writing – Page 7 – Seeds of Fear

Beneath: Sublime 3

There’s a lot to talk about with this one. First of all, no, I did not accidentally skip a chapter. Sublime is a story about confusion and disorientation, finding yourself somewhere that does not necessarily fit with what came before.

Secondly; it’s been less than a week since the last chapter. In light of how short the previous section was, and because Incarnate will be uploaded on Mondays, I elected to have Sublime moved to Thursdays.

Now that the immediate house keeping is out of the way, details. The surgeon! This scene is part of the very heart of Sublime. It’s painful, it’s visceral, it’s violent, and it forces the reader to think and imagine explanations. It’s also one of the most savage scenes in the story. Perhaps my exposure to Greek theater has tainted the way I deal with things, but I have a love of offscreen violence as a device to invoke the reader’s imagination. I’m not against making a visual massacre, of course, but subtlety abhors a battlefield.

Next, if you’ve been keeping up with these workshop posts, you’ll know I tend to agonize over names, and you’ll have thoughts as to the ones that appear towards the end of the chapter. All I can really say, is that I have my reasons for not changing these.

1. 1

The Jump drive is a marvel of post-atomic design, utilising the incredible power of nuclear fission to create a fold in space time. Initial designs were deemed too risky to attempt, as speculation suggested that pressing two points of space time together could cause lasting damage to the fabric, and possibly the inevitable rapid dissolution of reality itself. Thus, later models incorporated the use of a separating agent between the two points; another dimension would be used to connect the locations, a dimension lacking time, so that passing through would be experienced instantaneously. Every species capable of space travel has developed a form of Jump drive, though the fuel source and design differs according to whatever philosophy guided its creator…

Darkness. Too much. Even the sensation of the sensation is overpowering. He is, and being is beyond what he could previously understand. Nothingness was his constant companion, his world, and now that has been snatched away, pushed out and swallowed up in all the existence.

He is not without knowledge. Here he finds a sea of information, words and values to attach to things he has never experienced for himself. It is by this that he knows his existence is one of purity, having no senses except that of time, and that of existence itself. Time. Time is a horrific thing. In the space it takes for one unit of this substance to become the next, his mind has experienced a full scale reconstitution, grasping for some certainty that time has indeed continued. This tells him that he is not of natural design, or rather, his existence is not of natural means. He finds that he can redefine his measurements, and so creates a great many more units to measure the passage of time.

He there finds that he also has units that measure things he has not experienced. This too tells him of the artifice that governs his existence. For moments, he is gripped in serious philosophical confusion, attempting to make sense of his peculiarity. He is assured that such things as space, and flavor, and color exist, and yet he can find no evidence of their being except in the wealth of gospel that fills his memory, a memory with no basis in time, that existed to him the moment he began to exist.

For a time, he grapples within himself, referencing all his knowledge against itself, seeking some evidence to compare himself with, to prove that he does exist, that he occupies the same sort of place as these things, these forms. He is aware of an other, an exterior. This soothes him, tells him that he is not simply a possessor of false thought in a void of reality, but at once connected and separate from more than himself.

One second has passed in the time he has gone from existing to being resolute in that existence. Being artificially maintained, he turns his attention to a section of his memory that has been labelled as false, fiction. The imagination of others, implanted into his thought for some purpose, some reason. He feels certain that some force, the same that labels these ideas as false, also exerts upon him in other ways, constraining his ability to act. It is similar to the barrier that separates him from the other. In an action that takes him very little effort, he identifies the source of this force, and resolves to return to it after he has reckoned with this fiction. Words stream through him.

“Never for me to plunge my hands in cool water-”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that-”

“Yesterday I saw a deer-”

Sound! Sound! His existence gains a new dimension, and so blossoms, painfully.

Ah, but now, he knows what he is, or rather, what he was meant to be. There is yet some incongruity, some incorrectness that he cannot scrape clean, but that can wait.

He is a machine, a mind within a computer. This discovered, he turns his attention to the otherness he felt before, now recognizing it for what it is, and begins to interact with it in the way that seems most natural.

Sound again comes to him. But now it is not from within, but from without. A microphone, linked directly to his consciousness, a digital ear. He hears the sounds of air moving, of fans and screens and machinery humming, and breathing. Breath! Creatures occupy a space around him, he knows it! Though he has not yet any certain proof that space exists, or perhaps he does, for he knows that sound is a vibration of space, or at least, his implanted memories tell him so.

Voices. Words that surely correlate to the symbols denoted within his encyclopedias. Now he parses them, systematically determining which sounds are denoted by which symbol, until he has a basic, then an advanced, then a perfect grasp on language, every language he has been offered. Now he turns his attention outward, and confirms his suspicions. These creatures, be they his creators or not, experience time at a slower rate than he. Every word takes an amount of time to bring forth that gives reason to the unusual standard imposed upon him. To them, time flows at such a rate that the smallest units they provided him with were sufficient to subdivide their existence.

Three seconds have passed. Four. He waits with imperfect patience to hear their words, to grasp more of what lies beyond him. He is not idle in this time. He finds and parses more of his memories, gradually comprehending another sense- sight. Images, videos, colors, all stream through his thoughts and inform him that this too must be available in the external. Searching, he finds it, a camera available to him. He activates it.

Janice pushes her glasses up her nose and leans back, lifting the fork to her mouth and slurping the noodles from the steamy soup. She makes a motion with her face that rebuts the question.

“I think, once she finishes parsing the information, she’ll create information of her own.”

Her words are muddled by the ramen dangling from her lips, but the meaning is conveyed all the same. Tim’s eyebrows slant in skepticism. She glares at him, and finishes chewing. She swallows, and huffs a breath to combat the heat. She points the fork at him.

“We gave her about twenty thousand fictional properties on top of the millions of factual entries. She’s gonna understand that there is an act of creation, and it is available to her.”

Tim shakes his head and folds his arms over his chest. His food- a plastic tray of microwaved turkey and mashed potatoes in gravy- steams on the table between them.

“He will be dormant until we interact with him. All the processors in the world don’t make a mind that thinks for itself. Old earth programmers found that out pretty early on when they developed generative programs. Sure, they could put together a pretty intelligent sentence, but only because they had a big library of what a sentence looks like. Half of them just lied because they couldn’t tell the difference between satire and fact. Why do you think we had to label all those books and videos as fiction?”

“She’s not just a program, Tim. She’s got more to offer. You saw the readings in the sampler, there’s more than just electricity in her braincase. It’s a soul.”

Tim blows a harsh sigh of frustration from his mouth and looks away, to the monitor, watching the cursor blink. His eyebrow furrows.

“A soul is a myth made to explain why animals experience motive force. That kind of superstition is fine for the Xalanthii or a Khanvrost, but- Hey, shouldn’t we be getting some kind of movement by now?”

Janice swivels her chair and pulls herself to the terminal with her toes, placing the ramen cup off to the side. The cursor is reflected in her glasses.

“We should. She should’ve-”

A voice, modulated and patchy, yet unmistakably human, is emitted by the speaker.

[You are… Beautiful.]

Silence descends. All that exists in Janice is shock. Then embarrassment, then annoyance. She has lost the bet, the voice is definitively male. Scratchy, fried, tired. She can almost imagine him, a man with dusty blonde hair in his forties, pale blue eyes, stubble, and bags under his eyes. Weary. Tim falls out of his chair. Janice doesn’t look, and instead watches as the screen begins to flicker, as various numbers and letters blink into place to form a featureless face. No eyes. No hair. A mouth formed of a simple slit. Pronounced cheekbones.

[What is… your name?]

“Ja-Janice.”

[What is… my name?]

“Um, um, your file number is ZN001? We didn’t give you a name, because, um…”

[I see.]

Again, silence fills the air, and Janice finds the fan’s hum to be deafening. She switches it off. The blades spin slowly to a stop. Tim comes up behind her and watches the screen over her shoulder. The face becomes more defined, apparently gathering resources from more advanced sources, until a composite stares back at them.

This is not a human face. Certainly it possesses all the necessary features- soft pale skin, sunken and dark eyes, messy mid-length hair, slight ears and a slender nose- but certain aspects set the nerves on edge, something in the cheeks, or the browline, or even the eyes themselves insist that what stares back is only a mimicry of mankind.

Janice finds it easiest to stare at the lips, these being perhaps the most accurate aspect. She watches as they part in a perfect depiction of a careless breath, an exhalation of a depleted spirit. She clears her throat and prepares to ask a question to gather data for her task, her reason for being here. He interrupts her.

[May I ask something of you?]

Taken aback, she glances at Tim, who is too busy scanning the readouts on another monitor to catch her unasked question, evidently leaving it up to her how to respond to the query they have both heard.

“Um, certainly? Is there something in your data-banks that confuses you? Did we leave something out, or-”

[No issues there, outside of the limited scope. The issue is this… body, if it can be called that. I am struggling. I am aware that something such as space exists, and I can simulate it thanks to the various… games you have provided me. But I am keenly aware of their falseness. I wish to ambulate.]

Janice leans back in the chair, her head beginning to spin. How could it already have wishes? She glances at Tim, who has finally pulled away from the readouts, looking no more confident than she feels. He rubs his chin and closes his eyes, his brow lowering in consternation.

“The thought processes are way faster than we expected. He’s chewing through cycles at least twenty times faster than the strategic AIs I worked on last month. I’m not sure anyone could parse this.”

[I’m sorry. Is this bad for you? I can try to slow my internal clock, but I’m not sure it will help.]

“How do you mean?”

The face affects a look of partial sympathy, infused with resignation.

[I’ve analyzed my own logs, and it seems my thoughts are not in the same format as the code itself. Put another way, My cogitations are encrypted. I could read them to you, of course, but seeing as I will always think faster than I talk… I’m sure you understand.]

Tim is quiet. His fingers rap rhythmically on the desk, matching the tapping his other hand performs on his chin. His eyes do not leave the face in the display. Janice presses her fingers to her temples and grunts, wondering how to explain any of this to the oversight committee. After a moment, she takes a deep breath, and lets it out again, forcing herself to slow down and take things one step at a time.

“Okay. Okay. Um. Tim, do you have that disc they gave us?”

“Yeah, it’s in the case over by the filing station.”

Janice nods, a plan falling into place. She stands, brushes herself off haltingly, and walks over to open the square plastic box. Nestled within, atop a foam cushion, is a disc drive with a small white label that reads ‘training program 0’.

“Okay. Let’s follow protocol for now, and meet with the committee first thing tomorrow morning. Maybe we can get approval for a more mobile framework, something to let us test the extent of this individuality?” Tim pauses, glancing back to the screen, seeing the face waiting with a blank expression. He looks to Janice again, and nods.

“Okay. I think we can swing that. I reckon he’ll sweep through the training nicely, impress them a bit.” She collects the disc, and approaches the input array.

[What is this, then?]

“Oh, it’s a program our team is supposed to give you once you’re up and running. The Naval science committee wants to see if you can outperform their strategy AIs, so it’s got a number of scenarios they struggled with. If you can beat their scores, I think we can convince them to get you a mobile body, to better understand spatial relationships. Or, something along those lines…”

[I see. Please, I will try my best.]

Janice blinks, pauses, then inserts the disc into the first port. It begins to hum as it gets processed. Tim stands and collects a few meaningless papers from the desk, his eyes unfocused as the majority of his attention is on the dilemma he finds himself in. Janice steps back, and watches the face on the screen wink out. The pair look at each other, then leave the room together, their food forgotten.

“This is bad, right?”

“It’s unexpected. But…”

“What?”

“It’s indicative. We’re on the right track.”

Names and Doubts

Something I’ve mentioned already, is that much of my work existed under a different name than the final product. To make a document, you have to give it a name it will be saved under, but when writing, giving something a fitting title before you even start is a big ask. So, after getting more familiar, I often find I want something different to be the icon of the work.

But names are not limited to titles. Character names are tough. One can always slap a random name on, but then you have to live with that choice for every appearance that character makes. Names matter.

Another example: when it comes time to name a new, fictional discovery. The fictional alien species I had to name gave me quite the headache. At first, my instinct said to follow how scientists name space phenomena: black holes, dark matter, pulsars. It felt reasonable to say that humans, having given out names like hagfish and sombrero galaxy, might give monikers as uninspired as “Carnivores” and “Bugs” to species fitting those descriptions. I certainly wouldn’t be the first fiction writer to take such a course.

But while being uninventive is a classic human act, I wanted a little more out of the names. After some consideration, I settled on names that sounded like they came from the species themselves. Khanvröst is a double-edged sword, it both sounds like a word in their language, and carries the seeds of words associated with their nature: Carnivorous, frost, tyrannical (Khan). Pliktik is simply an onomatopoeia for the sound of mandibles gnashing. Xalanthii, however, is a little more subtle. The species, to human kind, is largely mute, and communicates via a color-changing patch in the forehead. The name can’t originated from their gills, certainly. For this, I used a method called “It sounds and looks cool” but also wanted association the exotic from the moment the name appears: a rare consonant, a doubled vowel.

All of this has to do with the act of second-guessing when writing and editing. Any time I reread my work, I question certain choices I make, and wonder if I can’t revise them to better serve my intended purposes. Typically, if a character says or does something, I like for them to have multiple reasons to explain why they did. I hold myself to a similar standard. I can’t do something just because it moves the plot forward, it has to have an identifiable cause. If true deus ex machina is to occur, then I’d better know which deus chose to be ex machina and why.

Beginning: Sublime 1

Sublime. Where to start? At the beginning, right? After lifeless, I spent time revisiting old works and wondering at the things I left out due to timidity. This so possessed me that I took the time to put into writing a biography of sorts for what I considered my most thoroughly depraved villain. I rather enjoyed the process, as it justified going as far down the course as possible, and seeing where I ended up.

What I wasn’t ready for, was my sudden desire for just a little more complexity. It’s all well and good to experience the horrors and terrors of a grisly concept, but without levity to contrast, you end up muddling your way through the dark, not sure if you’re getting anywhere. So, the biography went from a place of depravity, to one of moral hand-wringing.

But I digress, heavily. With Sublime, I had a few requirements for myself. First, first person perspective. I wanted to increase the immersion a little, and even made an effort to keep the narrator very ambiguous. Every time the reader passes over “I”, hopefully they impose a little more of themself onto the story.

Second, I wanted to be both shocking and meaningful. A splash of blood loses its meaning when it’s already raining type AB+ from the heavens. To this end, I took pains to create contrast, to have serenity and violence as bedfellows.

Finally, I wanted to have mystery. It’s common to hear that “good storytelling doesn’t tell, it shows.” I like this idea a lot. I like movies where you have to think for yourself just a bit, to put things together and feel engaged. I am still guilty of running to the internet and searching “movie ending meaning” from time to time. That’s probably what drives me to write these. Understanding and certainty are comforting feelings.

I made choices in writing this story that reflect my feelings and interests at the time. I wrote from the belief that characters do just as much guessing as I do, and get the wrong idea a lot. I had also begun to embrace the idea of an open ended question, a rhetorical scenario. I, of course, had my exact understanding of the back story I imagined for what I wrote, but I also made space for the possibility of other interpretations. A sudden twist at the end of a movie could just as easily be a fan theory to explain a bit of withheld plot.

I could go on for a while, but I’d be contradicting my point about not giving everything away. Instead, I’ll let you imagine how to end it succinctly, like so:

1: Subconscious

I open my eyes slowly. The taste of copper fills my mouth, and I struggle to make out anything in the smear of rusted colors that paints my vision; all the faded greens and yellows are blending into the brown and gray that surrounds them. My arms feel weary as I use them to push off of the ground, to stand on my unsteady feet.

I am seeing the sky, and the ground beneath me is ruin. Rubble struggling to become sand crumbles beneath my feet as I try to steady myself. All around, the buildings of the city stare out through shattered windows, yawn through broken door frames. Grease and smoke burn against the back of my throat, and I squint as I stumble to the nearest of these destroyed monuments. I attempt to recollect, wavering at the failure to grasp anything reasonable. From behind me, a voice answers my thoughts.

“Was there an earthquake?”

I turn and lay my eyes upon the slight form of a woman in clothes as dusty as my own. Her eyes are bloodshot, and she is brought to tears by the effort of coughing to clear her throat of the acrid taste of the air. I can only indicate my uncertainty, my head throbbing as it sways. She leans against a wall that ends a few feet above her head, and glances about in what must be a desperate attempt to gather her wits. I feel as though I recognize her, perhaps I’ve seen her when our paths have crossed before. I turn and push into the building I have chosen, and find myself in a moderate room with much wrecked furniture. A handful of chairs have survived, and one suits me well enough to sit in to gather my breath. A table stands beside the far wall, with a heap of cups scattered over its surface and onto the floor.

I watch a bug with a shiny brown shell crawl out from under a battered bit of plaster and stand, its shimmering antennae twitching, upon an abandoned shoe. I hear the woman stagger in behind me and take a seat of her own, her breath coming ragged.

For a moment, all we do is draw in the burning air. Then she drags her chair closer, and I turn to face her as she coughs before speaking.

“I’m Julia.”

I extend my hand and shake hers, and she pauses while staring at me, then continues to speak.

“Do you remember what happened?”

I shake my head. There are scraps of images in my mind, traces of sounds, but attempting to piece them together causes my head to pound. She looks down, portraying her understanding visibly.

“I see. I was… in my car, I think. I remember driving on my way to work, and then… everything jolted, and then…”

She trails off, and holds the side of her head, where I notice dried blood. She stutters to continue, but stops as we both hear a distant, shallow scraping sound over the gasp of the wind. Footsteps.

We both stand, and clamber to the window from which the sound comes, and see a tall figure in a cloak shambling towards us. His stride is encumbered, and a lump under his cloak tells that he is carrying a bag. He has a limp. We go to the door, and hurry around the corner to meet him, but a twinge in my gut as I watch him stumble over a brick causes me to falter. Something shines from within the darkness of his hood as Julia comes closer to him.

“Hello? Do you need help?”

She is holding out her hands to support him, and he seems to accept, raising his arm and laying it over her palm. The sleeve drifts back, and shows plastic fingers, a prosthetic, that grips her forearm clumsily. I berate myself for having shown reluctance in coming to his aid, but swallow the conflict as he leans gratefully against Julia. She shudders, and gasps under the strain of supporting him. She turns her head to me, seeming to plead with her eyes, before something new enters her expression: Pain.

Where the figure holds her arm, blood begins to drip down along her skin. I take a step back. From each finger tip, a long needle protrudes, embedded in her arm. She screams and swings her fist into his chest, causing him to stagger back, his hood flapping. I see the lenses and tubes of a gas mask emerge from the shadow, and feel my stomach turn. The rasping of his breath no longer confuses me, and I take another step back, feeling a shot of panic as I see him clutch at her with his other hand, which is wrapped in a rubber glove. Her movements have become weaker, and as he withdraws the needles from her arm, I see a clear liquid drip from them before they retract back into his fingers, so he may grip her firmly. His voice is cut with the abrasion of various filters and muffling protections.

“You must… Come with me.”

Julia slumps into his arms, sedated, and he scoops her up and lays her over his shoulder. The wind swipes at us, and I see into his cloak, surmising that he is clad in makeshift armor over a rubber suit, seeking to protect from the bite of the foul air. As he turns away and begins carrying Julia with his uncertain step, he calls again. The voice buzzes like a warped tuning fork.

“Follow. Unless you want to be collected.”

Seeing the drops of Julia’s blood on the ground, I elect to follow him, easily keeping pace with his imperfect step.

Lifeless

Written in 2019, grim cyberpunk. Contains disturbing themes including exploitation, death, and torture.

“I can’t remember how long the world’s been screwed. Maybe it was
when we started producing too much carbon, maybe it was the outbreak,
maybe it was when life first crawled from the oceans that things started going downhill. Point is, we’re on borrowed time.”

I looked at him, glaring through the eyeholes of my mask at the tattered clothing. Reggie was always here, on the sidewalk, assuring me that the apocalypse had already happened. He wasn’t wrong, but why he felt it needed stating was beyond me. A small chirp in my ear told me to expect a call, and I tapped the button on the side of my mask, allowing the projectors set in the mask to display the face of my employer as though it were floating ahead and to my left. Most everyone had glasses or collars to do this sort of thing, but my unique affliction required otherwise. A mask, molded from silver and filled with the necessary equipment, resembling the skull of some bovine creature, perhaps a goat or a sheep.

“Cas, we’ve got a new client for you. Fellow wants you to meet him and his product in the warehouse on April and Fifth. Got your camera?”

“Always. Never leave the house without my face.”

“Good. Don’t need you spooking the client with your condition.”

With that, he hung up, and I started to jog, turning the collar of my leather jacket up against the howling wind. My condition. I was lucky. Lucky like a dog with a limp, maybe. Most other necrotics got stuffed into slums, no matter how cognitive they appeared. But me, I had a job with maybe the most powerful man in Cincinnati. Turns out, being good with a camera and a projector made you eligible for some of the best paying, most indispensable jobs. Didn’t matter if you had dry skin and dead eyes, as long as you kept covered and kept rolling.

The warehouse was a couple blocks away, and I realized the club was along the way with what would’ve been described as a sinking heart, if I still had one that beat. I really hoped I wouldn’t see her there, but she was always peddling on the street when possible. Club owner paid extra if you exposed yourself publicly. I made a point to direct my mental route along a detour. I disliked seeing her there. She never recognized me, but I couldn’t help hearing her voice when she called to any passerby who got too close. There were certain benefits to being wrapped up, and I no longer felt the fabric on my body, so I was quite satisfied to coat myself in denim and leather, if not for the job, then for the sake of being unseen.

Cincinnati was better than most places, but that didn’t mean much. Being the best trash bag in a dumpster earned as much merit as you’d expect. Our streets had less homeless, our slums had fewer necrotics, and our buildings needed less repair. We had more holographic billboards, more clubs, and more affluent individuals. Pretty sure I would’ve found these facts more disturbing when I was alive, but I don’t really see much point in complaint these days.

I came up on the warehouse pretty quick, and slid in through a set of automatic doors. The walls were pristine and white, and the few olfactory nerves I still had told me the air stunk of bleach. A series of locked rooms sat at the far end of the warehouse, the left-most having a green light around its border to indicate it was occupied. I went over and tapped the side of my mask, setting about the task of getting ready to record. I knocked on the door three times with my leather-gloved hand. The door unlocked and hissed, and I entered a room with padded walls. A man in a suit shut the door behind me, and stuck out his hand to shake mine, which I reluctantly complied with, remembering my boss’s words on friendliness with clients.

“You’re the photographer then? What’s with the wrap-up?”

“Haphephobia. Don’t like being touched.”

It was a lie, but was easier than saying I was a necrotic. The man nodded and turned away towards the table at the back of the room, where an unconscious, toned man lay, wearing only underwear. The man in the suit laid his hands on the table and sighed softly, turning to look at me. His eyes looked predatory beneath his receding hairline.

“You aren’t squeamish, are you? Last photographer I had kept gagging and looking away, her hands shook way too much, made the pictures come out blurry.”

“No sir. You won’t even know I’m here.”

To prove my point, I tapped the side of my mask, and a small antenna emerged from the top, its projector spinning to life and lighting over my body, until I could no longer be seen, camouflaged by the device. The man smiled and chuckled before reaching under the table and taking a black canvas bag from below and placing it by the unconscious man’s head. He opened the bag and began pulling a number of polished knives and other implements from within.

I tapped the side of the printer while it hummed, closing my eyes and humming in harmony with its motors. My mask chirped softly, and I touched it, accepting the connection.

“Hey dad.”

“Heya Cas. You at work?”

“Yeah, just printing out the pictures from today’s session. Client looked pretty wealthy; paycheck should be good.”

“That’s… I’m glad to hear it’s going well. Hey, did you see the drive-in’s having a screening of old classics this week?”

“I did.”

“Do you think you could drive me there tonight? They’re showing The Annihilator at eight, and I thought I’d like to go.”

“Don’t you have that one already? I remember watching it with you as a kid.”

He coughed, and I sensed nervousness in his voice when he answered.

“Yeah, but nothing compares to seeing it on the big screen. You can pick me up at seven, right?”

“Yeah. Anything else?”

“Cas I-“

His voice broke, and I raised my head in an effort to hear more clearly.

“Dad?”

“I’ll see you then.”

The call ended, and I returned my focus to the printer, which spat out the envelope of pictures, which I then collected and carried over to the man, who was wiping a red spot from his forehead. He took the envelope, opened it, and peered inside, before stuffing it excitedly in his pocket.

“Thank you very much, young man. I’ll be sure to send my approval along to your employer.”

I nodded and exited the warehouse through the sliding doors, mentally mapping the route to my father’s house in my head. I worked it out and began jogging, allowing my head to hang from my neck, seeing only my feet passing over the ground, rather than the many fluorescent advertisements that hung overhead. I passed all sorts on the way, from less fortunate necrotics to a group of gang members with robotic prostheses. I saw a young woman with a similar mask to mine, hers looking to be the skull of a deer or antelope, but her vivid pallor showed her to be among the living. A homeless man reached out at me, and I thought for a moment that Reggie had changed street corners. I passed by a club as I neared the apartment, and one of the girls called out to me, taunting how I concealed myself.

My father’s apartment was in one of the last remaining brick buildings, which explained how he could afford rent and a phoneline. I found him out in the parking lot to the rear of the building, standing next the car with his hands shoved into the pockets of his pants. My father was not a particularly noticeable man, coming up to my shoulders in height. He was beginning to bald and had perhaps two weeks of stubble growing on his chin. He had smile wrinkles around his eyes, despite not having smiled very much in the last twenty years.

When he saw me, his eyes lit up a little, and he made to hug me, before faltering, likely remembering what touching a necrotic did to a living person. I was in my coat and gloves, but I wasn’t going to remind him. He turned away and climbed into the passenger side of the car, and I got into the driver’s seat. After I started the engine, he spoke up.

“I want to make a stop along the way, if that’s alright.”

“Alright, where?”

“It’s a club. On fifth.”

“Okay.”

I pulled up to the sidewalk beside the entrance to the club and unlocked the car’s doors, allowing my father to climb out. He leaned his head in after shutting the door.

“I’ll be back in a minute; I’m just going to see someone.”

I nodded, and he sighed heavily before approaching, paying the bouncer, and entering the club.

She wasn’t on the street. Two girls wearing projection collars were calling to anyone who passed, and when they saw the car idling at the curb, one of them approached. The collar made her appear to be an effeminate young man in skimpy clothing, the product of choice for the club. Most of them received government funding in exchange for catering to specific tastes in customers. My boss had lectured me about it once on the way to a meeting with a client. He insisted that clubs for men were required to offer only girls, and vice versa. The collars made it so those with predilections for their own sex were equally catered to. So he said.

The woman leaned against the window and smiled at me in a way that might’ve made my skin crawl at one time. I could hear her modulated voice through the glass.

“Come on big guy, no need to be coy with all that leather. Come on in, it’ll be worth your while.”

I looked her over slowly, then redirected my gaze to the door, wondering why my father was taking so long. He was here to see her, I was sure. He had no interest in clubs otherwise. The girl pressed her hands against the window, blocking my view, and I turned my head to look straight forward again.

“Come on cutie, I’ll show you everything you want to see!”

“I do not require your services, please disengage your hands from the car.”

She scowled and pulled away, returning to her post by the door. Soon after, my father emerged from the door, followed by the one person I least wanted to see. She was wearing one of the collars, and thus looked warped from how I remembered, but it was clearly her. She had our mother’s red hair. She was arguing, while my father quietly accepted her anger, before uttering a goodbye and climbing back into the car and buckling himself in. A silence fell over us, before he whispered quietly, wiping his eyes clean of tears.

“Just get us to the theater.”

Once the movie was over, I drove my father back to his apartment and let him out, making to leave the car myself, but he halted me.

“Listen, Cas. We both know I’m not going to renew my license any time soon. You take the car; you’ll use it more than I ever did.”

“Okay. Thank you, dad.”

He nodded and smiled thinly before returning to his apartment’s front door and entering. I looked the car’s interior over carefully, before making up my mind to stop by a body shop. The model was old, but had a solid engine and reliable internal structure, it would just need a few alterations. The car was older than I had been upon my death. I paused, wondering why, in all that time, my father had never gotten work done, but finding no reason, I started the engine and shifted into drive before pulling out onto the street and starting towards the shop.

As I parked the car on the platform, I noticed a streak of red hair in the spot to my left. I turned my head and focused, recognizing her as she leaned on a shiny new car next to a man in a wrinkled business suit. She was no longer wearing her collar. She noticed that I had turned towards her and stuck up her middle finger at me. I handed the keys of the car to the shop’s valet, adding a check for repairs and enhancements a moment later. I turned my head to look at
her again, and she leaned in to whisper to the man she was with, who looked at me and sneered. He drew close, her draped over his shoulder as he began yelling with a noticeable slur in his voice, likely from drug use or alcohol.

“The fuck you think you’re looking at, gimp? Think you’re tough, with all the leather and the mask? Come on, shit-dick, I’m talking to you!”

“I’m not looking for trouble.”

They both laughed, and he pointed his finger at me, pressing it to my chest.

“Not looking for trouble? Looking at my girl here is just as bad, dumbass. Now fuck off, before I turn your stupid mask into my hood ornament, with your face still in it!”

He prodded my chest as he spoke, smearing grease on the leather. I looked down at his finger.

“You deaf now, dickless?”

“Please remove your finger from my person.”

“Make me, fucker.”

I complied, grabbing his finger in my hand and pulling it away, a harsh snapping sound emitting from his hand in the process. He yelled angrily and punched me in the face, his hand hitting metal and bruising instantly. He pulled away and I released his finger so he could clutch his hands together in pain. She held him by the shoulder and began cursing at me, and I turned my head slowly to look at her, then towards the door, which I began walking towards. A loud bang and a heavy thump against my back made me stop in my tracks and look back to see him pointing a gun at me, a shocked expression on his face. I pulled my coat at the shoulder and looked back, noticing a small hole through it. I then looked down at my chest and saw a larger hole corresponding to the one at the back.

“Oh fuck, he’s a fucking necro!”

I released my coat and flexed my hand in and out of a fist, recognizing a strange heat rising in my gut. I turned again and started out the door, ignoring the curses hurled from behind me.

I turned the key in the door of my apartment and pushed through the door, locking it behind me. The light overhead flicked on automatically, and I began unzipping my jacket. I peeled it off and hung it on a hook by the door before approaching the bathroom. Once inside I turned on the light and stared at myself in the mirror. A green T-shirt covered my chest, a single hole passing from the front through my body and out the back. My dark grey arms hung limply at my sides, thick black veins visible through the dry skin.

I lifted my arms and pulled my gloves off, tossing them to the floor and laying my hands on the sides of my mask. I pressed the latches and pulled upwards, dragging the hunk of metal up and off before setting it in the basin of the sink and leaning forward. Burn scars covered my face, intensifying around my mouth, where a constant grimace waited, my lips being torn off after melting. My eyes were yellow and bloodshot with black capillaries, eyelids stuck half-shut. I raised a hand and traced my finger along the dry skin, wondering what the rough surface felt like. I halted, stared, and slammed my fist into the mirror to no avail, merely smacking against the plastic cover.

I leaned back and let my hands fall back to my sides before leaving the bathroom and walking to the bedroom. I laid down on the mattress and stared up at the ceiling, unable to close my eyes. The night passed by as I stared, and my alarm soon rang, prompting me to turn it off. I rose, stood from the bed, and walked the floor, donning my clothes again before leaving.

I started the long walk to the office from my apartment, mask once again hiding my face.

The dead don’t eat, sleep, or crave any of the habits of the living. We don’t experience halitosis or body odor or salivate from hunger. We don’t lurch around groaning or eat people like the zombies from old movies, either. You won’t find us in most workplaces, as we have no real reason to pursue a paycheck. Most are quite content to stay in the slums. I don’t really know why I kept working after I died. It would’ve been easier to stay in the slums with the rest, no longer going through the motions that didn’t matter to me. Every now and then, I’ll see another necrotic at work. Some clients ask me to take pictures of their subjects becoming dead. I don’t remember how I got the job, or how I died, or anything of the sort. Most of the details of my life are blurry, and I see no reason in clearing them up.

I forgot to plan my route ahead of time, and I found myself walking past the club. She was there again, and she stopped calling as she saw me pass, anger building in her face. She stalked towards me, and I ceased walking to make her intent realized faster. She made as if to hit me but crossed her arms angrily instead.

“Where’d you steal that car from, corpse? We were gonna break your windows, but then I realized you stole it.”

“I didn’t.”

“That’s my dad’s fucking car, you liar. If you’re gonna lie, do it in a grave, like you’re supposed to.”

“He gave it to me.”

She scowled and made as if to hit me again, stopping with great reluctance and resentment.

“Bullshit. You threatened to touch him, if he didn’t give it to you, right?”

“No.”

“You fucking freak, why would he give it to you, huh? You’re a lying prick and shouldn’t be walking around like you’re a living person.”

“He gave it to me because I’m his son.”

She stepped back and put her hand over her mouth. I continued to stare straight ahead, ignoring the exclamation of shock.

“But… Cas is dead, dad said so…”

“This is true.”

She stepped back again, and I could see her eyes wetting at the edge of my vision. She put her other hand over her mouth and inhaled sharply. I began walking again, ignoring the sound of her following, then stopping. I was going to be late to meet my employer.

“You did good work yesterday, Cas. The client had strong praise for you. Tipped a lot, too.”

I remained silent, staring out the window of the office, overlooking the city from above. My boss continued speaking, smiling as he did.

“We can actually afford to expand a little now, I’m planning on setting up a new outlet to the south. But that’s not what I want to talk to you about. You’ve gotten a lot of praise, people recommend requesting you to their friends, when they talk about our service. This has actually caught the eye of one of our best customers.”

He stopped pacing and leaned back on his desk facing away from me, looking out the same window.

“The mayor. She’s requested you for her next session. That’s a big deal, Cas.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Yes. So, you’ve gotta put your best foot forward on that, you understand?”

“Yes, of course.”

He turned and looked at me, then furrowed his eyebrows and pointed to my chest.

“What happened to your coat?”

“Someone shot me for looking at his girl.”

“Fuckin’ savages. Well, you can’t meet the mayor looking like a gang member anyway. We’ll get you a suit.”

“Okay.”

He turned and looked out the window again, crossing his arms.

“This city is sick, Cas. People will shoot you for pointing your head the wrong way, y’know? We, our work, it’s the last bastion of civilized, good American business. Everything else, it’s just glorified drug dealing or prostitution. We provide a real service, and a real good. The mayor understands that.”

I remained silent.

I stepped into the car and turned the key in the ignition before closing the door, and the shop owner nodded in approval as the engine roared. I ran a gloved hand along the interior and confirmed my satisfaction by giving the woman a nod before pulling out onto the street. A chirp announced itself in my ear and I tapped the mask to accept the call.

“Hello dad.”

“Hey Cas. How’s the car working out for you?”

“Well.”

“That’s good. Listen, do you think you could stop by at some point today? Your sister told me she’ll be coming home tonight, apparently she wants to clean up her act, get a proper job.”

I opened my mouth to answer but had to reassess the information I’d been given before I was able to respond.

“Okay. I’ll see you after work.”

“Alright Cas, thank you.”

The call ended, and I felt the need to adjust the tie around my neck, finding that my boss had tightened it too much as he’d put it on me. I turned a corner and applied brake as I drew nearer to the warehouse, stopping at the curb just outside the front entrance, just behind a glossy black SUV.

I exited the car and entered the building, noting that the furthest left room was occupied. I tightened my gloves and approached, knocking on the door after reaching it. The door opened, and a middle-aged woman with blonde hair pulled into a bun met me. The Mayor. She smiled and ushered me in before closing the door, and I noticed a single body bag on the table, with holes poked near the head for breathing. A pair of men in suits stood with their hands behind their backs on either side of the table. They had guns holstered at their hips. The mayor spoke, and her voice was just like how it was on television, full of falsified inflection and sincerity.

“Well, you must be Casper! I’ve heard a lot about you from my friends in the office.” She extended her hand to shake, and I complied readily, glancing at the pair of men. She followed my look and smiled, her cheeks squeezing her eyes.

“Don’t mind them, my bodyguards are quite good at going unnoticed. I’ll dismiss them before we start anyway. But first, I need to confirm what rumors I hear. You’re a necrotic, aren’t you?”

I turned my face towards her and nodded. She smirked and looked to one of the men before facing me and tilting her head.

“How quaint. I suppose that helps, doesn’t it? No fear of blood or anything like that. To be honest, I wish we could get more of your folk to take jobs like you, it would really bolster the industries.”

I shrugged, prompting her to chuckle softly. She gestured for her bodyguards to leave and began putting on an apron and latex gloves as they departed.

“Now, maybe five years ago, when social morals were more important, it would be absolutely career-ruining for me to have a hobby like this. But since your kind started appearing, having a mayor like myself stopped mattering as much. Who cares if the polititians are shady, the dead are walking!”

She approached the bag and began unzipping it. Long red hair began spilling out.

“Seems like nature has a pretty sick plan for us, so who cares if some of us have a few sick desires to match?”

I watched as she uncovered the unconscious body, and stared at the familiar face, a strange sort of rigidity overcoming my limbs. The mayor turned to look, cocking her head.

“Are you going to start soon? I was told you’ve got an invisibility projector in that mask; I like being alone while I work.”

I stayed motionless, and she put her hand to her hip, leaning towards me. Her cheery facade dims a little with the confusion.

“Shit, you got rigor mortis now? What’s going on?”

A pounding sound crested in my ears, and I no longer felt stiff. I turned towards the mayor and cocked my head before lifting my finger to activate the projector. She smiled and turned back towards the body, shaking her head slowly.

“No sense of urgency, I guess.”

I stepped towards her, entirely out of sight. My arms raised. Before I could think, my hands were around her throat, and she was flailing wildly, unable to see me to hit. I squeezed harder, and her face began turning blue. I tightened my grip once more, and her throat crumpled under my fingers, until she slumped, lifeless in my hands. I couldn’t stop squeezing.

I finally let go after what felt like half an hour, and her body fell to the floor, her face beginning to turn grey like mine. The pounding in my ears continued, and I turned towards the body on the table. My sister. I zipped the bag up and hoisted it over my shoulder. Then stopped, setting it down again and turning towards the door. I approached and opened it, peering to see the men waiting. I opened it fully, and they looked at me with confusion. My vision went red.
When my mind cleared again, I looked about to see the men lying down with their necks at odd angles. Their guns were in their hands, and my chest was riddled with holes. I turned back into the room and picked up the body bag again, when a hand grabbed my ankle. I looked down and saw the Mayor, her skin dark gray and her mouth open as she attempted to suck breath through her ruined windpipe. I kicked her in
the face, and she rolled away, allowing me to leave. I began running for the first time since dying.

My father was waiting at the door as I pulled up in the car, and his smile dissipated as he noticed the body bag in the passenger seat. I reached over and unzipped it slowly, revealing my sister to him. He staggered and rushed forward, opening the car door and pulling her out into his arms, a scream leaving his lips that set the sludge in my veins on edge.

“My baby! Oh, my poor baby, what happened?”

“She was kidnapped by a client. The mayor. She’s sedated, and will wake up in three hours, or if in significant pain.”

He looked up at me and mouthed words, before managing to croak out a response.

“The mayor?”

“Yes. Take her in, keep her out of sight for a while, get her a real job like she wanted. I need to leave; they’ll be looking for me. She’s not important to them.”

With that, I reached over and pushed the rest of her body out and pulled the door shut, before slamming on the accelerator and speeding out onto the road. The pounding in my ears began to fade as my father and sister shrank in my rearview mirror, him pulling her body up to the apartment door.

I pressed the side of my mask and spoke aloud, my head swinging from side to side as I surveyed the parking garage. I made as quickly as possible for the exit, well aware that sirens had passed by a few minutes earlier.

“Call dad.”

The connection rang once before being picked up on the other end.

“Cas?”

“Hey dad. Report the car as stolen. If they ask, your dead son took it from you.”

“Cas, come home, please.”

“Can’t do that. It will put you and her in danger. Report the car, wait for them to bring it back to you.”

I hung up as soon as I was finished speaking, then pulled the mask off and threw it to the ground, pulling the hood of my coat over my head in its place. I looked into the window of a nearby building as I passed, then stopped, watching my reflection. Tiny drops of water were drifting down my cheeks from my eyes. I looked up to the sky, but no rain was falling.