Track 010: Twist

I scrambled inside, trying to clean up the best I can, but I realize there’s no point when I hear a quick knock at the door before it opens. I quickly admonish myself for not locking it even if we didn’t have giant crabs to deal with anymore. She stands in the doorway, her hand on her hip as she sees me hunched over with a handful of clothes in my hand. My eyes fly wide like I’m caught in the act, which I guess I am.

“Weren’t expecting a girl over?” She says, her mouth quirking into a self-satisfied smile. And it’s times like this that I wonder how lucky I am to have met her. She’s confident from the way she walks and the way she holds her spear. I could listen to her talk about theoretical computer scaffolding. Which I’ll admit I have no idea what that is or if it’s really a thing. The way she talks has me hanging on every word. The way the corner of her mouth when she talks makes me smile.

“I was. Expecting you, that is. I just was… picking up.”

“No problem.” She chuckles. “It’s not everyday people come back from alien controlled slavery.” She looks around. “Carter di his best to make sure nothing changed.”

“You know Carter?!” I am in shock. Gabrielle knows Carter? This messes with the timeline I put together with the things people were saying. Does this mean Gabrielle didn’t get kidnapped at the same time I did?

“Yeah.” she says, looking into my eyes and then up at my hair. “Let’s get this done.”

I’m in a chair bent back into the sink, my head resting on the counter. My hair is in the water, her hands are in my hair. Emergency Concoction No. 5, a hair tonic Gabrielle made, is sudzing deep in my locs. Gabrielle leans over, her soft, calloused hands working through the gunk in my hair. I let out a sigh while we listen to music, our parents loved, playing soft, nostalgic away in the corner.

“You should do this for a living.” I say my eyes, closed, enjoying the feeling of her tending to me.

“You sound like my tía.” She chuckles. “Tía Ángelina taught me how to do my hair cause papa was so bad at it.” She smiles down and me. “Spent hours every week working with a Senegalese braider after hours from her salon so she could learn how to work my hair. She then taught me and I got good. Real good. So much my Ta to this day says theirs a chair with my name on it.” The smile turns from jubilate to wistful.

“Does she know you’re one of the smartest people in EC?”

“Yeah but, I think she knows I could be happy doing anything as long as I was working with my hands.” Her hands sudzing up my hair.

“Is that true you’d be happy doing anything?”

“It was.” She says after a minute, her hands stop. “Until I was awoken, I never thought I could do anything I wanted.”

“And what was it you wanted?”

“Promise not to laugh? I wanted to be a mech pilot.” She smiles. “My Papa showed me all those classic anime growing up, and I wanted to be one. He said I could, I was already half robot, anyway.” She spins the wrist on her prosthetic hand. “So I went heavy into robotics, at five! And when I realized it wasn’t yet there and we wouldn’t even get working AI, we have now unless we had a huge jump in tech.”

“Which is why you joined Psytech.”

“That’s why I joined Psytech. Now I could probably have gotten a job anywhere, but I was always working on chasing the edge and when the Mind-Link came out, I was on that like white on rice.” She works in some apple cider vinegar wash.

“I like we both got in there in different ways.” I chuckle. “Got scouted for it cause they were really looking for ‘Young and Upcoming Talent’.” I make finger quotes at the descriptor. “I wanted it for different reasons. I wanted to see what it all was leading to. Turns out it wasn’t at all worth it.”

“Yeah,” she says and is quiet for a minute. “But now I have a chance. I’m gonna make a mech and I’m gonna save the world.” Toweling my hair dry and handing me one as well.

“We’re gonna save the world.” I wipe down my face and move the chair back to its upright position. I meet her eyes and there’s a moment. We’re just looking into each other’s faces and it feels like nothing happened. No aliens, no brother interrupting, no alien psychos, the last four months didn’t happen, and we’re back in that hallway finally talking for the first time. My hand reaches up to her face and I move in for a kiss and for a moment, she’s leaning in as well. She breaks eye contact and moves out of my reach. Just out so I can’t reach for her.

“Yeah, you should see what I got in the workshop.” She says, pulling out the blow dryer. Moment over. “But we have to talk.”

“I didn’t mean to keep this from you.” She starts to put the formula in and takes a deep, shaking breath. “I know Carter, cause we were a part of The Resistance. After you got captured by the police with the others. Carter stopped at nothing to get justice for you. He started to putting the video of the attack everywhere. It-”

“Carter, did that all for me?” I shake my head.

“Hey! Don’t do that while I’m working.” She mimes swatting me with the comb. “Yeah, he does really loves you.” She says “When you left he made as big a fuss as he could. Most of the social media, news media, and even ISPs were shutting down copies of the videos. He went underground and the people who were interested in listening armed themselves. Some old military vets took back their weapons from where they were being kept in black sites and a rough organization fell together.”

“All because of a video?”

“All because of the truth and you.” She smiles down in my peripheral vision. “You are popular enough for this to be a thing to get national attention, especially after your last show.”

“So what happened to The Resistance?”

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

“We didn’t win…” She stops for a minute and starts to think. “I don’t know what happened to the others, but I was on a mission with a few people. None of us had awakened, so we had no real power to speak of just determination. The plan was solid. I just don’t think we really knew what we were up against.”

“Was it that bad?”

“We were so outclassed, Mix.” I could feel her hands shake. I reach up, putting her hands in mine and I get up, pulling her close to me in an embrace.

“You’re not back in that place.” I whisper. “You aren’t alone.”

She leans into me and while I can’t see her face, my shirt gets hot. Muffled sobs sound from my chest and the shaking takes over her body. It feels like the dam that I saw when she was worried about Kohl has finally burst. “I’ve just lost so many people, Mix.” She looks up at me and my heart breaks in that moment. “When I heard that you were alive and awake, I was so happy. That maybe something could happen for my family… I want to look for Carter.”

I sent her over my To-Do List from earlier. Turning away and hold my breath. And she bursts out laughing. I sputter, not knowing what to do and join in, both of us doubling over.

“F-figure out the time-space continuum?” New tears in her eyes as she wipes them away. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

“It sounds harsh when you say it like that.” I say, coming down from the laugh attack.

“It’s just that you can’t just put it on a to-do list and figure it out in a few days. It might take a lifetime.”

“Well, you weren’t visited by an alien who gave you magical space powers. I wiggled my fingers and sparks of my purple spark fly harmlessly from my fingers. She cracks up again.

“Some people will say you aren’t funny.”

“But?”

“No, but.” She grins for a moment and laughs again. After a few minutes, she stops again. I really needed that. She looks up and I can help myself anymore. She looks so beautiful in the light coming through the windows of my apartment. I lean down so close to her, our lips millimeters apart.

“Can I kiss you?” My voice is heavy with hope. And she leans in, kissing me. At first it’s flirty and light, and then she’s pulling on my top to deepen the kiss. It becomes something more, and it feels that way as well. I float both above my body and in it and I can feel our Dream spark and surge together like it did during the fight. “Oh, that was cool. Wanna see if it does it again?” I lean in for another kiss.

She lightly pushes against me. “We have to get this done.” She points to my head.

“Oh, shit.” I whisper.

“What?” she says confused

“I forgot about Kohl.”

“Oh, he snuck out when we started.”

“Where’d he go?” She gives me a pointed look.

“Oh,” I say, finally putting two and two together. “What’s going on between those two?”

“Who knows?” She shrugs.

“But he’s a cat!”

“He wasn’t always.” She shrugs again. “Sit down. We have work to do.” I’m sat.

“You believe him then.” I say, leaning my head back again.

“I do,” she says. “I believe Kohl. I think he’ll find a way to return to himself.” She says my locs in her hand, rubbing in gel and combing it through the new growth with a rattail comb.

“It’s not the oddest thing. I can imagine y’know considering the magic, but I mean, he isn’t human anymore.” I can feel the gel put in while she twists it with a comb.

“Are any of us wholly human anymore?”

I remember the alien DNA and the new organ that allows me to sing through myself like a cat purrs. “You’ve got me there.” I say as I lean back into her ministrations.

“Gracus,” The Sea Witch calls to her lover in some dark lair. “We have to do something about the vermin that got away.”

“Yes, my Queen.” The armored colossus walks from the gloom as the light of the gray-white candles cast him in even a more haunted look than his normal grizzly countenance. “May I suggest we send a few of the trackers? Or maybe the kinslayers?”

“This is why I adore you. Trackers and Kinslayers do send a message…” A long finger taps her delicate chin. “And I think what we do now is send a message. “We’ll start with the trackers. Make them afraid, rile them up. Smoke them from whatever little hole they’ve found themselves in.”

Two of the brawnier Putali privates bring in a laden black cauldron between them on polls. Each time they step with determination not spill the sloshing, oozy liquid. They knew it was worth more than their lives. They set it down on the raised platform above the circle. Ready at word to pour it down into the molds below.

Aquilan sings her song, calling on The Herald to send his hounds. The circle lights in the magenta of her magic. She gestures to the reptilian privates to topple the vessel and the milk of life hisses on its way down the shoot. The roiling, gurgling slop glides so easily it’s almost as if it hungers for its purpose. It fills the humanoid shapes in the floor and almost immediately crusting, like moldy, lumpy bread. As it changes from milk to skin like curdling and hardening into a body.

Scales, fur, chitin, and flesh combine to form the lethal shape of the twisted creatures bred only to kill, to search, to destroy. They taste the air, with tongues the length of their bodies. Compound eyes roll around, taking in their surroundings. Some tails with barbs, spikes, and clubs thrash wildly. And then all at once they stop moving, finding the face of their mother, their queen. A soft rattle comes from their chests.

“Your Mother demands you find the Disruptors.” She smashes vials of their blood in front. “Do what you do best, my children. Smoke them out and destroy them.”

Vengeance stood over their bodies and grinned. Their oversized dark steel sword spins in their hand and slides into place on their back, being held by the magnet in their Stygian coat. The sunglasses on their face controlled the HUD for them and they watched as the flames crawled up thier personalized stat read out showing the XP they just claimed.

The bar looked beautiful at golden hour or at leas it would have if the current tennats hadn’t trashed the place. Wine and booze sticky on the

“I’ve done what you asked, Shade Keeper.” They look over their shoulder and a shadow on the hardwood moves. A tall, pitch black person dressed in all-black robes and a smart-looking hat sits on top of their well-maintained afro. It would be impossible for most to tell where the robes began, and the man stopped, except for the stars twinkling in their hair and in the robes. The Shade Keepers’ mouth moves and no sound comes out. And yet Vengeance stands there patiently, even nodding their head while their directions are fed to them.

“Alright, I think I understand.” Vengeance says, “And here’s your payment.” Vengeance put their hand in their coat pocket and pulled out a quarter warn smooth from a life of changing hands. They took the quarter and flipped it into the shadows, where it would never come down. Heads or tails, the world will never know.

Vengeance snapped their fingers, and the shadows of the dead wrapped themselves around him. The only thing that shone was their eyes. Which shone like stars in their head. The shadows slid down their body and merged with theirs.

The body twitched. One jerk, and another. The twitches were on the beat. The body began to move, startlingly, and then sit up. Each movement, a slave to music. The corpse moved to its feet, looking upon its creator. Slack jawed, the recently dead regarded the man with green locs playing the keytar, forcing the body to wake. A devil. A devil in such bright brocade.

“Dance.” A command ripped through the night.

The corpse began to dance under the moonlight. A slave to the beat. Others joined, and soon they began to move in choreographed horror. The song was the theme of a retro children’s movie. Its ears haven’t heard for such a long time. The devil laughed. Such a joyous and lovely laugh should never have come from such a devil.