The Dance Eternal

ch. 12 and 13

12

Down a couple levels and through a series of corridors, they arrived in the residential block of the facility. Off duty researchers mingled with security freely in the hallway, which here had widened to nearly twenty feet and created a running courtyard. There was also a large percentage of refugees, most of whom were among the first to arrive from outside seeking sanctuary from the chaos. To John, people seemed weary and guarded, but in relatively good spirits. And clean. They and their clothes were clean, save for obviously recent stains.

As they passed by the apartment’s doors, many open, he could catch a glimpse of the insides; just a short panning view into the living area, and half of a stairway leading up to a second floor. The walls were off-white, and the lights were of a lower wattage, creating a softer and warmer illumination. Some residents had hung photos; through one door he passed, he spotted a child of around five merrily scrawling away on a wall with a piece of charcoal, leaving black streaks in a rounded depiction of a unicorn – the only point was the tip of the horn.

“These apartments are all nicely accommodated; we had the best in mind for this area. Each unit has three bedrooms, a bath-and-a-half, kitchen, living room, nice closets.” Steve was gesturing as if giving the grand tour, and people waved and shouted greetings as they passed.

Two groups of children, four apiece and all around eight or nine, barreled from one of the doorways as if the levee had broken, and spilled into the main corridor. They were yelling and pointing finger-guns, vocalizing the reports with enough enthusiasm that anyone caught near them got sprayed. One by one, they would fall for a few seconds, groaning and clutching at their grievous wounds, before springing back up and rejoining the battle. They ran around and ducked behind adults who chuckled – unless they happened to be facing one of the “soldiers” as he fired – and dove behind patio furniture arranged in the middle area of the courtyard.

They walked through the ongoing ‘gunfight’, and the noise eventually faded to a low echo as they turned their second corner. The corridors narrowed as they moved further from the main, but the units stayed the same size, spacing the doors a bit farther apart. The corridor ended ahead in a sort of cul de sac, with two apartments on the wall opposite the hall, and no others. The open area held a couple small vegetable gardens, a few chairs around a table, and several small potted plants.

The door to the right was open a little, wedged with a small red tricycle, and a small child was lightly crying inside. The crying started to get louder, then the door closed, cutting off the voice of a woman attempting to soothe the child.

“Over here,” Steve said, heading to the door on the left. He stopped at the door, paused just before his first knock, and turned to John. “Now, Craig is…” He sighed, here, the weight of something pulling at his shoulders, his eyes down as if to avoid the memory by diverting his sight.

Finally, he looked back up, and said, “Craig was one of the most brilliant minds here. His calculations were spot on every time, even if they seemed to come from nowhere. Top of his class from MIT, for astrophysics and a minor in computer engineering. Programming was a hobby of his, and did a lot of independent work for many top companies, all before he was thirty. And all of this, despite having autism. He was always of a functioning level, but he did very much desire… demand... his privacy, especially when working – his meltdowns were legendary.” He paused here, taking a deep breath.

“My brilliant nephew, Craig, can now barely compute one-plus-one. Occasionally, he speaks some… language… it sounds like guttural nonsense. Don’t get me wrong; he isn’t to the level of “raving lunatic”,” Steve quoted the air, a motion that John was getting used to seeing and took as part of the conversation… but still almost made him snicker, “he is lucid much of the time. There have just been these points where he is not… himself.”

Haverstad knocked on the door, and called out, “Craig” at a little under a yell. After a few moments, they heard several bolts being thrown in succession from the other side, and the door opened. Inside stood a young man, around seventeen or eighteen. His dark hair was a disheveled rat’s nest, his clothes – a yellow t-shirt emblazoned with a faded print of a smiley-face sporting a bullet hole between the eyes – rumpled and days-worn, and his eyes were wide and darting; the pupils were dilated so much that the ice blue of his irises were almost blacked-out. His face had that ‘chiseled’ look, but was drawn and skeletal with dark bags below his eyes; he would have the girls’ attention easily if he’d clean up, eat a burger and get some sleep.

Craig’s eyes snapped into focus at seeing John, the pale blue coming back, then he looked at his Uncle and smiled. In a voice deep, but still giving an occasional pubescent squeak, “Hey, Steve. How are you?” His voice was strong, but seemed to sound hollow, almost as if it were echoing from deep in his chest.

“Good, Craig. Came to chat for a while, and I brought a friend.”

Craig looked at John, his eyes like hooks, and that little presence in John’s mind suddenly went into a frenzy. “Hello, Johnathan.” He rubbed his right hand against his jeans, then offered a handshake. As John took it, he said, “It is good to finally meet a Shandor.”

Craig’s grip was clammy and vice-like, but John squeezed back, refusing to let himself be shocked by the fact that this kid knew his name. Hell, he was speaking it like he was a legend.

The presence in John’s mind was exuding warning, like passing through a speed trap while holding weed in an illegal state. He was realizing that he had been feeling it since they entered Residential; that it was on alert. When the door had opened, and his eyes met with Craig’s, it had gone into full defense. He wondered how the hell he could tell, but he was too busy watching the kid to think much harder on the fact. He did feel, however, that oily warmth beginning to creep downward from his head, with an apparent want to engulf him completely, and he shivered despite that warmth.

He tried not to panic, and it seemed to be trying to communicate through the emotive sensations and impressions; it assured him of its benign intent to protect, and nothing more. But there was also another message, of danger from this teenager. Their grips tightened still, his knuckles going white, and he felt a gentle burst of strength surge through his arm and into his hand, allowing him to withstand what would have literally crushed his hand with ease.

Craig’s mouth opened, but the voice had changed, become guttural and foul, with heavy labored breathing between words, “You… should… not… have… come…” His eyes rolled back, and the handshake began to feel cloying.

John glanced down and immediately began to jerk his hand; a dark green, brackish and familiar looking goop had begun to cover his hand, coming from under Craig’s sleeve. More was leaking from his tear ducts, and a trail had started at the left corner of his mouth. The rest of his visible skin was taking on a gross, sickly green hue, and several of his veins had burst, the bruising already angry and dark.

“s**t,” John growled, as Steve looked on, frozen in horror.

He jerked harder, and that… power?... flowed more intensely through his arms. From between their hands, a light was growing brighter by the instant, white-blue and scintillating madly. Electricity crackled in the air around them, and Steve backed away, waving at the woman who’d opened her door to investigate the commotion.

The area shook with a thump, as a shock originated in the space between their locked grips, blowing Craig backward into his apartment and through a wall to settle in a limp heap on the kitchen floor against the stove. Dust from shattered drywall obscured him in a whiteish cloud.

John stood, hand still out; his eyes were jerking between his hand and the cloud. He snapped his mouth shut and slowly closed his hand, a pale patina still enveloping his fist, and looked at Steve.

“You okay,” he asked, and the other nodded. The woman in the doorway sank back inside, staring flatly at John, and slowly closed the door.

“I’m… what was… Craig?” Steve went to the doorway as the dust was finally settling. The teenager was still slumped like a passed-out drunk, though he twitched occasionally. The two men glanced at each other, and Steve pulled a .45 he carried under his shirt, tucked in a holster at the small of his back, and c****d the slide.

Craig’s front was covered in runnels of the stuff that tried to cover John’s hand, and had pooled a little around him. With the barrel of the gun, Steve lifted his chin, and Craig’s eyes snapped forward.

He groaned, “Stee... vvveee… kill… meeeeeee.”

Steve stood and aimed, and John suddenly held out his hand, “Wait.” He went to a knee, intent on the youngster’s face. “Who… what are you?”

“We… are… forever,” it rasped through the kid’s mouth. “You… will see… sooooon.” It let out a barking hack that struck them as mocking laughter, and Steve pulled the trigger. A short, high whistle accompanied the bullet’s quick flight before it struck Former-Craig’s head, now covered in the goo. The bullet cracked and flashed upon impact, and the head imploded… messily. John and Steve were splattered in blood, brain and goo.

Johnathan looked at Steve, then at the pistol, “That was… man, that was your Nephew.” He realized that his tone almost made it sound like an accusation. “I’m sorry, man, that came out wrong.”

Steve stared at the headless remains, “It’s okay, John. He was. Was not by the time I fired.” He sounded cold and distant, but tears rimmed his eyes. “And now you know why you’re on the crew.”

13

Paris. Once hailed the world over as “The” city to visit for the hopeless romantic and cultured dilettante alike. Now, much of the heart of the city was a smoldering waste. The outer areas of the city, while still standing, were a veritable warzone.

Paris had found herself near the frontline of the increasing hostilities with the Chinese and Arab militaries; the Chinese had used Germany as a jump point, having acquired footholds through hostile corporate takeovers decades earlier, before the open combat began. The Arabs held Spain, having subjugated the nation through assassinations.

The conflicts at the borders were intense and bloody, but nothing could prepare the French for what was on the way.

Near midnight, four days ago, a massive… something… fell from the night sky, and landed at the base of the Eiffel Tower. Resembling a giant seed, it was elongated and tapered at the ends, and covered with large spiky growths. When it slammed into the ground, point first like a spear, not only did it shake the entirety of Paris to its foundations, it clipped through one of the main supporting legs of the Tower, which tipped a little, and was now leaning on the “seed” as if it were a crutch.

Through the remainder of that night, people began gathering, curious, around the crash site. A team of researchers had shown up almost immediately, and set up a perimeter with the military’s help to keep the civilians at bay; when they’d arrived, they had to pull a couple thrill seekers down who were attempting to climb the thing.

The crowd came near to the level of revelers at Carnival; people costumed in various alien representations, from cute to frightening, cavorted among the gathering, while groups sat around small fires thumping on drums and chanting nonsense to “commune” with the thing. Street vendors made their way through the crowd, trying to peddle all manner of extra-terrestrial-related trinkets, shouting above the drumming and babbling to make their sales.

At around four that morning, one of the researchers, Professor Remy LaRoue, had stumbled upon an opening in the “seed”, a few feet above the ground. LaRoue was the top mind in Astrophysics and Dimensional Theory at the Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES), and had been monitoring the approach of several of these objects for the last forty-eight hours.

As they gathered equipment and personnel to enter the object, something came out. Preceded by a gout of dark green, brackish muck that splattered on the ground below with a sickening sound that caused many present to swallow a bit of bile. Combined with the wretched stench that accompanied it, the whole caused numerous people to empty their stomachs, while others either feinted or fled outright.

A few screams came from the crowd nearby, and in the quickly ensuing silence that followed, Remy was sure that he also heard more from the other side of the thing, telling him that there was more than one opening. From the hole above him, something solid-ish began to emerge; it had the same coloration as the goop that poured out, and even dripped some of the stuff as it stretched outward, then bent down to the ground. At least ten feet long at this point, the rest of the form came out and was lowered by the appendage.

The shape of the thing, excluding the appendage that seemed to shorten like a telescope to be equal length with the other “leg”, was vaguely humanoid, complete with a “head”, but there was no apparent face and the whole seemed to shift unsteadily, as if unsupported. When it settled to the ground, it remained on that spot, still, as if waiting. Another gout of slop spattered on the ground, as a second of the beings emerged.

Remy was at once terrified and extremely curious. He wanted to attempt to communicate with these travelers. He hoped, beyond hope, that one day he would be able to contact intelligent life from another world, and his chance stood, covered in slime, before him. He willed himself to move closer, while the others gathered with him began backing away as the second began its descent to the ground.

As he got closer, the air grew thick and cloying, like on a humid summer day, and he felt a vibration in his chest and head; his breathing was becoming labored, and temples throbbed as voices echoed through his mind – what they said, he couldn’t begin to decipher. He felt something wet on his neck, and when he rubbed at it, his hand came away with a bit if that same goo.

Just as he was beginning to panic, a sound hit his ears. Or, he thought he heard it. He wasn’t sure; his head was feeling stuffed full of cotton, and he was having trouble thinking clearly.

You should not be here.

“Qua?” Remy said aloud, knowing that the words were not a vocal communication. He suddenly clapped his hands to his head and screamed; intense agony shot through his brain, and his thoughts flew every which direction, rationality destroyed.

The onlookers backed away seemingly as one entity, as Remy’s scream was echoed by several others around the object. He sank to his knees, hands still clasping his head, as the second of the beings took its place by the first. Neither seemed to notice or show any reaction to the wailing human before them.

Goo was leaking from his ears, eyes and mouth in such a volume that a puddle was forming around him as he lay, curled into a fetal ball. When his scream finally ended, he was a slop-covered lump on the pavement.

Soldiers lined up in front of the civilians, while others were attempting to get the crowd to disperse, but no one seemed to want, or be able, to make themselves move. Not until someone in the gathering screamed did the crowd budge; then, it was as if the floodgates were suddenly opened, and the crowd became a dangerous, trampling mass.

As if to add to the cacophony, the city’s warning sirens suddenly wound up, and an explosion erupted on the eastern side of Paris. As the first of the fleeing crowds got several blocks away from the horrors at the Eiffel Tower, they were suddenly gunned-down by Arab soldiers who had been monitoring the situation at the Tower, and were set upon by the fleeing mobs.

Back at the Tower, the beings had continued to emerge with increasing frequency, until a small army of them surrounded the object in a ring, one member deep. As if of one mind, they began to move outward in straight lines, sliding across the ground like upright slugs. Stragglers who hadn’t fled with the others were seeing their mistakes too late; the beings struck out at them with whip-like alacrity, snatching people up and reeling them in, screaming and kicking. When they reached the body, the appendage seemed to wrap them up and pull them inside their forms, ending any noise or struggle. All the while, the thing never stopped moving forward. Several moments later, the things would slowly expel clean, white bones in their wake, like so many macabre breadcrumbs.

Inside the city, military forces clashed in gunfire and explosions, pointed by the sound of planes overhead twirling in the early-morning sky in a deadly aerial dance. The unlucky and unskilled plummeted into the city, causing even more destruction.

Minutes stretched to hours, and the chaos continued through the remainder of the pre-dawn morning until, just as the sun began to breach the eastern horizon, a single bomber made a solitary pass over the city proper, heading toward the Eiffel Tower.

As it passed over, something dropped from it, tumbling as it descended, until just above the ground, the bomb detonated. The small-scale nuke mushroomed upward, the cloud engulfing first the “seed”, then eventually the Eiffel Tower itself. The shockwave rippled outward, throwing vehicles around like toys and tumbling buildings apart in a cloud of brick and mortar.

Minutes later, as the cloud began to dissipate, the plane made a wide circle, the crew surveying the damage. The tip of the object appeared, then the rest as the dust settled. The remains of one of Paris’ most famous landmarks lay across the object, its beams a spider web of glowing threads. A ball of pale white brilliance gathered at the upper tip of the seed, fed by the growing collection of small crimson motes that danced around the light. The whole seemed to draw in all remaining light in the world, and as it reached an intensity to challenge the brightest star, it shot outward and unerringly, streaking toward the aircraft. It struck the plane, utterly shattering it in a flash of energy and hail of steel scrap.

As the energy’s brilliance faded, and the last few bits of the craft settled to the ground, the city fell into an awkward silence, like a breath held in suspense. The distant staccato of gunfire and the pops of small ordinance echoed through the shattered remains of buildings, some millennia-old, and occasionally the voices of the dying drifted came with them, strained and weak with the distance.

At the base of the Eiffel Tower, the giant “seed” rested, quiet and dark as if it had fallen into a slumber while the remains of the landmark cooled over its surface like a net. The beings that had poured out were now gone, having traveled into the rest of the city.

A low purr began to rumble from the object, as if it were in a state of contentment.