෴෴෴ ෴෴෴ ෴෴෴

Bargaining and Depression.

  Chris glanced up and surveyed his surroundings out of habit. A habit born of years of military and paramilitary combat training. The surrounding in question was a hospital room. A nice hospital room. One might close one eye, and squint with the other, and call it almost cozy. Perhaps almost, almost cozy. Blandly generic tasteful vaguely vintage decor couldn’t make up for the industrial TV mount, the faint scent of disinfectant, the hospital bed he sat half reclined on, or the call buttons mounted to the bed where his toes could hit them.

  He looked back down at the picture cradled in his lap. Despite his best effort, he couldn’t avoid seeing the splinted and taped up ruins of both his hands. He focussed on the picture. A group of young men in military battle gear. The picture had been taken in some bright sandy desert, with only a few rocky outcroppings in the background to break up the sand dunes fading into the distance.

  He stared at the picture. “We were so young then. Just out to save the world,” he murmured to himself.

  His gaze was focussed on two of the young soldiers in the picture. The first was Chris himself, pictured years before he would ever go by Chrome. The man standing next to him, pictured mid fist bump was his best friend Tim Perez, who would one day be known as Triton.

  Chris shifted in the bed slightly, causing the picture to slide off his lap. He choked off an agonized grunt as he reflexively tried to use his ruined hand to catch the sliding picture. The pain drew his attention fully to the twisted and elongated flesh. Like a combination of a dead squid and some kind of fleshy bug, his fingers sat immobilized against a carefully constructed splint to keep them from breaking the paper-thin bones that had formed in some areas of his hands. The skin stretched onto the elongated flesh was alternating pale and nearly translucent and red with raw irritation and cracks that oozed blood and pus.

  He held his upper body very still, and carefully used his toe to press the nurse call button. He counted thirty-eight visible pulses of blood in the tiny visible blood vessel in what used to be his left thumb before he heard footsteps in the hall.

  A smiling young lady came into the room. Her outfit of tight fitting blue jeans and a graphic T-shirt that accentuated her curves looked to be a blend of deliberately casual and intentional sex appeal. “What can I do for you Mr. Johanssen? Are you ready for din—”

  “TV.” he grunted.

  She blinked, “Um, what about the TV Mr. Jo-”

   “Turn it on.” he growled without looking at her.

  She turned it on, and started to hand him the remote out of habit. She tried to cover by changing the direction of her arm movement to set the remote down on his bedside table, but not before Chris had looked at the remote and then at his deformed hands with a raised brow.

  “Any way I can turn the channels with my feet?”

  She looked at the foot of the bed, and then at the remote for a moment before putting a bright but clearly forced smile on her face and sitting down on the chair next to his bed. “I will get that sorted out for you asap. In the meantime, how about I keep you company for a few minutes and we find you something to watch?”

  His expression soured further. She read his face and ploughed ahead. “I sure could use a minute off my feet, you’d be doing me a favor if you let me keep you company. What are we watching?”

  He didn’t appear convinced, but nodded his agreement with a noncommittal grunt. “News”

  She switched to a news channel, and then quickly changed the channel as Chris became agitated by the sight of Doktor Midnight working at the site of a bombing. Every subsequent news channel ended up the same way. Finally she settled on a station covering the scientific impact of the recent changes to the anomaly expansion zones.

  “That’s gonna be some real pretty shit right there.” Chris muttered.

  The announcement of a newly discovered anomaly expansion zone on the border of Nepal and Tibet interested him for a moment, but soon Chris was lost in thought, staring at the wall. He continued this way long after the nurse slipped from the room to return to her duties.

෴Adele෴

෴Javier෴

෴Marcus෴

෴Hugo෴

  The prison block appeared to be hewn from solid stone. Every surface was cut away so smoothly that every surface almost looked wet or polished. Each room cut so precisely it almost looked like a cheap computer simulation. The varied and interesting patterns and visual textures on the stone surfaces were the only thing that lent a sense of reality to the appearance. The only light came from a series of long thin shafts that cut into the ceiling. Each shaft was just as smooth and shiny as the rest of the stone, and although the prisoners could see at least a hundred feet straight up the shafts, they couldn't see the top. The sunlight pouring into the large room full of cells did nothing to dispel the biting chill in the air and stone. The prison cells had no bars, but they were prison cells nonetheless.

  Three young men and an older woman all occupied their own cells. The cells were surprisingly spacious. Each one roughly seven meters square. The very tall ceilings matched the large rooms.

  “I’m sorry boys. This was a bad idea. We shouldn’t have come here, and I should never have let you come with me.” Adele said. She paced the room to stay warm, her breath fogging in the air.

  Marcus was quick to rebut her. “Don’t worry about that Mrs. Owens, we’re going to get out of here somehow. Just be ready to make us a door home if your ability starts working again.” He sat wrapped in warm coat and pants, not exactly comfortable, but feeling the cold the least.

  Javier just kept smashing his fists against the wall. The impact of the punches was felt throughout the small prison, but the wall appeared unaffected. He kept punching the same spot, the dull thuds filling the air with a strange sort of background staccato bassline. The activity kept him from feeling the cold, but his fast breathing filled the air around his head with visible breath vapor.

  Hugo had an energy blade out, projecting from his hand, carving at the wall. “It’s no good. I can cut into the stone, but somehow, as soon as I stop cutting into it, the damage is gone.” Hugo wasn’t worried about the cold, so much as what he’d do once he got too tired to summon his fiery energy blade.

  Javier slammed his fists into the wall a few more times and then stopped. He leaned against the wall and slid down into a sitting position.

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  Adele sat in her cell, focusing her will on creating even a tiny portal. Anything to prove that she could still do it. The space in front of her refused to bend even slightly to her will.

  Marcus sat there listening to the others, he looked lost in thought. When the other two gave up breaking out of the cell he spoke up. “I don’t think we can break out that way.”

  Javier spat on the floor beside him. “Maybe you can't. I've broken stone with my hands before, I can do it again. I will get us out of here eventually.”

  Hugo seemed less confident. “Well, normally I’d agree. I can't cut through stone very fast, but I can get through it. This place—this place isn’t normal.”

  Marcus waited for Adele to weigh in. When she didn’t he spoke up again. “I’m not sure, but I think we’re not in a real place.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Adele replied in a subdued tone.

  “Well, look at the light on the floor. It looks a lot like sunlight. But in the hours we’ve been here, it hasn’t moved at all. The beams of light have not shifted even a little bit. I haven’t seen any change in brightness either, not since we got here.”

  Adele stood up and went to the front of her cell to look. “Is that true? We’ve been here for hours.”

  Hugo walked over to the slight lip that indicated the front edge of his cell and stared at the light patterns on the floor. “Dios mio! I think he’s right.” Hugo leaned out too far and lost his balance. In recovering, he took one step too far out of the cell and was caught up in the mysterious force that held them captive. As though gravity itself had shifted, but for only him, he fell back to the rear wall of his cell with an uncomfortable thump.

  Hugo sighed. “Watch that edge Mrs. Owens. You don’t want that fall.”

  She nodded and took a half step backward.

  They all stiffened at the sound of soft clicks on the stone floor. A moment later Adele let out a tiny involuntary scream. At least, the other three who also reacted told themselves it was just her. A vaguely humanoid creature entered the room from a hallway that hadn’t been there a moment before. The three of them looked it up and down with a mixture of fear and shock.

  Dressed a loose belted tunic and what appeared to be a sort of rough kilt, the thing stood an easy twelve feet tall. It could have been taller, but an extremely broad solid build made it hard to estimate. Proportions different than that of a human further complicated an easy height estimate. A pale skinned long powerful torso, heavily muscled shoulders leading to long arms with four fingered hands tipped with small white claws. The muscular torso sat atop legs that seemed just a bit too short for its vast size. The creature's head was topped by long white hair pulled into a high topknot. On either side of its head smooth pale horns jutted out in a graceful curve. For a long moment it studied each cell occupant. Red-gold eyes burned with an inner fire that each recipient of its gaze could feel as an uncomfortable, almost gritty sensation. It smiled, displaying a mouth that looked far too large, full of sharp predator’s teeth.

  “Where are my manners? I so seldom meet visitors, and these visitors are unexpected strangers at that.” It said in a rumbling bass so low they almost felt it in their bones.

  “Strangers arrive without warning or announcement. Are they trespassers or guests I wonder?”

  No one replied. It looked over them as though expecting some reply.

  It spoke again, slowly, as though speaking to a child or half-wit. “Are–you–trespassers–or–guests?”

  “Guests! If you please.” Adele blurted out.

  The already wide smile seemed to grow impossibly wider. “Guests indeed.” It looked around the room. “Does this one speak for you all?”

  The others murmured assent.

  “Excellent. I see your breath clouds the air. Can I offer you shelter, food and fire?”

  Something about the question set Adele’s teeth on edge, but the idea of staying even one night in these cold barren stone chambers sounded like a death sentence. “Yes, we would be–” she paused and tried to think of what to say. It felt important to get it right. “Honored, to be your guests.”

  The smile faded, and it looked at her with curiosity. “Come, let us leave this place and go where you’ll be more comfortable.”

  With no visible gesture or sign, the five of them were in another place. The room was also carved from stone, though it appeared to have had more artistry and decorative choices made in the large room’s construction. Aside from being hewn directly into what looked to be solid stone, the room was decorated like a typical, if lavish living room or great room.

  “Welcome to my home. Please make yourself comfortable. There are rooms there.” It turned to point at a hallway across the room. In turning, it presented an unmistakably male silhouette.

  “Thank you. We appreciate your generosity. Are you—” Adele started to ask.

  “Of course. What a poor host I am. You must be hungry. I shall prepare a feast for my guests.” It vanished with a sound like a tiny clap of thunder.

  The four of them looked at each other for a moment and then all spoke at once.

  “What the hell was that?” Javier asked.

  “Did you see how big he is?” Hugo said.

  “We should speak and act with great care around this creature.” Marcus added.

  “He has a very powerful spatial ability.” Adele muttered to herself, a suspicion growing in her mind.

  They barely had time to blurt out a few thoughts before the giant humanoid reappeared with a soundless rush of air, and then they all vanished into a room that looked like it would fit as a wealthy organization’s hunting lodge, or be cast as a medieval dining hall in a movie. The high ceiling supported by hand hewn beams acting as large ribs. The central light was a chandelier constructed of large bones. The long table in the middle of the oblong room appeared to be a six inch thick slab of a huge tree. At one end of the room a huge brazier contained a roaring fire.

  The table was laden with piles of food. They approached it and sat down after their host sat down on the other side. Adele noticed that the bench on their side was high enough for them to sit at the table, while the other side was clearly sized for their huge host.

  They scrambled up to sit on the tall bench. The horned creature served itself an enormous slab of meat that could have fed an entire family. “Please, accept my offering of shelter, food, and fire.”

  The three men hesitantly reached for the food closest to them. Up close the repast was various sizes and cuts of meat, and an array of cheeses. A large bowl held a stew with an enticing scent.

  Adele prepared to take some of the stew, but hesitated.

  It looked at her with its large red-gold eyes. “Is the food I present not to your liking?”

  She looked over the table. “Not at all, it all looks very good. I just wanted to ask you something.”

  It sighed and muttered something in a language that didn’t sound like a human could speak it. “What would you ask of me?”

  “Are you Mercator?”

  “How do you know that name?” its smooth heavy bass voice held an unmistakable edge.

  She swallowed, suddenly feeling as though walking a tightrope in darkness above an endless chasm. “My—Well, My associate has mentioned you by name, and once, a long time ago, he carried me to a place, and asked that I remember it in case he ever needed to get there. He called it ‘the path to Mercator’.”

  It let out a rumbling grumble. “Yes, Owdens.” It rolled the name around in his mouth oddly. “My old wandering rival. How he thrashes to and fro, trying again and again at waking a world so long asleep.”

  It looked at her with an oddly inhuman level gaze. “What would you have of me, ‘associate’ of my friend and adversary?”

  She looked at her empty bowl and plate, then back at the large creature. “I was told that you can find anything, or anyone.”

  Mercator threw his head back and let out a deep throaty laugh that echoed through the large room. Even after it stopped and looked back at her with those luminous red-gold eyes, the echoes of laughter seemed to persist in the room far too long. “I see. Your ‘associate’ may have overstated my capabilities. However, I am indeed good at locating significant objects, and sometimes, significant people.”

  It looked pointedly at the food. “For now. Eat, drink and rest easy. I will speak no further of this until morning. In my homeland, to my people, it is–” He paused and appeared to be thinking. “I believe the word is,’unseemly’, to discuss such business upon a first meeting, and so soon after extending guest rights.”

  She pursed her lips in dismay, but dished herself up some of the nearby stew. The meat looked to be chunks of seared beef in a mix of vegetables and other unfamiliar ingredients. It smelled divine. As soon as she began eating she realized she was ravenous. The men with her appeared to have come to the same realization. They ate with gusto as Mercator watched with ill concealed amusement.

  Later, after he had transported them back to the living quarters, and bid them all good night, they compared notes for only a few minutes before feeling a crushing exhaustion begin to overtake them. They each picked a room and were asleep in their clothes almost before they had stretched out in the surprisingly normal sized beds.