her bed and handed the steaming mug to his little sister.
“Y’know, Mum used to have nightmares too” he said after a small silence.
“I know”
Benjamin paused.
“Not everything you see in your sleep is going to happen, Arrie. Only some of it. You know that”
“I do. That’s the problem.” She countered sadly.
“Look, tomorrow we’ll talk to Oberon. I’m sure the Book of Songs will hold the answers,” he said with a smile. He stuttered slightly, as he always did when he lied.
“Uh huh” she lied back.
Benjamin’s chocolate rations were certainly used up entirely by now, as a mug of cocoa was his solution to just about everything (and the visions had been especially bad lately). He must have been trading with someone. Ariadne wondered what prize possession her brother was sacrificing, just so he could make her feel a little better on nights like this. Ben and Arrie’s Dad used to make them hot cocoa before bed and Benjamin seemed to be trying very hard to do everything exactly like Dad would have done.
At last, the images began to fade away and Ariadne had just about convinced herself that they were merely dreams, but the night was a long one and she found herself spending most of it staring at a doorway she couldn’t actually see.
Half a world away, a similar event was occurring.
“Tea?”
“Yes, Chloe, thank you”
“Shall I turn on the lights?”
“I suppose you could.”
With a static flicker, the pale greenish lights illuminated the room. Singe squinted. He ran his gloved fingers through his white hair, pulled his goggles down over his eyes and continued his work. He was used to working in the dark. Lights attracted The Hoard to the place more than anything else, so it made good sense to become accustomed to the gloom.
The room had the feel of a classical gentleman’s house, largely because that is exactly what it had been for over three hundred years. It was lined with fine carpets, upon which stood exquisite antique furniture and it looked every bit the home of a respectable businessman. Except that the main drawing room, a barn-sized hall with high ceilings and a large, ornate fireplace, had been converted to a sort of indoor junkyard. It was full of twisted metal, discarded cogs and half-working machines of all kinds. Many of which were abandoned projects rendered incomplete by a lack of available materials. Huge oil portraits lined the walls. They were exquisitely rendered images of people whom Singe had never met. However, he felt it proper to keep the pictures up, as this place was the last little corner of the once proud floating city that he and Chloe had originated from. This is where Singe had spent every day for the past eleven years.
Besides the stale, electric light that flickered around them, the only real light source came from the large fireplace, which Singe used for the forging of various metals. He kept an oil fire burning in the forge, which covered most of the workshop in a thick, tar like haze. It was unpleasant, but preferential to freezing to death. Even with the fire’s warmth, Singe still wore a long brown coat and thick leather gloves nearly all the time.
The Hoard had a great fear of fire - and as long as the forge burned, Singe and Chloe could sleep relatively safely. To this end, several heat-sensitive sensors motored the fire, and if it dropped below a certain level, an alarm would sound and Singe would get out of bed to re start the fire. Of course, Chloe usually got there first. She only ever feigned sleep and was always ready to serve, whether he wanted her to or not.
Chloe returned and placed an elaborately decorated silver tray on the work surface in front of him. Upon the tray rested a china teapot, a small milk jug and a glass bowl filled with brown sugar cubes. Next to that was an empty cup of elegant design. Chloe’s mechanical hand clasped a pair of small silver tongs and she dutifully used them to plop two symmetrical cubes into the cup. They echoed slightly as they connected with the fine bone china, creating a low ringing sound.
Singe did not stare at her pouting, curvaceous figure as she bent forward. A strange part of him wanted to, but he never would. He never let himself. She was designed to appeal to Men of any age, her body was exquisite and he couldn’t help but notice it from time to time, a fact that made him extremely uncomfortable with himself.
“Chloe, I trust you. You don’t need to make the tea in front of me,” said Singe quietly, as the female form shimmied towards the fireplace to collect the water pot.
“I must. I must never prepare food or drink alone. I must always be supervised” She retorted, clearly repeating some piece of information she had been programmed with.
“Well, I don’t care to supervise you, Chloe”
Chloe smiled “what would you care to do?” she purred lustfully.
Singe didn’t look up, “work” he said coldly, before adding, “...And keep working until I can finish this confounded project”.
Chloe seemed strangely hurt while Singe pretended not to notice. He was an older man, formerly a married one at that, and told himself that he had no interest in Chloe’s pre-programmed advances.
“And put on some damned clothes, would you?” he said curtly. “You’re making me feel cold.”
Chloe walked away, making small, sad, ballerina steps, her head hung low. Perhaps the sadness was...
No, that was a trick. It was a programmed request for comfort, nothing more. He silently admonished himself for forgetting how sophisticated Chloe’s base programming actually was. She could anticipate the desires, preferences and basic psychological needs of well over 10,000 different psych profiles. He was not egotistical enough to assume that his own mind was that far removed from the sort of men who once...Used her.
He had activated Chloe one year earlier and since then had fended off her advances more than a few times. He told himself that she was not of sound mind, even though, after eleven years alone, he craved the comfort of a Woman’s presence if nothing else.
Chloe emerged from the large double doors. She was now wearing a formal ballroom gown, one of the many that once belonged to the Lady of the manor. The orange flicker of the fireplace highlighted her hips and neckline, whilst hiding the plastic seams in her faux skin. In her own way, she really was beautiful, but it was a tragic kind of beauty.
“What should I do?” she asked, cocking her head to one side, inquisitively.
“I don’t know...Read a book” he said glumly, trying to focus once more on his work.
Chloe poured the tea into the mug carefully, pausing mid pour to smile sweetly at him.
Singe was busily attempting to repair the weapons systems of his makeshift home, as a violent storm had knocked them out the night before. A night without weapons in Hoard Country is a long and sleepless one and he was not eager to repeat the experience.
Truly, the bane of the man’s existence was the regular repairs that he and Chloe had to carry out. If it weren’t for the constant maintenance requirements of their home, he could get on with his main invention, his magnum opus; the invention that could eventually save the world. One day, Chloe would be able to handle the day-to-day tasks. He would teach her, like he once taught his students, but she was not ready, not yet.
“What book should I read?” she asked as she sat in the chair and crossed her slender legs.
“Did you do ‘Basic Engineering’ yet?”
“Yes”
“Did you do ‘Advanced Mechanics’ then?”
“Yes”
“OK. Go through pages 1 – 100 of my notes on motion sensors. You’ll be tested in the morning”
“Of course I will”
Chloe stood up and walked towards the bookshelf. She began scanning for the required literature with lifeless, analytical eyes.
Singe relented with a forced sigh. “Actually Chloe...” he said, “forget tomorrow’s test. Forget Mechanics. Forget all of it. What would you like to read?”
“Perhaps you can read aloud to me from one of the great poets and we can gaze up at the moon together?” She said.
“No. That’s what I like to do. That’s what I used to do...with Cassandra, my wife. What do you want to do?”
How did she know about the poetry? Was it a lucky guess, or something more? Perhaps she had already profiled him and was attempting to seduce him again? He pushed the thought from his mind with as much mental strength as he could muster.
He pictured Cassandra, the way her hair looked as it fell down to her shoulders, the slow, demure smile she gave him when he made a bad joke. He pictured the way she would wake up in bed, find that he had disappeared to his workshop and go to get him, always patient, always loving. She would stand in the doorway of his workshop, her hands placed coyly on her hips in mock aggression and say “let’s get you into bed”. Of course he’d wait for her to sleep and then be working an hour or so later, but that really wasn’t the point.
“How about I...”
“No, Chloe. Don’t ask me. Read something you are interested in. Just pick something and read it. What do you enjoy? Choose something fictional for a change.”
“I must not” she said automatically, “I must only...”
This time, he cut her off.
“Chloe. Let me explain this to you again. Everybody is dead. The City of the Fates is Dead. The men who created you are dead. Try to remember who you were, before you became an Exxo. The chance is yours to live again. Take it, Chloe. Take it. Please.”
“You seem tense. Why don’t I rub your back?” she said, moving towards the man with a studied smile and a raised eyebrow. Singe sighed deeply. He knew this persistence was designed to wear down potential clients, the shy ones, or the ones who liked to feel wanted. It was that same greedy, unscrupulous programming that caused her to pick up certain canned goods from the kitchen supplies and ‘recommend’ them as her favourites.
“Read ‘A Play About Empire’ By Dmitrius” Singe said decidedly, “He was the last great Roman scholar. Maybe it will give you some perspective. You know I heard it was performed as the fires claimed the Holy City of Rome a hundred years ago. Perhaps it will awaken something within you.”
Dutifully, Chloe picked up the book and sat in the large, quilted armchair. Singe slouched a little and let his gaze hit the oil stained carpet at his feet. “If ever there was a reason for mankind to deserve his ignominious fate, that Woman personifies it,” he said quietly to himself.
An Exxo, short for ‘exoskeleton’, was an invention of some disgusting pervert somewhere in Rome’s twisted laboratories, before the fall. Before they were created, the debates were rife in the City of Fates. The floating city was at loggerheads for years over the passing of that particular law.
These debates centred upon whether or not brain-dead hospital patients should be subject to euthanasia. Eventually, in order to ‘aid scientific development’ the spinal columns and brains of these unfortunates were removed, specially augmented and placed within complex artificial bodies. The story was that while the consciousness could never be recovered, the organic matter could be recycled into something more useful.
Slaves.
And there were rumours. Rumours that not all the Exxos had begun life as unfortunate accidents.
Finally, science had developed its golem, a mechanical creature that could imitate Humankind. Once they were activated, some of these wretched souls were used as prostitutes, street walking artificial toys programmed only to satisfy the twisted pleasures of other people.
During the fall of the city, Singe had rescued one of these Exxos, who had been terribly badly damaged, and, over the next decade had re-built her from parts of his own design. It had taken over five years just to salvage the parts needed for her arms and legs. Although he identified her as Female, Chloe actually had no sexual organs to speak of and would be completely incapable of accomplishing at least half of the things she regularly suggested.
Singe wanted to bring the person inside Chloe back more than anything in the world. In her he saw mankind’s potential redemption. If he could bring out the Humanity that he sometimes saw lingering at the corners of her eyes, he could go to his grave a happy man. If he could but grant this poor soul her freedom, then even when the fire burned down to cinders and the ravenous mouths of The Hoard finally came for him, he would die a contented man.
An act of kindness, no matter how small, could contribute to the redemption of an entire people. Singe believed this more than any other thing he’d ever been told.
The inventor had learned long ago that it was unproductive to dwell on subjects that disturbed him. The problem was that he had never learned exactly how to do it. He sat up in his chair and worked some more on his drawings. In many ways, he was designing the world’s largest defibrillator, but the person that needed saving was possibly beyond help. Chloe, however, was not and, if he could save her poor, extinguished soul, then perhaps he could also save the world.
“Chloe...I’m sorry I got angry” he began as he glanced over in the direction of her chair, but the artificial Woman was gone and the book she was reading had been abandoned haphazardly on the floor beside it.
“Chloe?” he called “Chloe, where are you?”
Grumbling, Singe pulled himself up and headed through the corridor towards the bedroom. He flicked on a low light and immediately wished he hadn’t. The chest was open and its contents had been strewn across the floor. That chest contained the last of his Wife’s possessions...Except the pendant he always wore around his neck.
That chest was never to be touched by anybody but him and now here were Cassandra’s tights, dresses, perfume and favourite photographs spread out on the floor, like so much waste.
“Chloe! Are you responsible for this?” he shouted angrily. “Chloe!? Answer me damnit!”
“Don’t call me Chloe, David”. The voice cut through the night like cold steel.
The figure that appeared in the room filled him with an odd mixture of dread and rage. His heart skipped a beat and he gulped loudly.
The moon shone like a beacon. Just like the nights he and Cassandra had shared.
“Tonight, just for tonight...Let me be Cassandra,” said the Exxo, as she slid towards the other side of the four-poster bed. The older man’s blood ran cold.
She had changed her hair colour and was wearing a bizarre combination of his dead wife’s clothes and perfume. She was grinning oddly, as his wife’s red lipstick was splattered across Chloe’s artificial face and her left eye was twitching wildly. Her mismatched hands were placed at her hips. She looked just like Cassandra’s frozen corpse had.
Except for that smile.
“Come on David, let’s get you into bed”
She not only looked like Cassandra, she sounded like her too.
“You’ve been reading my journals!” he cried in shock. “Stop this! Stop this at once, Chloe!”
“Come on, David. I just want to make you haaaapppppy” she slurred, without fully moving her lips.
“HOW DARE YOU!?” he screamed, so emotional he could barely breathe.
“HOW DARE YOU DO THIS TO MY WIFE!?”
“Be happy, David” Chloe smiled, “be happy. Let’s get you into bed now”
Singe lunged across the room and grabbed her hair, she reflexively stepped backwards and he threw her roughly to the bed. A handful of fibre optic hair follicles came away in his clenched fist. He pulled at his wife’s dress. They tumbled off of the bed and onto the floor below.
He felt hard metal on his fist the first time he hit her, the next four times; he felt nothing but a dull squelch.
THUD.
THUD.
THUD.
THUD.
Chloe slumped to the floor as Singe kneeled over her broken body. His glove was filled with blood and there was a dull ache throughout him. He looked down at the shivering silver mess before him, her mangled body emblazoned helplessly in the moonlight.
The parts of her makeshift form that were flesh were bruising and bleeding, yet another response designed to titillate the cruel desires that some potential ‘customers’ might have had.
The heated passion had subsided, leaving two aching, vulnerable souls completely exposed to each other. In this way, Singe thought darkly, Chloe had gotten exactly what she wanted.
She said nothing, just simulated a sort of panting.
Singe knew that Chloe felt no pain. But that wasn’t the point at all.
Chloe’s neck was twisted and her face was bruised.
“Sorry Singe” she said quietly. “I only wanted you to be happy”
“Chloe I...I’m so sorry”
Singe choked. He felt like he was going to be sick.
Then he picked the artificial Woman’s head from the floor and held her to his chest. He wept uncontrollably, cradling the Exxo in his arms and rocking from side to side, a lonely soul at its wit’s end.
“I’m so sorry!” he cried out, his whole being convulsing in grief. As the hot, salty tears flowed freely down his face, he held the Woman tighter than tight. He shook with emotion as he held his beaten friend and companion, then he cried out, his wavering shriek a sum of all the pain contained within a calloused and beaten heart.
What Singe didn’t see is that, from the corner of her still twitching left eye, Chloe was crying as well.
Anyway, 'A Body of Wings' was eventually published online (via a blog site that I have since taken down) and actually got a pretty positive response from those that read it. So positive, in fact, that I decided to write a sequel, this time in prose. I began preliminary planning/character outlines in 2011-12. In late 2012, I found a site that paid handsomely for serial fiction and submitted a sample chapter to them, hoping to get paid to complete the next part of my mammoth story cycle. Of course, it was rejected (which, considering the quality of writing on the site, was rather surprising). However, I continued to develop the story and the characters, safe in the knowledge that, one day, come Hell or high water, I would complete the story.
I have been tinkering with it, on and off, ever since.
Now, I have banded together with a talented group of young writers and joined a website that I feel is the proper home for this particular story. The first instalment (probably a second prologue), should be available from early October. Here, then, is the first prologue to my story, published for the first ever time (outside of my Facebook page). I really hope you like it enough to check out the rest of the story, which will be published monthly, in bitesize chunks, from next month and onwards into the foreseeable future. CQ
The dark room burned all around her, but the flames didn’t hurt.
Red.
The thick, centuries-old cobwebs clung desperately to the cave walls even as the harsh flames weighed them down. Her own etchings on the stone borders of the cave were lost in plumes of grey smoke. The few possessions she had were becoming engulfed by hungry fire. The air was heavy and dense. Her eyes were watering. Ariadne was blind to the physical world, but these flames represented something she could see, a fire of the mind. She didn’t know it yet, but it was this fire that would leave nothing but ashes of tomorrow.
Blue.
The orange flames flickered and bit the air around them, like an untamed animal gorging itself in a frenzy of destruction. Then, without warning, the flames turned from orangey-red to a deep, electric blue, rising towards her bedsheets and licking at her exposed feet with mercurial cold fury. She glanced at the far wall, the eight sided star engraved into the rock by her mother was untouched by the fire. In fact, it seemed to be illuminated by these freezing flames. To her right, her teddy bear, ‘Baldy’ (so named by her Dad because he had no fur) was being reduced to smoke and soot and the walls of her room were becoming blackened and darker. There could be no escape now. Everything around her was being engulfed, swallowed whole.
Black.
Suddenly, without warning, the flames swallowed her up as well, covering her brittle young body like a shroud. The fire began turning from icy blue to an inescapable, oily black. In less than a heart skip, the flames were as dark as the night outside. As the hot, dense oblivion swirled all around, Ariadne instinctively held up her hands and tried to scream. The black flames formed a dark cocoon around her and she sank deeper and deeper into a shadowy death.
There was nothing.
Endless.
Hopeless.
Agonizing.
Nothing.
‘We are all going to die and nobody can save us’ she realized.
Ariadne gasped, but no air came.
White.
So white, in fact, that if the flames weren’t so hot, she would have thought it was snowing. The dazzling white flames caressed the air, their edges burning a brilliant gold and shining like nothing ever shined before.
That’s when she saw it, all three sides of the Phoenix, but brought together as one. The great bird shrieked when it saw her and then, before she could blink, the goddess emerged from its flaming feathers.
The feathers burned around the naked Goddess, but she did not react. A prism of light ignited behind her as the spectral fire raged.
“Do not be afraid,” she said, running two slender fingers across her bald, brown head. “I am, as ever I have been, proud of all children. Especially him.” She smiled serenely, giggled, then turned away and walked towards the light.
Then, without warning, Ariadne found herself tied to a stone slab, naked and cold. Her legs were tied together and her wrists were bound above her head. Dwarfish creatures crowded around her, speaking in a strange, stunted language of growls, low whistles and clicks.
Their calloused fingers prodded and poked her supple body and from their mouths shot long, proboscis-like tongues. Their breath was hot on her face and stomach. Every one of them walked bow legged and they swung their long arms in an ape-like fashion. They smelled of wet soil.
Ariadne wanted to cry but the tears would not come. She wanted to scream but no sound escaped her throat.
The largest one whistled shrilly and the others fell silent. It looked at her with eight small, pointed spider’s eyes, each as black as midnight’s dread silence. Then it whistled again and the room full of round, blank, expressionless eyes blinked in unison.
The machine announced its entrance into the room with a puff of thick grey smoke. A word shot across her mind’s field of vision.
‘SURGERY’
Cogs and gears moved in a rusted, creaky symphony. An old motor roared to life with a deafening howl. Wet smoke shrouded the big metal box and ash from the fumes flaked upon her exposed skin. With her blood rushing cold and a slow loss of feeling in her lower body, Ariadne realized that when this Godless procedure was completed, she would no longer be a Human being.
“We will change you,” a stream of words said.
“We will forge you in fire”
Click.
“I am everyone now” came the voice, as the shining, silver Woman in the doorway spoke. “Do not be afraid. I am proud of all my children. Especially you.” Ariadne screamed as the first of the needles pierced her sightless eyes.
Growl.
Benjamin rushed into the room holding a potato light and hastily pulling his robes over his boxer shorts. The room was dark and cold again. There were no oily little hands around her, no serenely smiling Goddesses and no flames choking the life from her helpless young body.
Ariadne followed the sound of her older brother’s voice as it bounced off the cave walls. She was blind once again.
“Arrie? Are you OK?” he asked, his voice trembling slightly.
Ariadne did her best to slow her breathing, but it was difficult.
“I am alright,” she said, managing a weak smile for her brother’s benefit.
“What is it? What did you see?” Benjamin asked, voice still trembling.
“I...Its nothing”
“Arrie? You have to tell me”
“I don’t have to do anything of the sort!” she shot back, folding her arms somewhat haughtily. Ariadne knew that in the morning Oberon would question her and go over and over the minutiae of her nightmare until she was completely sick and thoroughly tired of re-living the experience. She had no desire to begin this practice any earlier than necessary.
“Its...I’m fine, please go to bed, Ben” she managed.
“If you’re sure,” he said. “I could stay with you, maybe bring a book, heat up some chocolate...”
Ariadne smiled “no, thank you” she said.
“Suit yourself,” he said with a smile. His voice always sounded different when he smiled.
As her brother’s footsteps echoed down the long, narrow passageway, Ariadne thought about the vision. Those small creatures and their machine had chilled her to her very bones.
It was the worst dream she had experienced since the virus that had claimed her mother’s life had whispered to her in the night, gloating of its cruel success in consuming her and countless others. Still, while she was mostly certain that the latter was a just a vivid nightmare and nothing more, this was something different. Ariadne was the last seer left in the world and she knew a vision of the future when she had experienced one.
In a funny way, the darkness comforted her. When she couldn’t see anything, she knew she was awake. Which was why the small creature with eight spidery eyes and long, probing fingers that was still standing in the doorway of her room scared her so much.
It put a finger to its moist, amphibious lips and made a ‘Shhh’ sound. Ariadne dived under the covers as the whistles and clicks began filling the darkness once again. This was no dream, this was...
...Surgery.
“We are building you from your dreams” a word-stream said.
“You will be re-purposed. Inside and out”
Whistle.
Ariadne felt a weight settle at the foot of her bed. She pulled the animal pelt covers away from her face. She could see nothing, but her mother’s voice spoke softly. It was that silly old rhyme she always used to say.
“When the red flame burns, the blue flame conceals. While the black flame kills, the white flame reveals”
“We will take away your heart and put the fire in its place” Her mother’s voice, now cold and guttural, said.
“I am proud of all my children”
“Do not be afraid”
The covers were pulled out of her sweaty grip by the dwarfish, now invisible hands. Hot breath coated her face and the shallow breathing of the lead dwarf boomed in her ears. She could feel the moisture from its tongue as it flicked and tasted the air around it.
“That’s all for tonight. You can scream now,” her mother’s voice said.
She did.
Benjamin poured hot cocoa into her mug. His sister couldn’t read the ‘World’s Best Dad’ slogan on the side, which was just as well, as mugs were in short supply in the Last Village. He sat on the side of her bed and handed the steaming mug to his little sister.
“Y’know, Mum used to have nightmares too” he said after a small silence.
“I know”
Benjamin paused.
“Not everything you see in your sleep is going to happen, Arrie. Only some of it. You know that”
“I do. That’s the problem.” She countered sadly.
“Look, tomorrow we’ll talk to Oberon. I’m sure the Book of Songs will hold the answers,” he said with a smile. He stuttered slightly, as he always did when he lied.
“Uh huh” she lied back.
Benjamin’s chocolate rations were certainly used up entirely by now, as a mug of cocoa was his solution to just about everything (and the visions had been especially bad lately). He must have been trading with someone. Ariadne wondered what prize possession her brother was sacrificing, just so he could make her feel a little better on nights like this. Ben and Arrie’s Dad used to make them hot cocoa before bed and Benjamin seemed to be trying very hard to do everything exactly like Dad would have done.
At last, the images began to fade away and Ariadne had just about convinced herself that they were merely dreams, but the night was a long one and she found herself spending most of it staring at a doorway she couldn’t actually see.
Half a world away, a similar event was occurring.
“Tea?”
“Yes, Chloe, thank you”
“Shall I turn on the lights?”
“I suppose you could.”
With a static flicker, the pale greenish lights illuminated the room. Singe squinted. He ran his gloved fingers through his white hair, pulled his goggles down over his eyes and continued his work. He was used to working in the dark. Lights attracted The Hoard to the place more than anything else, so it made good sense to become accustomed to the gloom.
The room had the feel of a classical gentleman’s house, largely because that is exactly what it had been for over three hundred years. It was lined with fine carpets, upon which stood exquisite antique furniture and it looked every bit the home of a respectable businessman. Except that the main drawing room, a barn-sized hall with high ceilings and a large, ornate fireplace, had been converted to a sort of indoor junkyard. It was full of twisted metal, discarded cogs and half-working machines of all kinds. Many of which were abandoned projects rendered incomplete by a lack of available materials. Huge oil portraits lined the walls. They were exquisitely rendered images of people whom Singe had never met. However, he felt it proper to keep the pictures up, as this place was the last little corner of the once proud floating city that he and Chloe had originated from. This is where Singe had spent every day for the past eleven years.
Besides the stale, electric light that flickered around them, the only real light source came from the large fireplace, which Singe used for the forging of various metals. He kept an oil fire burning in the forge, which covered most of the workshop in a thick, tar like haze. It was unpleasant, but preferential to freezing to death. Even with the fire’s warmth, Singe still wore a long brown coat and thick leather gloves nearly all the time.
The Hoard had a great fear of fire - and as long as the forge burned, Singe and Chloe could sleep relatively safely. To this end, several heat-sensitive sensors motored the fire, and if it dropped below a certain level, an alarm would sound and Singe would get out of bed to re start the fire. Of course, Chloe usually got there first. She only ever feigned sleep and was always ready to serve, whether he wanted her to or not.
Chloe returned and placed an elaborately decorated silver tray on the work surface in front of him. Upon the tray rested a china teapot, a small milk jug and a glass bowl filled with brown sugar cubes. Next to that was an empty cup of elegant design. Chloe’s mechanical hand clasped a pair of small silver tongs and she dutifully used them to plop two symmetrical cubes into the cup. They echoed slightly as they connected with the fine bone china, creating a low ringing sound.
Singe did not stare at her pouting, curvaceous figure as she bent forward. A strange part of him wanted to, but he never would. He never let himself. She was designed to appeal to Men of any age, her body was exquisite and he couldn’t help but notice it from time to time, a fact that made him extremely uncomfortable with himself.
“Chloe, I trust you. You don’t need to make the tea in front of me,” said Singe quietly, as the female form shimmied towards the fireplace to collect the water pot.
“I must. I must never prepare food or drink alone. I must always be supervised” She retorted, clearly repeating some piece of information she had been programmed with.
“Well, I don’t care to supervise you, Chloe”
Chloe smiled “what would you care to do?” she purred lustfully.
Singe didn’t look up, “work” he said coldly, before adding, “...And keep working until I can finish this confounded project”.
Chloe seemed strangely hurt while Singe pretended not to notice. He was an older man, formerly a married one at that, and told himself that he had no interest in Chloe’s pre-programmed advances.
“And put on some damned clothes, would you?” he said curtly. “You’re making me feel cold.”
Chloe walked away, making small, sad, ballerina steps, her head hung low. Perhaps the sadness was...
No, that was a trick. It was a programmed request for comfort, nothing more. He silently admonished himself for forgetting how sophisticated Chloe’s base programming actually was. She could anticipate the desires, preferences and basic psychological needs of well over 10,000 different psych profiles. He was not egotistical enough to assume that his own mind was that far removed from the sort of men who once...Used her.
He had activated Chloe one year earlier and since then had fended off her advances more than a few times. He told himself that she was not of sound mind, even though, after eleven years alone, he craved the comfort of a Woman’s presence if nothing else.
Chloe emerged from the large double doors. She was now wearing a formal ballroom gown, one of the many that once belonged to the Lady of the manor. The orange flicker of the fireplace highlighted her hips and neckline, whilst hiding the plastic seams in her faux skin. In her own way, she really was beautiful, but it was a tragic kind of beauty.
“What should I do?” she asked, cocking her head to one side, inquisitively.
“I don’t know...Read a book” he said glumly, trying to focus once more on his work.
Chloe poured the tea into the mug carefully, pausing mid pour to smile sweetly at him.
Singe was busily attempting to repair the weapons systems of his makeshift home, as a violent storm had knocked them out the night before. A night without weapons in Hoard Country is a long and sleepless one and he was not eager to repeat the experience.
Truly, the bane of the man’s existence was the regular repairs that he and Chloe had to carry out. If it weren’t for the constant maintenance requirements of their home, he could get on with his main invention, his magnum opus; the invention that could eventually save the world. One day, Chloe would be able to handle the day-to-day tasks. He would teach her, like he once taught his students, but she was not ready, not yet.
“What book should I read?” she asked as she sat in the chair and crossed her slender legs.
“Did you do ‘Basic Engineering’ yet?”
“Yes”
“Did you do ‘Advanced Mechanics’ then?”
“Yes”
“OK. Go through pages 1 – 100 of my notes on motion sensors. You’ll be tested in the morning”
“Of course I will”
Chloe stood up and walked towards the bookshelf. She began scanning for the required literature with lifeless, analytical eyes.
Singe relented with a forced sigh. “Actually Chloe...” he said, “forget tomorrow’s test. Forget Mechanics. Forget all of it. What would you like to read?”
“Perhaps you can read aloud to me from one of the great poets and we can gaze up at the moon together?” She said.
“No. That’s what I like to do. That’s what I used to do...with Cassandra, my wife. What do you want to do?”
How did she know about the poetry? Was it a lucky guess, or something more? Perhaps she had already profiled him and was attempting to seduce him again? He pushed the thought from his mind with as much mental strength as he could muster.
He pictured Cassandra, the way her hair looked as it fell down to her shoulders, the slow, demure smile she gave him when he made a bad joke. He pictured the way she would wake up in bed, find that he had disappeared to his workshop and go to get him, always patient, always loving. She would stand in the doorway of his workshop, her hands placed coyly on her hips in mock aggression and say “let’s get you into bed”. Of course he’d wait for her to sleep and then be working an hour or so later, but that really wasn’t the point.
“How about I...”
“No, Chloe. Don’t ask me. Read something you are interested in. Just pick something and read it. What do you enjoy? Choose something fictional for a change.”
“I must not” she said automatically, “I must only...”
This time, he cut her off.
“Chloe. Let me explain this to you again. Everybody is dead. The City of the Fates is Dead. The men who created you are dead. Try to remember who you were, before you became an Exxo. The chance is yours to live again. Take it, Chloe. Take it. Please.”
“You seem tense. Why don’t I rub your back?” she said, moving towards the man with a studied smile and a raised eyebrow. Singe sighed deeply. He knew this persistence was designed to wear down potential clients, the shy ones, or the ones who liked to feel wanted. It was that same greedy, unscrupulous programming that caused her to pick up certain canned goods from the kitchen supplies and ‘recommend’ them as her favourites.
“Read ‘A Play About Empire’ By Dmitrius” Singe said decidedly, “He was the last great Roman scholar. Maybe it will give you some perspective. You know I heard it was performed as the fires claimed the Holy City of Rome a hundred years ago. Perhaps it will awaken something within you.”
Dutifully, Chloe picked up the book and sat in the large, quilted armchair. Singe slouched a little and let his gaze hit the oil stained carpet at his feet. “If ever there was a reason for mankind to deserve his ignominious fate, that Woman personifies it,” he said quietly to himself.
An Exxo, short for ‘exoskeleton’, was an invention of some disgusting pervert somewhere in Rome’s twisted laboratories, before the fall. Before they were created, the debates were rife in the City of Fates. The floating city was at loggerheads for years over the passing of that particular law.
These debates centred upon whether or not brain-dead hospital patients should be subject to euthanasia. Eventually, in order to ‘aid scientific development’ the spinal columns and brains of these unfortunates were removed, specially augmented and placed within complex artificial bodies. The story was that while the consciousness could never be recovered, the organic matter could be recycled into something more useful.
Slaves.
And there were rumours. Rumours that not all the Exxos had begun life as unfortunate accidents.
Finally, science had developed its golem, a mechanical creature that could imitate Humankind. Once they were activated, some of these wretched souls were used as prostitutes, street walking artificial toys programmed only to satisfy the twisted pleasures of other people.
During the fall of the city, Singe had rescued one of these Exxos, who had been terribly badly damaged, and, over the next decade had re-built her from parts of his own design. It had taken over five years just to salvage the parts needed for her arms and legs. Although he identified her as Female, Chloe actually had no sexual organs to speak of and would be completely incapable of accomplishing at least half of the things she regularly suggested.
Singe wanted to bring the person inside Chloe back more than anything in the world. In her he saw mankind’s potential redemption. If he could bring out the Humanity that he sometimes saw lingering at the corners of her eyes, he could go to his grave a happy man. If he could but grant this poor soul her freedom, then even when the fire burned down to cinders and the ravenous mouths of The Hoard finally came for him, he would die a contented man.
An act of kindness, no matter how small, could contribute to the redemption of an entire people. Singe believed this more than any other thing he’d ever been told.
The inventor had learned long ago that it was unproductive to dwell on subjects that disturbed him. The problem was that he had never learned exactly how to do it. He sat up in his chair and worked some more on his drawings. In many ways, he was designing the world’s largest defibrillator, but the person that needed saving was possibly beyond help. Chloe, however, was not and, if he could save her poor, extinguished soul, then perhaps he could also save the world.
“Chloe...I’m sorry I got angry” he began as he glanced over in the direction of her chair, but the artificial Woman was gone and the book she was reading had been abandoned haphazardly on the floor beside it.
“Chloe?” he called “Chloe, where are you?”
Grumbling, Singe pulled himself up and headed through the corridor towards the bedroom. He flicked on a low light and immediately wished he hadn’t. The chest was open and its contents had been strewn across the floor. That chest contained the last of his Wife’s possessions...Except the pendant he always wore around his neck.
That chest was never to be touched by anybody but him and now here were Cassandra’s tights, dresses, perfume and favourite photographs spread out on the floor, like so much waste.
“Chloe! Are you responsible for this?” he shouted angrily. “Chloe!? Answer me damnit!”
“Don’t call me Chloe, David”. The voice cut through the night like cold steel.
The figure that appeared in the room filled him with an odd mixture of dread and rage. His heart skipped a beat and he gulped loudly.
The moon shone like a beacon. Just like the nights he and Cassandra had shared.
“Tonight, just for tonight...Let me be Cassandra,” said the Exxo, as she slid towards the other side of the four-poster bed. The older man’s blood ran cold.
She had changed her hair colour and was wearing a bizarre combination of his dead wife’s clothes and perfume. She was grinning oddly, as his wife’s red lipstick was splattered across Chloe’s artificial face and her left eye was twitching wildly. Her mismatched hands were placed at her hips. She looked just like Cassandra’s frozen corpse had.
Except for that smile.
“Come on David, let’s get you into bed”
She not only looked like Cassandra, she sounded like her too.
“You’ve been reading my journals!” he cried in shock. “Stop this! Stop this at once, Chloe!”
“Come on, David. I just want to make you haaaapppppy” she slurred, without fully moving her lips.
“HOW DARE YOU!?” he screamed, so emotional he could barely breathe.
“HOW DARE YOU DO THIS TO MY WIFE!?”
“Be happy, David” Chloe smiled, “be happy. Let’s get you into bed now”
Singe lunged across the room and grabbed her hair, she reflexively stepped backwards and he threw her roughly to the bed. A handful of fibre optic hair follicles came away in his clenched fist. He pulled at his wife’s dress. They tumbled off of the bed and onto the floor below.
He felt hard metal on his fist the first time he hit her, the next four times; he felt nothing but a dull squelch.
THUD.
THUD.
THUD.
THUD.
Chloe slumped to the floor as Singe kneeled over her broken body. His glove was filled with blood and there was a dull ache throughout him. He looked down at the shivering silver mess before him, her mangled body emblazoned helplessly in the moonlight.
The parts of her makeshift form that were flesh were bruising and bleeding, yet another response designed to titillate the cruel desires that some potential ‘customers’ might have had.
The heated passion had subsided, leaving two aching, vulnerable souls completely exposed to each other. In this way, Singe thought darkly, Chloe had gotten exactly what she wanted.
She said nothing, just simulated a sort of panting.
Singe knew that Chloe felt no pain. But that wasn’t the point at all.
Chloe’s neck was twisted and her face was bruised.
“Sorry Singe” she said quietly. “I only wanted you to be happy”
“Chloe I...I’m so sorry”
Singe choked. He felt like he was going to be sick.
Then he picked the artificial Woman’s head from the floor and held her to his chest. He wept uncontrollably, cradling the Exxo in his arms and rocking from side to side, a lonely soul at its wit’s end.
“I’m so sorry!” he cried out, his whole being convulsing in grief. As the hot, salty tears flowed freely down his face, he held the Woman tighter than tight. He shook with emotion as he held his beaten friend and companion, then he cried out, his wavering shriek a sum of all the pain contained within a calloused and beaten heart.
What Singe didn’t see is that, from the corner of her still twitching left eye, Chloe was crying as well.