A green flash deposited Alberto and the Watercolours in a dingy alley, all holding hands in a chain. That was one advantage of telepathy: everyone was on the same page regarding their destination. The scent of salt, soy, and fat mingled with stale urine and dry-cleaning chemicals, swirling together into an awful, bracing stew. 

Mabel yelped. She’d materialized right next to a gutted sturgeon. Her eyes shot daggers at Arnold and Allison. “Really, guys? You couldn’t find us a better landing spot than fish-alley?”

David shrugged. “What’s wrong with fish?”

Alberto didn’t hear any of that. He was too busy peering out from the alley, watching the residents of Chinatown stream past them unawares. He looked down at his feathered super-suit. It occurred to him that maybe him and David should’ve found some street-clothes for this excursion. 

Although, the Santa-clothes were meant to be psychic… 

Alberto concentrated on the suit, trying to layer shorts and a blouse over his mental image of the suit. It began to glow, quickly reshaping into a perfectly ordinary pairing of blue pants and an orange top, along with very dark sunglasses for Allison’s freak-eyes.

“Look, David, new trick! I really suggest you try it too.”

David huffed. “Fine.” He screwed his eyes shut in concentration. His watery second-skin became sand-coloured bather trunks and a green t-shirt with a blue-haired mermaid on the front.

Alberto raised Allison’s eyebrow for her. “She needs a bra, Dave.”

A pair of clamshells appeared over the mermaid’s bosom. David muttered, “First clothes, now clothes with clothes…”

Next Alberto called over to Billy, who’d dumped himself in a sad heap against a dumpster. “Billy, go invisible before anyone sees you! But keep a hand on Mabel. Last thing we need is to lose ya in the crowd.”  

David wasn’t sure he liked how bossy Allison was being today. Who cared if someone saw Billy? They could take anyone who tried to mess with him.

Billy nodded, but instead of disappearing, he looked up at Allison. The fur around his eyes was still damp with tears. Even with mind-control at his disposal, it’d taken Alberto ages to calm the tiger-boy down enough to even explain the plan.  

“Allie… is this right? I thought superheroes only went after baddies. Isn’t being nasty to the government more… the other kind of super-people?”    

“Just because they’re government doesn’t mean they’re aren’t baddies,” said Arnold. “Heck, my dad always said it was part of the job description.”

“The Nazis were a government, too,” added Mabel, “and the Crimson Comet killed loads of them.”

Billy sniffed and nodded again. “Okay.” He shook his head, steeling himself and repeating more firmly, “Okay.” 

Billy vanished. Mabel felt a furry hand taking hers.

Their oddities hidden, the children emerged from the alley into Chinatown. English, Mandarin, Cantonese and their pidgin descendants blended in the air beneath paper lanterns. The Watercolours walked past brick storefronts and restaurants, their windows filled with bilingual hànzì advertisements, terracotta lions and laughing gold Hotei statues beneath. A set of four electric lanterns hung from each curling lamppost like bundles of grapes. Coiling dragons clung to every second piece of signage. The street was filled with the descendants of hopeful gold-prospectors and railway workers. Australians going about their lives, but doomed to forever be considered foreign even to folks whose roots barely stretched back to World War Two. 

Alberto could feel Billy’s awe in the back of his head. He couldn’t help but smile. 

“Ch—AU grew up here,” he said idly. “Before Laurie, I mean. Can’t imagine their hometown hero’s done them any good.”

Alberto remembered Chinatown well. Lawrence had brought the whole gaggle down to visit Chen’s folks right after the war, back when the old man could still suffer the involvement of human family.

God, that hadn’t lasted long, had it?

David sidled up to Allison and whispered in her ear, “Hey, Allie.”

“Something the matter?”

David squinted up at the mid-afternoon sky. “Maybe? You said you parked the ship over the city.” 

“I did.”

“Then where is it?”

Alberto rolled his eyes. “I cloaked it, obviously. Big flippin’ spaceship floating over Melbourne? The Flying Man would come running.” He quirked a shoulder. “Honestly, there’s like a one in four chance he’ll show up when we start the party anyway.”

“…Just one in four?” 

“I guess the Flying Man isn’t too worried about the gits who shoot up little kids.”

High above, a pigeon slammed into empty air, flattening out against nothing and falling to the earth. 

“…Hope nobody’s going on a helicopter tour today.”

They passed beneath the decorative hip-and-gable arch at the corner of Russel and Little Bourke, and the crowds rapidly became much more caucasian. Christmas and Boxing Day had only just passed, but that didn’t slow the city’s pulse. Hundreds of men trod the streets in near-identical suits and hats, their individuality funnelled almost entirely into the colour of their ties. The women at least got their pick of dress-patterns.  

What did liven up the fashion-scene were the scattered pedestrians wearing red, finned helmets like head-mounted cadillacs: men, women, even babies in strollers. The sight baffled the children, but not nearly as much as the fact that nobody but them were giving the helmets a second glance.

“The hell are those?” asked Mabel, arm stretched behind as she held Billy’s unseen hand. 

“Minerva-3000 mental privacy harnesses,” Alberto answered. “Came out a few months back. They’re supposed to protect you from esper powers.”

David tilted his head. “Huh. Do they work?”

“I got that from reading their minds: you tell me.”     

Melbourne’s thought-scape was interesting, in an itchy, cortisone soaked sort of way. The Canberra bombing still cast their ashen light over everything, but it had been over a week. People had lives to attend to. Money and school-runs still needed to be made, meals prepared; even holidays celebrated, lest their children realize the world was falling apart. It reminded Alberto of Milan back in ‘44. A whole city—maybe a whole country—pantomiming normalcy in the face of an invasion they just knew in their guts was coming. Every passing scrap of mundane bullshit was cross-faded with lurid, martyrdom-hungry fantasies of big-brained supermen goose-stepping down the streets, whips in hand.  

Alberto grinned. He was happy to oblige. 

The children were cutting through another alley when Arnold saw something that stopped him dead. Amidst a bark-skin of fliers for local clubs and bands, along with thinly-veiled offers for female company, there was a wanted poster. 

A monochrome and vacant-eyed Arnold Barnes stared out at himself, his hair freshly shorn, weakly clutching a placard with his name, vital statistics, and DDHA serial number to his chest. The boy could barely remember taking the mugshot. Must’ve been before the sedatives wore off.

INFORMATION WANTED ON DEMI-HUMAN FUGITIVE ARNOLD BARNES; WARNING, EXTREMELY DANGEROUS, DO NOT APPROACH IF SIGHTED

Arnold backed away from the poster against the alley wall like he was in danger of falling into it. He remembered what he’d said his first day at the Institute:

“What can I say? I’m a dangerous man.”

“Um, guys!”

The others (including, presumably, Billy) gathered around their friend.

“What’s wrong, Arn?” Mabel asked, before catching sight of the wanted poster. “Oh.”

“Huh,” said David. “Guess the Physician wasn’t lying.” He looked at Arnold with some admiration. “Kinda badass.”  

“It’s not badass!” Arnold wailed. Panicked tears were beading under his eyes. “Why do I have a wanted poster?”

“Because you exploded Canberra, Arn,” said Alberto.

“That was Lawrence!” Arnold slid down the wall till he was sitting, wrapping his arms around his legs. “He tricked me…”

The psychic tapped his foot impatiently. “And who knows that besides us and Lawrence? Besides, pretty sure you’re still an accomplice.”

Arnold made a wounded groaning noise. Billy briefly flickered back into sight next the boy, ready to apply his living plush powers, but Alberto raised a finger.

“Invisible, Billy.”

“But I—”

“Invisible.”  

Billy vanished again, though Arnold’s shirt ruffled and creased like the air itself was giving him a hug. 

“I shouldn’t be down here,” he murmured. “Someone will recognize me.”

“Because there are so few white boys with black hair in Melbourne. I mean, not as many with legs that skinny…”

David frowned. “Don’t be mean, Allie.” 

Oh, so murder’s okay, but not jokes about Arnold’s chicken legs?

“Whatever. And so what if someone spots ya?” Alberto pointed at the poster. “Says right there: ‘Do not approach’.” 

Alberto’s joke didn’t do much to cheer Arnold up. All he said was, “God, Mum’s going to see me on the news…”

Alberto saw how much effort it took Arnold to not to call her “Mummy.” The entire bloody country was gunning for the kid, and he was more scared of Angela Barnes.

Figures.

“He kind of has a point,” said Mabel, rubbing her foot into the grimy alleyway asphalt. “People are really, really going to hate us after this.”

Alberto took a breath. “Like they don’t hate us now. Come on.” He started walking again. The others followed, all but David curling suddenly sore fingers into fists.

Alberto knew he wasn’t being particularly persuasive. But he didn’t have to be: the Watercolours would fight for him whether they really wanted to or not. Well, aside from possibly David, and he seemed pretty into the plan so far.

Still, the esper couldn’t help but think the kids would fight harder if they had true, honest rage on their side, enough to evaporate fear and the childish beginnings of morality.

What could he use to angry up their blood? A newspaper letters section? A G-Men comic? Asking random passersby for their opinion on demis till David made them explode? Alberto scoured the storm of futures and the star-cluster of human minds he was wading through for options. 

 Oh. Oh, that was good.

He looked over Allison’s shoulder at his compatriots. “Hey, you guys mind taking a detour?”

⬗

Shortly after the Canberra bombings and the beginning of the New Human Crisis, many observers wondered (loudly, nigh-hysterically) if the National Museum of Melbourne¹ would close their popular demi-human exhibit at McCoy Hall. The museum’s response—its representatives subtly but unmistakably puffing out their chests—was that they would not be cowed by a few mutant radicals. That the recent demi-human attacks only strengthened their mandate to educate the people of Melbourne about these strange, wondersome aberrations. 

In hindsight, they probably should’ve brought back the dinosaur skeletons and stuffed lions.

Even so late in the afternoon, so soon after the holidays, McCoy Hall was packed. Tourists, eager super-chasers, parents looking to cheaply entertain their bored children.

And today, five and-a-half genuine demi-humans. 

The museum floor was littered with dioramas of infamous Australian supervillains. Mistress Quickly² aiming her duster-gun at passing museum-goers. Pemulwuy standing impossibly tall atop Uluru with moulded light-up flames³ sprouting from his hands, for that double-dose of colonial smugness and extinction anxiety. Ned Kelly in his armour⁴.  

And of course, sitting on a desert rock, counting gold bars lying in piles at his feet, clad in glammy, shiny plastic armour: AU. 

Alberto gripped the velvet rope around his old friend’s display tight, his thin, pale arms shaking with barely restrained anger.

Hope you’re happy, Chen, he thought. Bloody well ruined everything.

Or maybe that had been the Flying Man, standing in minature before JFK in an exquisitely detailed scale model of the White House that late October morning in 1962, pinned under the storm-grey gaze of a giant boy.

Before he did something rash (and incendiary) to the AU diorama, Alberto tore himself away and walked over to Arnold.

He looked down at the little Flying Man model. “Do you think it’s fun, being him?” Alberto asked.

“Don’t know,” answered Arnold, not looking up from the display. “Seems to spend all his time cleaning up after the naturals.”

“Yeah, but I bet he does that for kicks. Just to show he can.”

“Why not us, though?” Arnold spoke slowly and quietly. “Why doesn’t he help us?”

Alberto decided to play devil’s advocate. “He did come to the Institute.”

Arnold scuffed. “Yeah, after the soldiers shot everyone.” He squirmed like he wanted to punch something—anything—with his whole body. “It’s his fault, you know? The only reason the freak-finders go after us is because they can’t get him.” He looked down darkly again at the miniatures on the fake fabric grass. “I thought they were meant to be grownups.”

Alberto tried to keep his face smooth and sombre. He patted Arnold on the shoulder. “Don’t worry Arn,” he reassured the boy. “They’re getting what’s coming to them.”

Check one. 

Alberto moved to find the others in the crowd. 

“I wish I had superpowers,” said a boy with a cotton-candy encrusted mouth gawking at a statue of Hel in her custom-designed Hugo Boss SS uniform⁵, with shockingly more generous cleavage than her flesh and blood model had boasted. He looked up at the blonde woman standing next to him.  “What about you, ma?”

The woman answered quickly, “No. I don’t think you do either, Angus. They’re an awful burden.”

Bloody liar, Alberto thought as he passed.

Aside from the supervillains, the exhibit also boasted many purely informational displays. On a raised dais were two stalks topped by two plastic human brains. Unless you were a neurologist or an x-ray machine, the only apparent difference between the specimens was that the one on the right was tinted green for whatever reason. The demi-human brain. As the informational plaque explained, the prevailing scientific consensus regarding the violent tendencies of many demi-humans—obviously demonstrated by the hero/villain paradigme—was that the part of their brains responsible for regulating their deviant abilities took up neural real-estate that in normal humans was dedicated to empathy and impulse control. 

Out of nowhere, the human brain tipped to the floor. 

Alberto skipped a ways. Check two.

He was disappointed to find Mabel staring at a model of Circle’s End in the corner of the hall. The recreation of the little mining township was restrained, only suggesting mass-death. It was also making sickly green guilt burn in Mabel’s skull. Alberto didn’t need that. 

He took the little girl’s hand and turned her around to face the swarming crowd.

“It’s funny,” he said. “They’re so happy not to be us. But they’re also really, really jealous. There but for the grace of the Man but-why-couldn’t-he-have-picked-me, you know what I mean?”

Mabel let out a small laugh. Allison was showing off her big-people words a lot lately, but she couldn’t say she wasn’t right. “Yeah,” she said. “It’s pathetic.” She laughed again. “Wish Automata was here,” she said with a sad fondness. “Imagine if she used her power on all the mannequins…” 

“You’re gonna outdo her later,” Alberto assured her. He glanced around the hall. “Know where David is?”

David was the important one here, really. Even if he hadn’t been a powerhouse, if the other children wavered, Alberto could pull them back into line. Not him. 

“Ooh!” exclaimed Mabel. She started pulling Alberto through the throng. “Wait till you see what they’ve got on the other side!”

The Parliament House display had been included in the exhibition for reasons of balance. To show what good and beauty demi-humans could do for society, so long as they were properly regulated. A plasticine boy and girl, pretending that glass was ice and fibreglass was wood, frozen still in the middle of their dance, watched approvingly by two old plasticine men. 

It was more perfect than Alberto could’ve hoped for. David was glaring poison at the poor, ill-proportioned recreation of his old, blue-eyed self. The version Lawrence wanted. It was so inaccurate, nobody noticed the original boy standing right in front of it. The models of Robert Menzies and Herbert meanwhile were exacting. Loving.  

When they were close enough behind him for the boy to hear them over the humans, Alberto said, “Funny, isn’t it? They care more about two old men in suits than the people making miracles.” 

“I hate it,” said Mabel. “They keep trying to make us into things. ” 

“Yeah,” Alberto agreed. “Monsters or pets.”

David turned and looked at his friends with his grandfather’s eyes. “We’re gonna get a new display,” he said firmly. “I want to be a monster now.”

---

^{1. This being before the paradoxically named museum moved in the 1990s to Carlton Gardens from the city-block it shared with the State Library on La Trobe, Swanston, Little Lonsdale and Russell Streets. ↩}

^{2. Real name Maude Simmons, usually known as such due to her hesitance to commit to a super-nym. ↩}

^{3. His actual powers were earth related. ↩}

^{4. There is still no historical evidence that Ned Kelly was in fact a superhuman. ↩}

^{5. Nazi super-soldier with uncertain powers, generally believed to be either sonic in nature or mediated by sound. Her bottle-blond status was a state-secret. Killed in action during the fall of Berlin by the Crimson Comet. Ralph Rivers did not receive a display at the McHoy Hall exhibition, or even a mention on the plaques for Hel and her comrade Baldr, the man who couldn’t die (until he did). ↩}

Previous Chapter                                                                                                           Next Chapter

                                    

David Venter-Barthe stood at the shore of the saltwater lake, its waves gently licking at his heels. A dark stone ceiling stretched high above him, almost hidden from sight by a dark forest of heavy clouds.The stinking hot air wept with humidity.

David was in Heaven. A normal child would’ve passed out from the heat ten minutes ago, if they could even breathe the sodden air. But David was no such thing. And neither was Allison Kinsey.

David turned to look at the pale little girl, standing behind him like a ghost on the pink sands that rimmed the outer edge of the chamber. He grinned at her, saying, “The Physician’s bedroom sure is big,” before looking back out over the water, curiosity replacing humour in his smile. “Does he really live under there?”

“He has to,” replied Allison. “Years and years back the Physician’s lot hit a wall trying to make themselves smarter. They’d already gotten their brains to work as good and fast as they were ever going to—hell, they’d turned their whole bodies into brains. Only way they were gonna get smarter after that was if they got bigger.” She gestured at the lake. “And there’s loads of space underwater…”

“What about Dr. Smith? The Commodore and all them? The little Physicians?” David giggled at his choice of words. Sounded like a toyline.

“They’re just pieces of him. They crawl out of the water to experience the world for him. Then when they’re done, he eats them back up.”

David frowned. “And they’re okay with that?”

Allison shrugged. “Why would they have a problem with being whole again?”

David looked around the chamber. “Wait, if this is the Physician—the real one—shouldn’t there be… I don’t know, guns or something?” He stretched his imagination. “Water-dragons?”

Allison started wading into the water. “This ship’s his slave, David. If you had a slave, would you keep a gun next your bed?” She stopped, turning back to her friend with a smile. “Besides, the Physician is a water-dragon. Wanna come mess with him?”

David nodded vigorously. Allison had been weird all day. More talkative, but removed somehow. Constantly pursuing things David couldn’t name. Like she and the rest of them were walking through worlds that only barely met at the edges.

Still, he couldn’t say she wasn’t being fun.        

The two children ran into the lake, the water rising around them with every step, till they were hanging beautifully weightless between planes of mud and the dim light of the surface.

David breathed in the water greedily. How had he lived so long without salt on his tongue?

He hadn’t, really.

Allison took the lead, kicking forward towards a phosphorescent glow in the distance, where David could feel massive amounts of water trapped and woven into organic patterns. They flew over carpets of kelp.  Shaggy, but oddly fish-like insects and water-snakes armoured in bone-plate with mouths full of rusticles swam with them through the dark. David wondered if they were the Physician’s lunch.

Mud, sand, and seaweed gave way to banks of coral. Spindly, branching trees of staghorn. Tall, rainbow sea-pens like peacock tails and bushes of pulsing blue globules. Red and yellow gorgonians swaying with the current like giant, moth-eaten hand fans.

And eyes. Thousands of unblinking, china-blue eyes, all staring up at the young interlopers.

A thought rang out through the water:

Cover me.

Before David could think a response, Allison swooped down towards the reef, running her hands over its coral. 

…Okay

Before David could wonder why Allie was fondling a coral reef, a deep, resounding groan echoed through the lake. The whole cavern shook.

An enormous ball of pallid flesh tore its way out of the lakebed, rising on a hairy umbilicus to loom over the children, shucking off sand to reveal a gaping maw ringed by orange tentacles. 

Allison didn’t even look up at the thing. 

Can you take care of that?

David’s face screwed with determination, and he shot up at the monster… right into its mouth. 

The water-sprite burst from the other side of the creature with a gout of green blood pluming like acrid smoke in the water: a bullet made of ice. 

Sometimes, David had learned, it felt good to be him. 

⬗

Mabel Henderson was torn. On the one hand, she physically needed to sketch Commodore Spoketooth’s mermaid. On the other, that would require not swimming with the actual-for-real mermaid. 

So, the young artist settled for occasionally excusing herself from the splash fight to swim over to her sketchbook lying open at the edge of the pool. 

She was detailing the mermaid’s fluke when a fat splat of water hit the drawing.

Mabel scowled, even as the paper drank the water like it’d never been there. She turned and glared at her friends. “You guys! I’m trying to draw here!”

Arnold was floating at the centre of a vortex, churned and stirred by shards of lightning from his body. “Don’t moan!” he retorted, voice cracking and rumbling with thunder. “Who the hell draws in a pool?”

Mabel rolled her eyes. “It’s called drawing from life, Arnold.” 

The Commodore shouted from his deckchair, having been pulled out of A House of Pomegranates¹. “Play nice, ya scallywags.” 

The mermaid glanced worriedly between the two children, before looking pleadingly at Billy floating beside her. She’d lapsed back into silence when Mabel laughed at her accent.

Billy reached over and squeezed the mermaid’s hand. It was kind of neat meeting another kid with claws. “It’s okay,” he said. “Friends argue like that all the time. Took some getting used to for me, too.”

The mermaid nodded warily, but was quickly distracted by the texture of Billy’s sodden fur, rubbing his arm with undisguised fascination.

It was funny, Billy thought. The mermaid thought he was weird—who didn’t?—but she thought Arnold was, too. A furry boy was no stranger than a naked one.

“Hey,” he asked, “do you have a name?”

The mermaid bit her lip.

Before she had a chance to answer, David and Allie strolled back into the pool-chamber, still as dripping wet as when they’d left. Allison was striding with a confidence that looked frankly comical without clothes, whereas David was clearly trying to smother giggles. 

The mermaid waved at the pair, crying, “Avast, mateys!” It didn’t feel exactly right for a style of speech so similar to Spoketooth’s to come out of someone so small, but it hardly registered in this place.

Allison mimed tipping her hat at the others in the pool. “Hi, guys.” She turned and gave the Commodore a cat-like smile. “Ahoy, Spoketooth.” 

The Physician waved his hook in salute. “Mighty fine to see ya two again. Where did ya minnows swim to?”

David rocked back and forth on his heels. “Oh, nowhere.”

“We were just visiting you,” Allison added.

Spoketooth flashed the signature, lip-tearing Physician grin. “Oh, which one? Johannes? Nurarihyon-san?²”  

A deep bass note resounded through the ship. A cracking rumbling noise broke through the hull: the sound of long-sleeping stone being roused. 

“We weren’t talking about your scrapings,” retorted Allison, grinning herself. “We meant you. All of you.”

For a second, the children all felt something like a light hand pressing down on them. The water in the pool vibrated and sloshed about, before settling again. The Commodore actually stumbled, slapping his remaining hand over his pirate-hat to keep it in place. 

“The hell was that?” Arnold asked loudly.

“I could ask the same question, lad!” Spoketooth shouted, staring at Allison and David. His grin had collapsed into a basset-hound frown.

“That would be the inertial dampening kicking in,” Allison answered. “You need it if you want to get from Antarctica to Melbourne at a decent clip.” She was still smiling at Commodore Spoketooth. “I think we’ll be plotting the ship’s course for the time being, Commodore.”

The Commodore quickly considered his options. Clearly, John Smith’s little wastrels had somehow subverted the navigation and propulsion systems. Such a feat required no less than the subversion of himself. His parent, birthplace, and afterlife all in one. That should’ve been the Physician’s biggest problem—it wasn’t.

Had this girl even cloaked the ship? Was he coming for them?

“Well,” said Allison, “got anything to say to that?”

The Commodore let out a dry, rattling howl, designed to scare off predators from the other side of the galaxy, and raised his hook to strike. It stopped pretending to be ratty old plastic, reforging into a barbed spear dripping with neurotoxin. 

The alien tried slashing at Allison, but the little girl burst into flames. The physician’s makeshift stinger still hit her, in a sense. It just melted in the heat. Then, a blast of magma shot from her chest, embracing Spoketooth.

The Physician shrieked as his flesh burned and melted, nearly harmonizing with the shouts of shock and terror from the children in the pool. His body writhed and twisted, mutating and spagettifying in every direction as it tried to flee from the fire consuming it. 

The children’s screams outlasted Spoketooth, who eventually fell sideways into the pool, extinguishing with a hiss as the water around it bubbled and steamed.

Allison and David were both laughing.

The mermaid keened and wailed, diving back down into the depths. Mabel yelled, “The fuck, Allie?”

Billy screamed through tears, “You killed him!”    

David looked confusedly at his friends, before blinking from sudden comprehension. He threw his hands up reassuringly. “It’s alright, guys,” he explained. “That wasn’t all of him. We can make another Spoketooth later.”

Alberto Moretti let the fire in him die. It felt good, finally having a power that could break things. Bradbury was right. It was, in fact, a pleasure to burn.

“Why—” Arnold stammered. “Why’d you do that?”

Alberto stepped to where he’d left Allison’s super-suit, slipping it on. Conveniently, the lava stunt had dried him off. “Because he was just going to tell us what to do.”

To Arnold’s horror, this sounded perfectly normal from his friend.

“Get dressed, everyone,” Alberto ordered, his will thrumming along the strings that connected him to the Watercolours. “Mabel, grab your scrapbook. Might as well take your atlas too, Arnold.”

“Wh—where are we going?”

“Melbourne. We’re going to give Tim Valour what’s coming to him.”

---

^{1. A 1891 collection of short stories by Oscar Wilde, including stories such as “The Star-Prince” and “The Fisherman and his Soul.” ↩}

^{2. Dr. Nurarihyon, an instantiation of the Physician stationed in Japan, named for his physical resemblance to the large-headed yōkai of Japanese folklore. Went for that angle after he realized his particular brand of transforming hero wasn’t going to market well. ↩}

Previous Chapter                                                                                                           Next Chapter

The fish-fin door swept open, revealing the latest stop on the Watercolours’ self-guided tour:

Billy went, “Woah…”

“Neat,” said David. 

Mabel’s nose wrinkled. “Gross, you mean.”

The water-sprite shrugged. “Why not both?”

Alberto simply wondered if he’d hit the jackpot. 

The room wasn’t large in terms of absolute floor space, maybe about fifteen metres end to end, but it was tall; almost arena-like in its dimensions. Similar in its architecture, too. The walls subtly beveled inwards, lined with odd ridges of purposeless shape and form. The furniture, on the other hand, put one in mind of a cluttered boutique shop. They stretched out from the middle in rings, tight enough alongside one another to leave too small of a gap for even Billy to slide through, but for a wider indentation every two or three metres.

They were pods. Wide glass cylinders as baroque as the rest of the Physician’s equipment, capped at both ends with what looked like hand-molded bone-china, the glass inlaid with a brassy metal filigree that shifted as the eye moved across it. David could feel all sorts of fluids flowing beneath the floor. They made the whole place smell faintly of trophy rooms and shoe polish.

What lay inside the pods were children. Dozens of athletic, milky skinned boys of about eleven or twelve floated curled in a viscous, yellow fluid as if trapped in lava-lamps. Their faces were caught between baby-fat and sharp, Nordic definition, and with their eyes closed, the only thing that distinguished them from each other was the colour of their hair, in which were tangled coronets not unlike the one Arkwright had worn during his transformation. The term “educator crowns” popped into Alberto’s head.

Billy had his eyes averted, uncertain whether he should look upon the bottled youths’ nakedness. Arnold was also avoiding looking at the tubes. His face was very red.

Little checca, Alberto thought to himself.

“Are these…” Billy struggled to find a plausible explanation. “…Baths?”

“Don’t think so,”  Alberto said with a studious frown, rubbing Allison’s chin while squinting at the tubes. “I think these are wombs.”

“Ewww,” said Arnold.

David was getting a closer look at one of the test-tube kids: a blond. His eyes widened. “Holy heck,” he said, forcing Alberto to stifle a cackle. “This one looks like he could be Mr. Thumps’ son.”

“More like little brother,” Alberto said archly, “and they all look like that.”

“The Physician can make people,” Mabel said, sighing. “Can anyone else remember when we woulda been surprised by that? At all?”

“Not really,” answered David. Glancing upwards, he noticed holes in the ceiling, each corresponding with one of the pods below. “Wonder what those are for.”

Much to David’s surprise, he actually got an answer:

Alberto pointed at the metal floor. “See the swirls? Like in the Wizard of Oz?”

Indeed, the floor was inlaid with ribbons of what passed for carnelian, turquoise, and yellow fire-opal. They winded through the tubes and converged on a circle of rainbow hematite in the centre of the nursery. Alberto stepped into the circle and spun on his heels. 

There was a solid clicking sound. The whole room began to slowly but unmistakably spin.

No, not the room; just the floor and ceiling. As they spun, the pods rose up from the floor, riding on cushions of shimmering air up through the apertures in the ceiling.

“The room’s like a merry-go-round,” explained Alberto, pointing out the grooves in the walls being eaten by the floor. “Or the plunger in a syringe. The pods use antigravity stuff to stay out of the way.”

New pods emerged from the holes left by the last set. There was another click, and the room stopped spinning. 

“The floor delivers nutrients and stuff to the pods.” Alberto stepped out of the circle and gave a snide grin. “You guys ever notice the Physician’s lot build everything like they can’t pick between an adventure playground and a modern art gallery?”

The children were too busy examining the new pods to appreciate Alberto’s wit. The occupants were more mature than than their predecessors—about sixteen or seventeen. The only other difference was that their filigree was closer to gold than brass.

Alberto huffed a little. He wasn’t sure why being ignored by a bunch of little kids bugged him, but it did. “These guys are all getting sold to gangsters and politicos like Valour. A few of them are going to Vietnam.” He shrugged. “Not sure why they still draft real people, but whatever.”

Arnold looked back at Allison. “How do you know all that?”

“Those metal lines on the tanks? That’s what the Physician uses for writing.” Alberto made a show of checking Allison’s fingernails. “I can read it now.”

Arnold whistled. Alberto stood back on the rainbow circle and spun again. 

The next layer of pods all contained full-grown Misters. The layer after that held full-term fetuses.

“Babies!” Billy cried in delight. None of the other children seemed to share his reaction.

Then there were toddlers, and preteens, more adolescents, and finally another batch of grown men, this time vaguely East Asian.

“Huh. The North Koreans are buying these ones¹.”

The cycle of childhood repeated over and over as the Watercolours descended through the clonal-nursery. Brass became gold as boys became men before they ever opened their eyes. Even unborn, the drones all had songs, composed and shaped by their educator-crowns. Some were being sleep-trained up into bodyguards, assassins, or just all-purpose muscle. Others, though, were for the Physician’s own use: operating his equipment or helping maintain his reluctant spaceship.

Alberto paid those drones’ songs special attention. 

“Wonder how long it takes the Physician to make a grown-up,” David mused. 

“About three months,” answered Alberto. 

“I think it’s sad,” said Billy, watching another young drone pass up through the ceiling.

“Why’s that?” asked Mabel.

“They never get to be kids.”

David nodded in agreement. Alberto, though—staring down the barrel of a second, female puberty—couldn’t bring himself to weep much for the drones. 

“At least they don’t have to go to school,” pointed out Arnold. “Or get bossed around for years by people like Laurie…”

Mabel looked flatly at her friend. “They’re slaves, Arn.”

“But being a kid slave would be way worse.”

“Point.”

Alberto was only half-listening to the conversation. He was busy imagining himself (or herself, sadly) in one of those pods, hopefully doped to the gills, being rushed to adulthood; hair sprouting, hips flaring, breasts rising like dough—  

Alberto felt Allison shake in her cage. He wondered how much of that was the prospect of being changed in of itself, and how much was the general horror of womanhood Lawrence’s stirpiculture was so good at engendering in his female students.

Would such a growth spurt even help matters²? Even if Alberto could find a shortcut back to maturity, it would be as a woman. Even now, in Allison’s still mostly boyish frame, he felt horribly incomplete. Would he still like girls, or would Allison’s biology override his own tastes? Maybe he could force Eliza—  

Alberto banished the thought from his mind. There was no way he was going to throw himself on that witch’s mercy.

The Misters gave way to more varied broods. Werewolf cubs grew up into hulking beasts, lizard hatchlings became ghastly serpent-men, and surprisingly, geodes became crystal golems. 

Shockingly, there were even some girls. 

“Why doesn’t the Physician make more of us?” Mabel griped to Allison.

They left behind the little girls as they dipped down into adolescence. Alberto grimaced at the script on the teenagers’ tanks. “Be glad he doesn’t.”

At least they were spayed.

No more pods replaced the last batch of females. The ports in the ceiling closed, and the carousel ceased revolving.

“This the bottom floor?” asked David, 

The grooves in the walls swirled into whirlpools and coalesced into five dark tunnels.

“Looks like it,” said Alberto. He found himself hopping from foot to foot. He’d never done that in his own body. “I think this is the floor where the Physician keeps all his special projects.”

“Think” his rump. Alberto knew the ship’s layout like the back of his old hand. There were songs wafting from all the tunnels: mostly animal, but a few were broadly human.

More importantly, one of them was a Physician. 

Alberto ran into one of the tunnels, calling over his shoulder, “Going exploring. Meet back here?”

Mabel started down another, Billy bolting ahead of her with his cape fluttering behind him. “Sure,” she answered. “Tell me if you find something worth drawing.”

Alberto heard David and Arnold’s footsteps behind him. He didn’t mind. Might be good to have backup. 

The tunnel reminded all three of them of the Nocturnal House at Perth Zoo: a dark, winding hallway with peculiar habitats cut into the walls, partitioned by what Alberto guessed were either transparent forcefields, or panes of glass. One played art-studio for crystal-spiders weaving red hot webs of molten steel. An aquarium brimmed with cuttlefish whose skin flashed mute, colourized reruns of I Love Lucy³.

“The hell are those for?” Arnold asked.

“Construction and communications?” Alberto shrugged. “Honestly, I’m not sure the Physician needs a reason to do anything.”

There was a herpetarium filled with softly glowing orange lantern-turtles, the very sight of which made David pout.

“What’s got you?” Alberto asked. He hated that he had to do that with David now. “I thought they’d be your style.”

“They are,” David grunted. He kicked at nothing. “The aquarium thing’s too small for me to swim in.”

Cells carpeted with snoring human faces. Arboretums of trees that bloomed with half-ripe bluebirds⁴. Some of sort of squid-like biological manipulation tool inexplicably labeled “Dandelion.” A great, four-winged roc⁵, fashioned from leather and polished bronze, spread its art-deco wings atop a plucking post of petrified coral. Its song was borderline sapient.

Alberto paid these wonders and horrors little mind, focusing only on the Physician’s song.

The tunnel forked, leading off towards an Olympic swimming pool set beneath an artificial, azure sky. A Physician was lounging in a deckchair, reading a dog-eared copy of Undine⁶.

David stared at the pool, practically salivating over it. He sniffed.

Salt water. 

David’s suit melted off him. He ran towards the pool and dive bombed, laughing all the while.

The Physician rose from his chair. This one wore a red long coat and a Monmouth cap. One of his eyes was covered by a cheap, plastic eyepatch, and his right-hand had been replaced by a similarly cheap and nasty plastic hook. It even had a tell tale seam running along its length. His leg tapered off into a thick tree branch, complete with leaves.  “Aha, me hearties! I take it you’re the scalawags the good Doctor Smith is giving passage?”

Arnold giggled and shook his head. “This is a joke, right?” He looked around the chamber. “The Physician’s got cameras set up, doesn’t he?”

Alberto ignored the boy. He was finding the Physician’s song far less upsetting than he had been, even at this close range. It would be a while before he’d try dancing to it, but he could manage to rattle off its virtues at a trendy coffee bar. More encouragingly, it was having a feedback effect with his telepathy, making the alien’s lights become more distinct and legible.

“Let me guess,” he said, “Doctor…”

The new Physician waved his hook. “Ahh, none of that. I’m Commodore Spoketooth!” 

“And where do you work, Cornwall?” Alberto asked, a little too proud of himself for the joke.

Arnold added, “And why are you all pirate?”

Commodore Spoketooth chuckled nautically. “Nay, lass, I usually plow international waters.” He looked at Arnold. “As for your question, lad: why shouldn’t I?”

It was the first time anyone had directly called Alberto a girl. It stung

The surface of the pool bubbled and frothed. David’s head emerged from the water, and he wasn’t alone. A girl surfaced beside him, raven-black hair clinging to her face. She had darker skin than David, and vaguely Polynesian features. Her eyes though were large and black, with no visible pupils. A manic grin revealed some very sharp teeth.

David sputtered with excitement. “I—she…” He turned to his companion and exclaimed, “Show them!”

The girl dived back under the water. A red-scaled fluke surfaced like a sea-serpent, waving at Arnold and Allison.

David shouted, “Mermaid!” and dived back under.

Alberto and Arnold both blinked at the pool. 

“Ah, what was that?” asked Arnold.

Commodore Spoketooth put his hands on his hips proudly. Alberto had to admit this Physician had a better than usual grasp of human body-language. Anything for a gimmick, he guessed.

“That’s me mermaid.”

Alberto glanced sideways at the pirate-doctor. “Your mermaid.”

“Yes.”

“Where did you get her?”

“I made her.”

Arnold asked, “Why?”

“Do I need a reason?”

“Told ya,” Alberto whispered to Arnold. 

“You land-lubbers came up with such a pretty yarn, I did ya the courtesy of making it real!”

Alberto’s curiosity was rusty, but it was piqued. “Can she breathe underwater?”

“Would be a lousy mermaid if she couldn’t.”

“I thought there wasn’t enough oxygen in water for mammals?” Sometimes, Alberto was finding, it felt good to be smart.

“Aye, lass. But I figured out these special blood-cells made out of diamonds for her⁷. They carry more than two hundred times the oxygen your landlubber blood.” Spoketooth smirked, revealing alternating silver and gold teeth. “Makes gills perfectly feasible for her.”

“Why is she a kid?” asked Arnold. “You can make grownups.”

Spoketooth laid his hook on the boy’s shoulder, making him flinch. “Aye, I did cook the little fry past the really fiddly years. But, sometimes, laddie, I just like to watch you children grow…”

Mercifully, David surfaced again. “Why are you guys standing around? There’s a mermaid!” 

There was no way in hell Allison Kinsey could resist going swimming with a mermaid, Alberto realized. Oh well. He walked over to the pool’s edge and started lowering himself in—

David frowned. “What are you doing?”

“…I’m gonna swim with you and the mermaid.”

David looked bemused. “In clothes?”

Oh. God. Alberto wondered how believable Allison growing a sense of modesty in two days would be.

Not bloody likely, he thought.

“Um,” he said, before remembering Spoketooth, who’d wandered back to his chair. “I didn’t want to weird out the Commodore.” 

The pirate looked back up from his book. “Shiver me timbers, lass! You think I care about what you scurvy dogs look like under your kit?”

“See?” said David. “Do you really want to deal with drag?”

Alberto really, really wished the little shit had picked a different phrasing.

“Don’t tell Allie to get naked if she doesn’t want to.”

Alberto turned to look at Arnold. The boy was nearly as red as the mermaid’s scales. Discomfort radiated from him like a physical force. But there was also a sense of guilty anticipation. 

Hmm, Alberto thought to himself. So Arnold has some red blood in him, too. It almost seemed stranger to the psychic than the boy being a plain old fag. Say what you want about Ralph Rivers, at least he picked a team and backed it all the way.

Still, Arnold’s mortification couldn’t help but amuse Alberto. On the other hand, being lusted over by a nine year old didn’t exactly thrill him. Whatever. For now, he would avert suspicion however he must. 

There was a green flash, and Allison’s super-suit fell on top of Arnold’s head. He sputtered and yelled as he threw the costume off, blanching as he got a look at Allison.  The boy’s mindscape shifted. An odd swelling of pride, tinged with a relieved kind of hope as a tingling warmth spread all throughout his body. 

“Huh,” Arnold said, more to himself than to Allison. “You’re just as cute as David is.”

Inside her skull, Allison Kinsey turned red as a balloon. Under Alberto Moretti, however, she also giggled.

“Perv,” Alberto said with a wink. He turned back to the pool. “Come on, you’ll miss out.”

Alberto dived. The young mermaid greeted him with an enthusiastic wave. A lime flash flowed over the water, and Arnold plunged flailing into their midst

Alberto was almost proud of the little queer.

⬗

The children frolicked with the mermaid for hours. Like everything else on the Physician’s ship, her pool was incredibly over-designed. Its bottom and walls were shrouded by beautiful, false holograms of vibrant coral reefs and tractless blue wastes in every direction. Whenever they threatened to scrape the habitat’s limits, they stretched away from their hands or feet (or fins) like a 3D treadmill.

Alberto kept up well enough with David and the mermaid, Allison’s eyes glowing almost purple with the combined glow of her and the water-sprite’s powers. Stolen grace and aquatic mastery  was definitely a step up from desperately dog-paddling behind Fran back in the river. 

He spun in the water, before curling into a ball and letting the world tumble around him. An unexpected glee buoyed him. It was embarrassing, but he couldn’t help himself. The cool, flowing weightlessness yielded gloriously to the strength in his new limbs as he kicked through the water. Swimming, after all, is the cousin of flight.

Maybe being a kid again wasn’t so bad. The main downside of childhood, Alberto reasoned, was that most kids were stupid. He wasn’t. Most kids were weak. He wasn’t.

Webbed hands wrapped Alberto’s chest. He twisted around to find the mermaid hugging him, nuzzling his neck.

All in all, her mind wasn’t terribly different from a human girl’s. Her lights were dominated by dull, beige brown, alternating with angry pulses of strong, bright pinks and greens, painfully fluorescent like neon-highlighters. Poor thing was stir-crazy, and quite desperately lonely. 

Alberto wasn’t surprised. Poor, dumb thing was bred for the open ocean, from a species of tribes, and the Physician stuck her alone in a glorified fish-tank. 

He found himself sinking into the hug. Even her scales against Allison’s legs didn’t bother—  

Wait, Allison liked mermaids, didn’t she? Enough to spend a week painting them on the side of a barn. Was this feeling his, or hers? Were he and Allison… synthesizing?

Would that be so awful?       

A green bolt vanished the mermaid. A second later, she plunged shrieking back down through the water amongst a plume of tiny bubbles. 

Alberto kicked his way back to the surface to find Arnold trying to keep afloat as he laughed himself silly.

David and the mermaid surfaced, sharing a look of mutual annoyance. Then David grinned and took his new friend by the hand. A wave swelled beneath them, sweeping up the pair and washing them over Arnold. When it subsided, Arnold was squirming and kicking in the two’s arms as they cackled and pushed him underwater.

Between dunks, Arnold shouted, “I need to breathe you guys!” 

In the innocent cruelty of both gods and children, both David and the mermaid ignored him. 

Arnold’s skin lit bright green. His tormentors were suddenly ten feet in front of him.

Their victim grinned wickedly. He crackled. 

A large pond’s worth of water showered down over David and the mermaid’s heads, hard enough to force them under. David and the mermaid resurfaced swearing and spitting at Arnold.

“Come on,” said Alberto, floating nearby on his back. “You kinda earned that.”

Something seemed to occur to the mermaid. She ducked under and started poking at David’s legs.

David tried to resist giggling as he grinned smugly. “Wondering how I keep up with ya with the legs? My granddad’s kinda—aah!”

The mermaid poked him somewhere tender.

Spoketooth chuckled, watching the children like an indulgent grandfather. “You must forgive her, lad. She’s never seen a landlubber-shaped boy before…”

David glared at the Physician. “She should be free.”

The mermaid surfaced again, only to blink when she saw how hard David’s expression had gotten.

Fuck, Alberto thought. He’s giving a shit. Why’s he still doing that?

The Commodore stood up. “What’s that, lad?”

David pulled the mermaid in close. “She shouldn’t be cooped up here. She belongs in the sea.”

The mermaid suddenly clung tight to David, looking at her creator with something between fear and hope.

“She’s never been outside that pool. She’d be dead inside a week.”

David waved his arms around the cavern. “You could build her a sea-palace if you wanted!”

“I could,” conceded Spoketooth. “But why should I? I made the lass, she’s my project.”

A sudden current swept the mermaid away. Like Glaucus or Poseidon (or his grandfather), David rose on a Grecian column of water, looming over Spoketooth. His eyes burned sea-form white. “I could make you.”

The Physician showed no hint of fear. “If you’re planning on sending me down to Davy Jones’ locker, lad, you should know my kind breathe water.”

“You’re also made of water.”

Arnold surreptitiously swam over to Allison. “Allie,” he whispered, “should David be doing this? I mean, I don’t want Mer-y stuck down here forever, but we kinda live here now…”

Alberto got an idea. “Let me handle it.”

The psychic climbed out of the pool and walked over to Spoketooth. He took his remaining hand and looked up at the pirate with his best impression of a guileless little girl. “Mr. Spoketooth,” he said, “I know it’s hard giving away something you love.” Bit of a strong word, but Alberto doubted the Commodore cared enough to object. “But this could be a real opportunity for you!”

Spoketooth’s eyepatch twitched. “What are you saying, lass?”

“Did you like making your mermaid?”

“I did. Best project I’d had in years.”

“Well, I think you’re right. She wouldn’t last a day alone in the sea… so why not make more of her?”

“…Go on.”

“You could make like, a whole class of mer-kids! Build them a nice village in the Bahamas or somewhere, stick some cameras about and watch them as much as you like! They’ll fight and grow up and—” Alberto looked at the mermaid, watching him and Spoketooth warily. “Can she have babies?” 

“Aye, I didn’t want to half-arse it.”

“Then you’ll never run out of merpeople to watch!”

Alberto squeezed the alien’s hand.

“…Sounds like a plan!” 

The psychic let go of Spoketooth, trying to dampen the grin forcing its way onto Allison’s lips. 

David beamed down at the mermaid. “We’re going to make you some friends!”

The mermaid trilled with delight. “Ye be a good soul, matey!”

“…Huh,” said David.

Alberto closed his hand. He knew how the Physician’s mind worked. He knew how the ship worked. “Hey, Arnold, you mind keeping the little mermaid there company for a bit. I want to show David something.”

Arnold wasn’t sure why he couldn’t come and look at whatever, but he couldn’t really complain about hanging out with a literal mermaid. “Sure.”

David’s column of water stretched into a bridge for him. He caught up to Allison as she walked, still dripping, back into the dark hallway.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

Alberto answered, “We’re going to see the Physician. The real one.”    

---

^{1. For reasons of racial sensitivity, we will not be showing you the Physician’s Asian instantiation. ↩}

^{2. In fact, it is very difficult to accelerate an organism’s growth except from scratch. More than one of the Physician’s drones were stranded in childhood due to interruptions in the process. What became of them does not bear thinking about. ↩}

^{3. Still in syndication in 1965, with the notable exception of “Lucy and Superman.” ↩}

^{4. The Physician was always interested in alternatives to his growth chambers. ↩}

^{5. A gigantic bird of prey in Middle-Eastern folklore, somewhat similar to a phoenix. ↩}

^{6. A well loved German fairy-tale written in 1811 by fantasist Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué. ↩}

^{7. Later human researchers would refer to this kind of nanotechnology as “respirocytes.” ↩}

Previous Chapter                                                                                                           Next Chapter

Well, that was easy.

Maybe he shouldn’t have been surprised. Allison may have been a refined superhuman collation of the knowledge and expertise of thousands, but she was also nine. Alberto could still hear her, screaming at him from deep in the back of his head.

Calm down, Allie. If you’re not comfortable in there, I can always import playmates for ya. David, maybe?

The screaming died down to a resigned whimper: the psychic equivalent of a buzzing light fixture. Annoying, but tolerable until Alberto found himself an ice-pick. He looked at Allison’s super-suit—a depressed rainbow lying in a heap on the brass floor—glanced down at the girl’s pyjamas, and sighed. Time to bite the bullet.

Alberto undressed like he was peeling off his own skin, silently thanking God that Allison had gotten back into the habit of wearing clothes. He’d felt like a pervert whenever the kid looked down. He didn’t even want to consider what he’d do when he had to shower or take a piss. Maybe his prepubescent sweat-glands and newfound indifference to alcohol were a blessing. 

Alberto pulled on the suit. It had its own song, he noticed, a strange tonal echo of Allison’s own, like a second voice harmonizing with her. He flinched as the suit shone bright white and shifted over his skin. When it settled, the esper found himself wearing a maroon-feathered body-sleeve. The torso though was smooth and black, except for a white raven in flight over his chest.

Alberto blinked down at the new look… he kind of liked it. At least the alien Santa clothes had taste.  

“Your suit changed.”

Alberto jumped. David was lolling over the side of the spiral staircase. He started down the steps, minutely tripping over one of them, before glancing down quickly at the girl below in case she noticed. It was cute, especially the way his dark locks—    

Alberto brushed the thought from his mind and shook his head. The last thing he needed was one of Allison’s second hand puppy-crushes. They made for an unsettling dual perspective on the little shit.

   David was in front of Alberto now, leaning forward to get a better look at his outfit. The water-sprite had submerged his thoughts again. That was what Alberto got for waxing nostalgic over his mother.

The boy’s arsenic eyes drew upward. “So, how did this happen?”

Fuck, Alberto thought. He wants me to say something. He tried to purge the Italian from his throat. British but sexy, American but drunk…

Alberto shrugged. “Dunno. I guess I was using Alberto’s powers a bit…”

Luckily for the psychic, Allison Kinsey was a skilled impressionist. 

David straightened, seeming to consider his friend’s half-explanation. “Makes sense.” His lip curled. “Looks cool, but I think I like the normal suit better.”

Says the nudist sea-goblin, Alberto grumbled inwardly. 

David tilted his head. “You alright, Allie? Your heart’s beating really fast.”

Shit, was this boy bred for horror movies? Well, bred for something, at least…

Alberto imagined a cartoon love-heart, pictured it slow down its tempo. He felt Allison’s heart ease in her chest in response. “Yeah, just had some bad dreams,” he answered.

David clicked his tongue. “Yeah, sucked having nightmares.”

“Whatcha come over here for anyway?”

David smirked. “I need a reason?” 

Alberto wasn’t sure if he preferred this over Mealy.

Thankfully, David got to the point, “John wanted me to get everyone for breakfast.”

We’re calling him ‘John’ now?  

  They ate in the planetarium again. The Physician had been a touch surprised when Allison requested a view of Enlil for their meal. 

“I’m curious,” she said simply. “Laurie said Alberto was from there.”

“Ah,” said Dr. John. “Rainmaker rest that poor boy’s… soul, isn’t it?”

Like most of the humanish worlds, Enlil could have been mistaken for Earth by a casual observer, if you didn’t pay much mind to the number¹ and shape of its continents, or the enormous inland sea that dominated one of them. And the bright, silver-purple rings that looped the planet like a halo, of course.

“Nice rings,” Arnold said, mouth full of breakfast. Unlike at Christmas lunch, the Physician had settled for serving the children cereal that morning, albeit from a clear glass box covered in odd, unfamiliar text. 

“I agree,” said the Physician, still not eating. 

“I didn’t even know earthy planets could have rings like that,” added Billy. 

Dr. Smith said, “Any planet can have rings, William, but Enlil is the only the only one with rings like that. They’re made of some mineral from an eternity or two ago—mutated all the local fauna and human inhabitants into psychics. The locals say it also makes them more cultured and peaceful, but trust me, pure propaganda.” He looked across the table at Allison. “Like what you see, Allison?”

Alberto didn’t answer the doctor. He was too busy looking down at the world of his forebears. A world of espers. Would he have been a normal man down there?

Then he remembered his long dead, hated ancestor. The people down there had flung him across the stars, just to make him someone else’s problem. Who did that to a normal man? A man, Alberto knew, not unlike himself.

And then there was Ophelia. She wouldn’t fit in down there. She couldn’t fit in anywhere. Lawrence had seen to that.

The Physician didn’t let the lack of a response trouble him, if he even noticed. “What do you think, Mabel?”

A few feet from the dining table, Mabel lay on her stomach above the ringed world like God’s granddaughter, furiously scribbling at her sketchbook with pencils that couldn’t dull.

“Mabel?”

The girl looked up like a startled wallaby. “It’s great! Can you spin the planet ‘round for me? I’m doing a study.”

Alberto morbidly wondered what would happen if Mabel tried animating Enlil. A spinning, ringed desk globe? A whole, full-sized planet dropped right into Earth’s gravity-well? That could make for an entertaining few minutes. Or perhaps Mabel’s brain would just melt out of her ears.

The Physician grinned, raising a finger and swirling the air. Enlil spun half an orbit. 

“Thanks!” 

“Never change, Mabel. Unless you get better at drawing, you’re allowed to change that way.”

John Smith seemed to be in a good mood. That was his default, sure, but it felt more genuine than usual. Alberto decided this was his moment.

“Dr. John?”

“Yes, Allie?”

“Could you… turn off your psi-dampener?”

The children were all looking at Allison like she’d just asked for broken glass in her breakfast. Even Mabel had been diverted from her planetary sketching. The Physician was sitting stock still, grin fixed, eyes even more glassy and blank than usual, as if his brain had stalled to compute such an unprecedented query.

His mouth eventually creaked open. Without affect, he asked, “But Allie, don’t I revolt you?”

Alberto swallowed. How to put this? “I—you’re song’s hard to listen to, yeah. But I think that’s a… me-problem? You shouldn’t have to hide yourself just because I’m not used to you.”

Arnold looked hard at the girl. “Um, Allie, are you okay? You’re not usually so…” 

“Nice?” suggested David. 

“Yeah,” replied Arnold. “That.”

Alberto deeply wished Barnes was in arms reach.

Billy folded his arms. “Guys, don’t be rude because Allie’s being nice.”

Most of the time, Billy was simultaneously Alberto’s most and least favourite Watercolour, pretty much for the same reason. Right now, he was leaning towards “most.”

Alberto continued, “It’s also—my power’s about learning, right? And you know so much more than anyone else in the world, I think. I shouldn’t let being childish get in the way of this kind of opportunity.” 

Did that sound like Allison? God, it sounded like Laurie.  

Flattery is the true interstellar medium. The Physician let out one of his true, flooded engine chuckles. “It’s true. I do know more than anyone on this world. I’d be happy to pitch in to your education.” He put his hand over the piscine-cockroach combo pinned to his chest. “You ready?”

Alberto gripped the edge of the able. 

The broach writhed and chittered, its many red-jewel eyes going dull.

Allison’s knuckles went white as Alberto was hit with the full force of the Physician’s song. He’d known what to expect, but he’d never experienced it in the driver’s seat. It was like being water-boarded: everytime the psychic thought he’d latched onto its chord structure, the song went in a new, sonically bizarre direction. Its instruments were sawteeth and fingers on styrofoam. Its entire baseline was E7 shrieked by violins stringed with chalk. Its tune was like someone tried to match the rhythm of rot and bloat. And it was so vast. A human being couldn’t accumulate so much knowledge if they lived eight lifetimes. 

Everything in Alberto tried to recoil from the song, especially the part of him that was still Allison, but he forced himself to keep listening, to make it part of himself, even if it was like pouring aniseed and bile down his throat. He needed this. Already, he knew things about physics that made Einstein and Oppenheimer look like mercury gargling alchemists. He knew more about the human body than Eliza. That alone made it worth it.

Alberto let out of a long, gasping breath. “Turn it back on!”   

The Physician dutifully switched the psi-dampener back on. Alberto went limp in his seat. He could feel the super-suit leech the sweat off Allison’s skin. Seemed it wasn’t only emotions it ate.

Mabel had come to Allison’s side, holding her by the shoulder, looking into her burning eyes like she expected to find broken blood vessels. “You okay, Allie?”

“Yeah,” Alberto huffed like the chainsmoker he’d once been. “I’m fine. Just… intense.” 

He couldn’t take it all in. Not all at once.

Dr. Smith golf clapped. “I think that was a very good first try?” One of his eyebrows crawled up his forehead like a starving caterpillar. “Which planet is the current throneworld of the Southern Spiral?”

“The throneworld isn’t a planet.” Alberto replied automatically. “It  just has a planet in the middle. Barely liveable because the gravity of the royal palace squashed it into a disc. No one goes down there unless they want to be torn apart by atmospheric rotation. Or the Empress² wants them to be. The throne’s in orbit.”

“Palaces have gravity?” David asked, one eyebrow slightly raised.

“They do when they’re bigger than Saturn’s rings³,” Alberto muttered. “Like a giant, marble Koch snowflake. Gaudiest thing you’ve ever seen.”

“I don’t know,” said Mabel, “sounds kinda brilliant.”

“You would say that,” said Alberto, almost fondly

“You’re close,” The Physician allowed. “But I’ll have you know the planet itself does have a thriving ecosystem. Some quite impressive birds there. Six winged things that could fly straight as an arrow through a hurricane. Color of fire. Quite striking.”

“Play your song again,” demanded Alberto. “I want to learn more.”

“I don’t think that’s the best idea,” Dr. Smith said as he rose from his seat. 

“I want it!”

“That sounds like Allie,” Arnold muttered to himself.

The Physician was walking towards the planetarium exit. “I know nobody’s ever had to tell you this before, Allison, but you need to pace yourself.”

“Where are you going?” Mabel asked.

“Didn’t I tell you? I have some business in Australia. Should be back in a couple days.”

Arnold looked perplexed. “You’re leaving us alone on your spaceship?”

Canned laughter. “No. I’m leaving you alone with the other six mes hanging about the place, not to mention the Misters. Not like you can ever be alone inside this ship anyway. Just call out if you need anything.”

“Can I come with?” asked Alberto.

“I don’t think bringing a wanted fugitive to work would be the best idea, Allie.” From anyone else, that would’ve been obvious sarcasm. From the Physician, it just sounded like plain fact. 

Remembering something else, he turned to look at Arnold. “Arn, you’ve topped the ‘most-wanted’ list! Even beat the Coven.”

Arnold felt very queasy. “Oh.”

“Don’t worry, Arnold—even if they caught you, I’m pretty sure they’d just put you in their living-weapons program. Valour isn’t that wasteful.”

Says you, thought Alberto.

The Physician left the children alone in his 4-D planetarium, Enlil and her rings turning slowly and silently beneath them while their cereal went soggy.

David grinned around at his friends. “I’ve got so much to show you.”

⬗

Alberto and the Watercolours rode the ship’s root network, whizzing up and down and left-to-right like they were riding Willy Wonka’s glass elevator⁴. Their range of motion wasn’t the only similarity between the two elevator cars: the Physician’s was also made of glass, giving the kids an excellent view of the surrounding wood-grain. Apart from that, it was H-shaped—with plush chairs and a raised podium in the middle bridge⁵ sporting a rainbow of multicoloured buttons, which David pressed with the confident air of a boy who had no idea what he was doing.

Alberto made sure to brush against all his “friends.” 

The first room they stumbled on was a dimly lit storeroom: a city of towers built from featureless silver cubes stacked almost to the ceiling, which was lined with hundreds of metallic, perversely humanoid arms.    

Billy gawked at the stacks like it was the actual big city. Someone popped an idea into his head. “We should play hide and seek!”

“Sure!” Alberto piped enthusiastically. Hide and seek was perfect. He could—nay, was expected to—get away from the little brats and finally hear himself think.

Or listen to other people think, that worked too.

“Sounds good,” said Mabel. She glanced at David and Allison. “But you guys don’t get to seek.”

Even better. Now Alberto barely had to move.

David didn’t share his opinion. The boy made a choked, mortified noise and hopped angrily. “But that’s not fair!”

Alberto glared out the corner of his eye at David—though with Allison’s new eyes it hardly looked more malevolent than when she was mooning over him. Reflexively, the psychic tried tugging on a string that’d long been cut.

Maybe Lawrence had been good for something.

Mabel scoffed. “You two can just know where we all are with your eyes closed. That’s the opposite of fair!”

“He’s got a point, David,” said Alberto. 

Arnold didn’t expect to hear that from the high-queen of Harvey’s playgrounds. “Since when did you care about being ‘fair’?”

Alberto sent a pulse of indifference into Arnold. “I’m trying to turn a new leaf.”

The boy shrugged. “Fair ‘nuff.”

“But Billy turns invisible!” 

Mabel ignored David and looked at Billy. “Billy, you promise not to turn invisible when you hide?”

Billy swept his cape in front of his face and bowed. “You have my word.”

David shook his head, disgusted. “Like he’s not going to cheat!”

A small smile played across Mabel’s lips. “David, you really think Billy’s gonna lie?”

“…No.”

Behind his cape, Billy grinned.

Fittingly enough, the tiger-boy got to start off “it”. His friends scattered amongst the towers of crates while he stumbled in place with his cape over his head and counted to fifty.

Alberto ran to the far corner of the storeroom, coming to a stop and crouching in the middle of a tightly packed cluster of towers. He closed his eyes, and listened. 

The Physician wasn’t lying when he said the children weren’t alone. John Smith was gone, but Alberto could hear the alien’s other rearrangements wandering around the ship, along with dozens of drones, and what might have been a few actual human beings, none of whom sounded very at ease.

And then, of course, there was the ship herself, straining against her chains and shouting for all the astral-plane to hear:

Slaver! God-slayer!

Look, lady, we’ve all got problems.

Disgust like cold slime shot up Alberto’s spine:

Rapist! Tapeworm!

Bit harsh. 

Alberto tried his best to tune out the ship and craned his ears for more snatches of the Physician’s song. After the massive blast of John Smith’s song, the distant polyphony of the Physician’s other shards was much more bearable, insulated by the Watercolours and the ship herself. It was the subtle difference between sitting at the back of a club while a hot jazz number played, and being chained up inside in the piano. 

Disparate facts revealed themselves as facets of gleaming empirical diamonds. Bitter seeds of wisdom grew into a trees of synthesis, their branches meeting and weaving together to form a forest. Alberto shuddered. Every note was a bitter, unsweetened pill, but he could feel the margins of his mind widening with each new chord, like his brain was stretching to fit them. If he actually was the little girl whose skin he wore, it would have been the most work she’d ever put into learning anything.

“Found you!”

Billy’s shrill, eager voice broke Alberto’s reverie, knocking him onto his back. Swearing in his head, the psychic forced a kiddish smile. “Sure did!”

Would Allison have been grumpy at being found so quickly? Eh, probably, but Alberto wasn’t feeling very method right then. 

Billy was standing in the gap between two towers—legs spread and hands planted on his hips in the official superhero-cum-Charles Atlas stance. “You hid well, fair citizen!”

Alberto let out a surprisingly genuine laugh. “Thank you, brave hero!” Sarcasm sounded far gentler with the new vocal cords. “Can I go hide again?”

Billy’s pose wilted, his tail twitching agitatedly as he scratched his neck and frowned. “Um, Allie, can I talk to you about something? You’re smart.”

Alberto sighed. “Alright.” Might as well throw the kid a bone.

Billy sat down beside Allison and wrapped his cape over his knees. “…I miss Betty.”

“Oh.”

That was it? Alberto supposed he couldn’t blame Billy. Sometimes he missed the boy’s nanny, too. She was the last girl in a long while Alberto hadn’t had to brainwash into giving him the time of day. “Sounds rough, Billy but, you know, we all miss our folks. It’s natural, I guess.”

Alberto hadn’t missed his “folks” in twenty years. Wherever they were, he doubted they spoke of him, lest he hear them somehow. As for the girl Billy thought he was talking to… Alberto wasn’t sure. Did Allison miss her parents? Yeah. But from the looks of it, every day it got more and more distant. They were just human, after all.

Alberto was beginning to wonder if he hadn’t done the world a favour.

Billy sighed. “But that’s not what’s getting me. Not really. It’s the people I don’t miss.”

Okay, mildly more interesting. “…Go on.”

“I don’t miss my mum and dad. At all.” Billy banged his fists against the floor. “I tried to cry about them last night! I pinched myself: nothing! But I cried when I thought about Betty.” His head drooped. “I’m a bad son.”

Alberto considered his response. “…So what?”

Billy looked at the girl, blinking back tears. “What?” 

Alberto stood up. “Exactly! Why should you miss your parents? They didn’t give a shit about you!”

Billy felt like he should’ve been offended. Instead, he was still just confused. “But—but they took care of me…”

Alberto rolled his eyes. “They paid someone to take care of you, Billy. Now Betty, she gave a shit.” He tapped at Allison temples. “Trust me, the bloke in here, he could see under her hood.”

Billy was honestly relieved. He’d never had serious reason to doubt Betty, but a mind-reader was a hell of a character witness. Still, the sense of gratitude she’d instilled compelled him. “But mum and dad spent all that money on me! They paid for my house, and my clothes, and my food, and Betty—”

Alberto scoffed. “Oh, I stand corrected: one of the richest couples in all Australia put in the bare minimum of giving a shit for any parent who doesn’t dump their kid at the fire-station!”

Billy shook his head. “Why are you being so mean?”

“I’m not being mean to you, I’m being mean to the lazy fucks who kept you in the boonies like you were bloody Quasimodo! You know, it probably would’ve cost St. George and his hag a lot less money if they’d let you live in their house.”

Billy repeated a line that’d been fed to him every time his mother and father deigned to visit. “There’d have been a scandal… Daddy employs a lot of people…”

“Don’t be an idiot, Billy,” said Alberto, not unkindly. “Rich gits decide what’s normal. I’m pretty sure the only reason ladies wear white when they get married is because Queen Victoria or someone thought it looked neat. If St. George had wanted to, he could’ve had every posh wannabe in the country gluing tiger-fur to their kid.”

Despite his best efforts, Billy giggled. 

Alberto nodded approvingly. “See what I mean? You were hard done by, Billy, you don’t owe the St. Georges anything. I don’t think anybody owes anyone anything, but if you have to miss someone, Betty’s a good choice. Hell, I’d pick Żywie over your parents, and she straight up killed a boy.”

The reminder stung Billy, but Allison was making strange, Tom Long like sense. He should’ve expected it—she was the smart one.    

“You gonna try to not give a shit about not giving a shit, Bill?”

Billy sniffed. “I’ll try.”

Alberto flopped down beside the boy and patted him on the shoulder. “Good on ya.”

It felt nice doing a good deed for a change.

“Allison?” 

“Yeah?”

“You can see the future now, right? Like Alberto could.”

“I see likelihoods, but yeah.”

“Do you think I’ll see Betty again?”

When you asked Alberto to look into the future for you, it was a bit of a crapshoot whether he’d actually bother. But right now, the esper was feeling well-disposed to the tiger-boy. He looked into the mess of probability…

Well, shit.

“Not very likely right now, sorry.”

Even less likely if Alberto pulled off what he was planning. It almost made him feel guilty.

“Oh. Thanks anyway.” 

Alberto was saved from witnessing a crying jag by distant shouting. A medium-sized dragon knocked over a tower while dodging green lightning, which in turn vanished one of the blocks near the centre of another. The falling silver pillars fell against others, turning the entire chamber into a gigantic, very expensive looking game of dominos.

“The fuck?” Alberto cried as he and Billy formed quicksilver umbrellas over their heads.

When the chain reaction had run its course, the one and a half children could make out Arnold and Mabel yelling at each other.

“That was my hiding spot!” Arnold shouted.

“I’d called it first!” retorted Mabel.

David yelled over the both of them. “Fat lot of good it’s gonna do you both now.”

The entire storeroom let out a sigh, as the waving metal arms stretched down from the ceiling, plucking up the boxes and reassembling the tower. 

Alberto and Billy looked at each other.

“I think we’re gonna have to find somewhere else to play,” said Billy.

Bloody kids.

---

^{1. About nine, depending how you counted one of the larger islands. ↩}

^{2. Tiaearys (roughly translated, “she of the cold stars”) the 106th, who succeeded her father Hazoric the Bloody after his death by supernova fighting a Geroy infestation in 1957. ↩}

^{3. The Throneworld of the Southern Spiral: A radial megastructure believed to have been constructed half a billion years ago by a group of star godlings as part of a contest. The contest in question being to see who could create the largest contiguous series of self-perpetuating structural motions. The palace is the only part of this contest that survived to the present day, and itself is only 1.348% marble, mainly the exterior. The interior workings are actually a mixture of metal counterweights and ionized compounds necessary to keep a 20,000 mile wide structure in stable rotation without it collapsing in upon itself. Rube Goldberg would be proud. ↩}

^{4. Eliza—an early and vocal champion of Roald Dahl’s works—had taught Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in her English class the year before. ↩}

^{5. The elevator-car sometimes also did double duty as a planetary expedition vehicle. ↩}

Previous Chapter                                                                                                           Next Chapter

Allison Kinsey flew far from her body—away from Alberto’s wheedling. Listening to him felt like letting mold spread through her brain. Her shade passed through vacuum-armoured bulkheads as easily as curtains of smoke. She followed the enormous tree roots that riddled the starship like veins and arteries. Or, perhaps more accurately, like elevator shafts.    

She eventually came out into an open space. It was about the size of an average master-bedroom, made larger in Allison’s eyes by its Spartan emptiness. The smooth metal floor was covered in irregular glowing lines: neon-chalk outlines for murdered furniture. 

The girl wasn’t alone, either. Dr. Smith—thankfully still wearing his psi-damper—was looming over what looked like a chaise lounge upholstered in albino crocodile skin. David’s super-suit was draped across it like an unusually well behaved puddle, while the boy himself stood behind the Physician, tapping his foot impatiently with his arms folded. 

“Do I really have to be here for this?”

The Physician didn’t answer him. His attention was all on the suit. He was wearing a pair of large, brass goggles. They would’ve made anyone else’s eyes seem bulbous and bug-like, but if anything they made the Physician look more normal. His long fingers were capped with silver thimbles, which he waved over the suit like a priest consecrating holy water. When Allison got a closer look at the devices, she immediately regretted it: their divots were all filled with tiny eyes.

“I knew it!” Dr. Smith exclaimed, mostly to himself. His neck cracked as his head swivelled round to grin at David. “Life-fibres! From Alqbryth!¹”

David didn’t even blink at the display. “That supposed to mean something?” he asked.

Allison was waving her astral-self’s arms in David’s face. “Hellooo, Davie, Allie standing right in front of you!” 

Her friend paid her no more mind than he did the air.

The Physician kept expounding, “Life-fibres are symbiotic organisms! They latch onto powered creatures and adapt to their abilities; feeding off your thoughts and emotions in exchange for putting themselves between predators and your gonads.”

David grimaced. “You mean that thing is in my head?”

The Physician wibbled. “I wouldn’t go that far. It just basks in the waste-heat of that suspicion like a lizard in the sun.” He swung his head back to the suit. “Here, watch.” 

Dr. Smith made a few squeaking, clicking noises. Thinly wrought black iron vines grew from inside a bright pink circle next to the examination bed, forming into a pair of shears at their end and cutting an inch of fabric from the suit’s sleeve, offering it up to the Physician like a cat with a dead bird before retreating back into the floor. With his free hand, the doctor grabbed the rest of the costume and tossed it at its owner.

The suit splashed against David, flowing over his skin and reforming around him. The boy examined his shortened sleeve with a frown. “Great, now I’m uneven.”

Allison gave a small smirk. “I thought you didn’t care about—”

The girl trailed off as David’s suit began to glow, the sleeve’s hem regenerating before it subsided. 

David whistled. “Okay, that’s pretty neat.”

“I expect you and your friends won’t ever need to worry about replacing the suits,” commented the Physician. He was fondly twirling the hoop of fabric he’d cut around his finger. “I’ve wanted to play with life-fibres for ages, but the !Quell² guard Alqbryth like their virgin daughter.” His grin unwavering, the Physician added, “Bunch of slimy Russian nesting dolls.”

David snorted. Space racism was even weirder than regular racism. “What are you going to do with it?”

“Well, if I can get this sample to grow…” The Physician closed his hand around the life-fibres. “Don’t tell Arnold and Mabel, I want it to be a surprise.”

Allison was jumping up and down next to David. “Come on, you gotta know I’m here a little! Aren’t you a god or something?”

“Sure,” said David. “Might be funny.”

Allison scowled. She wasn’t sure why David not being able to see her right then was so annoying, but it was. Excruciatingly so. Then she realized…

“So, why’d you kiss Arnold? Do you think he’s pretty now? Is he a good kisser?”

David didn’t answer, of course. He just bounced from foot to foot, clicking his tongue boredly while he waited for the Physician to tell him he could go, or he ran out of patience and left anyway, whichever came first. Allison didn’t know why asking those questions felt good, but it did. It made her lungs feel less tight. She stepped a little closer, asking into his ear, “Would you kiss me? Wait. Would I kiss you? Hmm.”

A thought floated to the surface of David’s mind. Their pirate fight back in the river. Except David was winning, spearing Allison’s ship with needle-fangs of ice.

The real Allison frowned. “Sore loser.”

In David’s daydream, he swam over to Allison, pulling her close and pecking her on the lips. For some reason, her hair was very, very vivid.  

Allison blushed, hard. Then she blew a raspberry at the boy and wafted out of the room, laughing. 

Billy and Arnold were both in the media room, chasing each other over spongy sofa-mounds (or bean-bags) while on the membranous screen³, Doctor Who poured out champagne for his friends and wished the audience at home a happy Christmas⁴. 

It was Boxing Day, Allison remembered suddenly. Christmas had only been yesterday. Part of her felt like the air ought to feel a little different, but it didn’t. Did holidays really only exist in people’s heads?

Billy leapt out from behind one of the sponges, making gun noises at Arnold while flicking his pointer fingers at him. It seemed he had slept in his costume.

Boys, Allison thought, as though she wouldn’t have done the exact same thing in his position.   

Mabel was still in her fish-tank room, at the centre of a paper carpet as thick and white as the snow outside the ship. She was was drawing feverishly in Father Christmas’ sketch-pad, tearing out pages and hurling them away as soon as she was done. Allison thought it rather wasteful, until she noticed the book’s pages were regrowing as fast as Mabel could remove them. 

“Neat,” Allison said to herself. She descended to the floor and reflexively bent to pick up one of the drawings. Predictably enough, her hand passed right through them. 

Allison grunted in annoyance, before scouting around for some pictures facing up. She quickly found a depiction of Asteria in her coffin, all heavy, dusky pinks and purple shadows. 

Just looking at it made Allison sad again. But it was also so good. Better than anyone could have expected from a child who wasn’t her.

She found more. The Physician’s ship, embedded in Mt. Erebus. A few mermaids. A redheaded boy it took Allison a few seconds to realize was Adam Sinclair. She even found herself back at Harvey Dam, burning bright in front of an awed Jenny and Matthew.

That had been a good day.

Allison looked over at Mabel, still scribbling away. “Looking good, Mabs!”

Mabel stopped drawing for a moment, and smiled.

Allison passed through cavernous storerooms, piled high with everything from canned beans to capsulized singularities. She crossed a clamshell chamber, past what looked like an aurora borealis carved out of solid ivory, undulating like a swimming manta-ray, or an eagle beating its wings. An uptick drive, Allison knew somehow. For sneaking around the light barrier. 

Then she rose up through an artificial salt-lake, in which rested a bizarre coral reef, full of waving polyps and staring, china blue eyes. Allison would have remembered to tell David about it, if the place wasn’t so thick with the Physician’s song.

Soon enough, the ship fell away completely. Yesterday’s blizzard had blown over, leaving the air as still as the snow that charitably hid most of the barren black stone of Ross Island, like fresh ash from the sleeping heart of Mt. Erebus. Terror lay in the distance, sullenly regarding Allison and its twin. 

Technically—thanks to poor Stratogale—Allison had been able to fly for nearly a year now, or at least had the option within earshot. She’d hardly done it, though. It made her look like the idiot who put them all in this mess anyway.

But if nobody could see her…  

Allison whooped, swooping down over the icy plains until they were racing barely three feet below her face, before spinning and launching back into the fluorescent blue sky. 

It was scaldingly cold. She could feel the frigid air slam into her like she was smashing through broken panes of jagged glass. But it couldn’t hurt her. Her body was safe and warm back on the ship. Allison had the vague expectation that astral projection would be like being water, but it wasn’t. David’s power made her shapeless and vast, but Alberto’s left her as herself, but woven from wind and will, separate and untouchable.

She dropped to earth, kicking grandly at a snow mound. 

Her foot passed right through it.

Separate, untouchable, and insubstantial. 

All Allison’s elation curdled instantly. She kicked wildy at the mound over and over, like she hoped to catch it off-guard.

 Angry growls erupted from her like incoherent steam.

Stubbornly, the little hill remained still, waiting for the next blizzard to snatch it up again.

Allison stamped silently at the unyielding snow, scowling and wrapping her arms around herself. What was the use of flying and being invisible if you couldn’t mess with anything? The frustration pricked at the girl like flies crawling on the inside of her chest.

“Fucking hell!” she screamed toward the sky. It did not echo. 

Some childish instinct made Allison cringe, like she was expecting a rebuke or a slap. She glanced around the rocky, snowy wastes as if Captain Scott⁵ was going to step out from behind a crag and clip her ear.

Then she started to laugh; loudly, with her entire body. What was she worried about? She was a ghost. And even if she wasn’t, the ship was miles away, and the only grownup in there was the Physician⁶.

Allison grinned. As loudly as her metaphorical lungs could muster, she shouted, “Shit!”

Her only answer was her own laughter, so she shouted again. “Fucking cunts!”

She wondered if this what Fran felt like when she was little.

Her blue streak was interrupted by an off-key, warbling chorus of low chirps and almost spectral moans.

Allison swung around, coming to face a small crowd of emperor penguins waddling about with ridiculous, butlerial nobility, a few gray-pyjama downed chicks milling among them. 

A small part of Allison wondered if her swearing had attracted the birds like a psychic beacon. A much bigger part of her shot towards the penguins, yelling, “Pengies!” 

She ran amongst the waddle, falling on her belly and excitedly poking and petting whichever ones wandered within arms reach. Her intangibility didn’t cross her mind, not with the suggestion of penguin feathers against her feathers. 

She was cooing over a particularly large hen (not that she could tell) when—  

Allison abruptly found herself standing upright, but too low to the ground. The cold felt closer to her, but strangely comfortable. Familiar, even. Her nose and lips meanwhile felt deeply wrong, and she couldn’t move her fingers. She let out of confused chip—  

She was standing over the hen again, which was waddling off with haste. Penguins always look a little confused, but this one did in excess. It took Allison a moment to realize what had just happened.    

I was a penguin.

Allison let out a confused giggle. She didn’t know she could do that. Alberto didn’t know he could do that, and he’d been him for nearly thirty years!

It made her wonder what else she could do now.

Parliament House—its past and its present—flashed in her secondhand memory. There really were more directions to move in than most people realized. 

Allison stepped backwards through the elastic sheet that hugs space. Above her, the sun wobbled east and west, trying to wrench itself free of the protracted day. The penguins regrettably flickered away. The wind picked back up, streaming backwards around the girl.

In less than a minute, Allison was looking at herself, staring down the Physician all aglow while her friends shivered behind her. She wished she knew how to read the Physician’s lights, and finally know for sure if he was just screwing with them.

So she could travel back in time. Sort of. Allison decided to try the other direction.

If going backwards in time was like backing deeper into a corridor, going forwards was like stepping out into an open field. It was honestly daunting. There was one past, but so, so many futures. Time was an infinity of fibres being woven together by the quick fingers of seconds and hours. 

Like a tightrope walker, Allison crept across one of the twines, up into a possibility of next week.

She and David were playing in the snow, making it boil and dance around them, while emperor penguins fled futility from their affection. 

The girl leapt sideways. David and her future self vanished… along with the Physician’s ship.

Allison tilted her head. Better keep an eye on that. 

She was about to head in search of Scott’s cabin when she felt a twitch. It was hard to identify at first, like someone was tugging at her veins.

Then she realized.

Her body was moving.

⬖

Alberto somersaulted the length of Allison’s bedroom. Or Allison somersaulted the length of her own bedroom per Alberto’s strict instructions—depending on how you looked at it.

The esper stuck the landing, suspending the little girl’s body he wore by just her hand. After a few seconds, her muscles began to protest, but Alberto silenced them with a blue circle in his mind’s eyes. He held the position for nearly a minute before getting bored and leaping back to his⁷ feet. 

Allison body was amazing. Its movements were effortlessly graceful. Alberto felt more energised than he’d seriously believed was possible, like he could run a marathon three times over and go for seconds. Her senses were crisp and clear, and Alberto could swear her eyes came with a zoom. Even his thoughts felt faster and more fluid, running on her brain. Most surreal of all, for the first time in nearly two decades, Alberto didn’t want a smoke, or even a drink. For him, it was like waking up one day and finding he no longer craved food or air.

On top of everything, Allison’s body came preinstalled with so many extras, and that wasn’t even including her powers. It almost made up for the loss of height and certain… anatomical deficiencies.

Alberto clenched his new, small fist, just for the sake of feeling skin against skin again. 

It didn’t matter, he thought to himself. The height thing would sort itself out, given time, or maybe he could make the Physician do whatever he did to those drones. As for the other problem, maybe he could find a decent shapeshifter to eat. 

A cold, pale smile. Bet a mind-blind git will be less trouble than me.       

“What are you doing?”

Alberto turned to find Allison’s astral self glaring at him with ill-disguised fear. You would think that would be easier with a projection, but apparently not. 

Alberto smirked at Allison with her face. “Hello, Allie.” It was the first time Alberto had spoken in Allison’s body. His Italian lilt sounded odd shaped from her high, hoarse voice, even to him. He wished he could imagine how it sounded to Allison. He made a show of stretching her arms and legs. “Just breaking in the new digs. Not like you were home.”

If it had been possible for her—in the flesh or otherwise—Allison’s face would have paled. She mustered some anger to her features. “Get. Out.” 

Alberto grinned and spun on his toes. “I think before I do that, we should work out a timetable. I can’t stay cooped up inside your head forever, you know. I need some time to myself now and again.”

Allison snarled, marching towards her body. “You don’t need anything!”

Just for show, Alberto raised his hand. The girl’s spectre was forced backwards.

“Oh, silly me, I forgot.” The arch smile broke. “I’m worthless, aren’t I, Allie?” 

Phantom tears were trailing down Allison’s face. She pressed her hands against it the force that kept her from herself. It felt more solid than diamond. She was locked out. When she spoke, her voice came out very small. “Alberto, please…”

Alberto’s smile returned as he swept his hand, flinging Allison into the dark. Into the house without windows.

---

^{1. A moon of the gas giant Scrool in the Eastern Spiral. Unlike most worlds, where superpowers only appear after the evolution of sapient creatures, powers developed very early in Alqbryth’s biosphere. Thanks to natural selection, every native Alqbryth organism now possesses some form of super-ability, making it of great interest to both exobiologists and metaphysicists the galaxy over. ↩}

^{2. Approximately 20,000 years ago, the !Quell’s sun began emitting harmful radiation, threatening their world with extinction. Having developed neither practical solar engineering nor interstellar travel—the !Quell en masse transferred their consciousness into a hardy nanite substrate, which could be introduced into any manner of artificial body, both biological and robotic in nature. This new versatility of form would serve them well as they expanded into space, forming into the preeminent polity of the Eastern Spiral. ↩}

^{3. The visual displays on the Physician’s vessel are based on chromatophores—sacks of pigment granules similar to those found in cuttlefish. ↩}

^{4. From the Christmas 1965 episode “The Feast of Steven” from the twelve part “The Dalek Masterplan”, which had only aired the previous day. It would go on to become the second Doctor Who story never aired in Australia, perhaps contributing to its long absence from the BBC archives. For many years, it and much other BBC programming (including their coverage of the first Moon landings) only existed in the eternity crystal of the Physician’s spacecraft. ↩}

^{5. Specifically the Arctic explorer Captain Robert Falcon Scott, who despite his name, is not thought to have been a superhero. ↩}

^{6. There were also the various Mister drones, but they were all younger than Allison. Or maybe Arkwright, but he himself would probably hate to be called “grownup” at that point in his life. ↩}

^{7. For the sake of clarity, we shall henceforth treat Allison’s body as Alberto’s own for the duration, not that this should be misconstrued as endorsing any claim on his part. ↩}

Previous Chapter                                                                                                 Next Chapter

For once in his life, Herbert Lawrence realized how foolish he was being.

“Oh, silly me.” The old man switched to slightly stumbling Italian. “Buongiorno, il mio nome è Herbert Lawrence.”

The young Alberto raised a hand, scowling at Lawrence’s mangled accent. He cast a vaguely Shakespearian aside at Allison, before telling Lawrence, “I speak English, mister.”

Lawrence’s smile returned. “Ah, very good. Glad to hear they’re educating you.”

“Not really,” replied the boy. “But a lotta spies speak English.”

“I picked up a lot of things from the people I saw,” the elder Alberto told Allison absently. “Not as fast as you would’ve, obviously, but I never met a liquor cabinet that wouldn’t open for me.”  

Lawrence nodded understandingly. “That would be the case, wouldn’t it?” He twisted in his chair to look at the Blackshirts still standing guard behind him. They waved their bludgeons at the old man, but Alberto stilled them with a casual raised hand:

“Tutto a posto¹”

Even after all she now knew, Allison still found the sight of Alberto wielding such authority unreal, let alone grown ups so readily obeying a boy her age. 

Lawrence turned back to the child with a dry smile. “They’re very accommodating towards you.”

Alberto gave a schoolboy’s shrug. “We’ve got a…” He squinted at Lawrence. “Is the word ‘rapport’?” 

“It works.” He pointed his thumb back at the blackshirts. There was a slight tension in both men’s arms as they resisted reaching for their bludgeons.  

“Do these fine gentleman speak English, too?”

“Nope.”

“Mhmm. Multilingualism is usually a blessing, but I think this time we can make an exception.”

“They think you’re an Anglo spy,” said Alberto. 

Lawrence chuckled. “I think His Majesty would have sent someone who could manage a decent Italian lilt, young man.”

“They want me to find out what you’re here for.” 

Lawrence tapped his forehead. “Why don’t you tell me?”

“…Me,” said Alberto. “You wanted to see me.”

Lawrence titled his chin in acknowledgement. “Exactly right. I’ve long held an interest in the wellbeing of young fenomeni.”

Alberto laughed. “You’re telling me you snuck into Milan to check on me?” 

The old man looked right into the little esper’s eyes, as if he were trying to offer him a direct window to his thoughts. “I’m an adult. Why shouldn’t I feel concern for the young?”

“What a crock,” muttered Allison. 

“He means it,” said the young Alberto quietly. “Or he thinks he does.”

The latter-day Alberto sighed. “You’d think mind-reading would let you get a bead on someone. But most of what you get is the picture they’ve built up of themselves. Nobody really knows anyone.”

Allison glowered at the memory of Lawrence, sitting there trying to talk like he was some kid’s granddad and not a stranger from far away. Whatever Alberto said about him, she couldn’t bring herself to imagine a sincere Lawrence. 

Or maybe sincerity didn’t mean anything.

“Have you been… doing what you do long?” Lawrence asked.

“Dunno. Since I was five, I think?”

Lawrence shook his head solemnly. “It’s awful how we grownups drag children into our messes. I can’t imagine what you’ve had to see. Children need space to be young.”

“Yeah, right,” said Allison. “Unless he wants a baby.”

“Oh, be fair, Allie,” said Alberto. “I was, what, nine back then? That’s five whole years younger than Sadie when she had Ophelia.”

Lawrence reached his hand across the desk, taking Alberto’s in his. The Blackshirts didn’t react. Their eyes were conveniently sheened over with daydreams, Allison noticed. She could see their shadows. Pretty girls. Money they were owed. Men with deeply confusing moustaches.

“Did Lawrence know you were messing with the Blackshirts?” the girl asked. “I know they don’t know what he’s saying, but he’s being kinda touchy right now.”

“Not really,” said Alberto. “Bertie always had a bad habit of forgetting his audience when he speechified.”  

“At least he was trying,” the younger Alberto said. His eyes were downcast, looking at the gloved hand holding his.

“No one sane would blame you for anything,” Lawrence said gently. “I’ve seen what some would have your kind do for them, and nobody expects a boy to say ‘no’ to a man with a gun.”

After a long while, Alberto spoke again. “Italy’s done for,” he said with quiet bluntness. “The Germans are going to retreat. Your lot will have Milan in a fortnight. Il Duce is going to be hanging from a petrol station before May.”

Lawrence was taken aback. “That’s… very specific.”

“I can see the future,” admitted Alberto. “Sorta.”

Allison expected Lawrence to lash the boy with questions, interrogating him about everything from the range of his foresight to when the glorious race to come would erect a statue to their beloved educator.

Instead, he just said, “That must be a heavy burden for you.”

Alberto’s face was very still, but tears were starting to crawl down his cheeks. “If your guys catch me, they’re gonna—they’re gonna…” He broke out into a wail. “They’re gonna do the same thing to me!”

Allison looked up at her Alberto. “Really? But you were so small…”

“Amazing what little a murderous army-raid can do to a child. Trust me, there were plenty of widows and orphans in Milan who would’ve kicked the stool from under my feet.”

Lawrence gripped both of young Alberto’s hands. “I’m not going to let that happen. I don’t care what you’ve done. You don’t deserve a mob because of some narrow little man’s awful, cruel idea of the world. We’re both going to get out of here.”

Alberto sniffled. “You mean it?”

“My hand to God,” said Lawrence. He sighed. “I hate to be another adult asking you to solve their problems, but your talents—is there anything you can do to clear our way to the entrance at least?”

Alberto took a deep breath. 

The Blackshirts looked around wildly like hounds catching a scent. They both started shouting about partisans in the grand foyer. One of them barked, “Restate qui²
” over their shoulder at Alberto as they ran out of the office.

Lawrence watched them go, clearly impressed. When he turned back to the little psychic, Allison thought she recognized a little of the man who had once wondered over her and Arnold on the train. 

“Was that an illusion?”

Alberto managed a shaky smile. “Yeah. Made them think they were hearing the PA.”

Allison looked up at the child’s future. “Was it really just illusions?”

“Mostly. You know, in all the years we knew each other, Bertie never asked why a couple of Blackshirts left their pet psychic alone with the English spy…”

Lawrence ruffled Alberto’s hair. “Clever lad! Now, how about we go and meet my friends?”

The older Alberto raised the bottle (a tall-necked whiskey cylinder) he was holding up to his lips. “I think this calls for a toast!”

He downed the spirit in one almost superhuman skoll, his throat bulging like a duck trying to swallow a chocolate bar. Within seconds the bottle was empty. It was the finest feat of alcoholism Allison had ever witnessed.

Alberto let out a great belch, the sound of it vibrating the world until it shattered.

When it reformed, Allison and Alberto were standing in another of the Palace of Justice’s painfully polished hallways. Lawrence and the psychic’s past personages appeared around a corner, marching their way up to a faintly out of place metal door at the end of the hall.

They passed right through their future observers. After so much of Alberto’s (and Elsa’s) magical mystery tour, it hardly phased Allison. It was like being Haunt, but actually invisible. 

“It wasn’t hard getting Laurie through the Palace,” said Alberto.

“I made him look like one of the Blackshirts,” his younger self piped up.  “Andrea I think he was called.” He looked up at Lawrence with a kind of bemused, mournful sadness. “Wasn’t too hard. Both mostly beard.”

Lawrence banged on the door with his fist, bellowing, “Open up, camerati! The Cervellone wants to speak to the Anglo’s little bastards!”  

The young Alberto looked back at himself and Allison. “It meant ‘egghead’. More or less.” He frowned. “Pretty easy to swallow being called ‘Tiresias’ after that.”

The door opened, but instead of revealing one of the Palace of Justice’s many blackshirted glowerers, there stood a young Chinese teenager, grinning broadly at Lawrence with very slightly crooked teeth³
. His white buttoned shirt was stained with specks of blood. A gold bracelet coiled around his arm like a contented snake.   

“I bloody heard that, Laurie,” the boy jeered cheerfully with his thick Australian twang. “Why so mean?”

Lawrence laughed. “Sorry, Chen my boy, just playing a part.”

It was like watching the Devil and… if not an angel than a finer breed of demon break bread.

“God,” said Allison. “He’s smiling at Lawrence.”

“Why not?” said Alberto. “He wasn’t a bastard back then.”

Chen looked at the young Alberto, his smile brightening even more. “You must be that mind-reader Laurie dragged us here for. I’m AU.”

Allison blinked. “…I thought Chen hated that name.”

“Nicknames are a lot more bearable when you can fall back on your real one.”

Chen offered the young Alberto his hand. “Put it here, mate.”

Alberto didn’t take the hand. He was staring wide-eyed at its owner.

Chen didn’t have a Socii, or any of the other marks of power Allison had seen in her short career as a telepath. Instead, he had filigree, a fine second skin of gold covering him from head to toe, visible even under his clothes. 

“I can’t imagine what it was like suddenly seeing your buddies the way I do,” said Alberto. “Well,” he added, “I can. I was there. Because you ate me.”

“Get to the point,” said Allison.

“But even if I wasn’t, I can still kinda relate. I’d never seen another super before Chen, and then suddenly—bam! Glamy soul-armour. It was like that bit in Wizard of Oz where Dorothy stumbles into the technicolour.”

Chen was examining the awe-struck little boy with some concern. “You alright, mate?” He snapped his fingers in front of Alberto’s eyes.

He shook himself. “I’m fine. You just look… amazing.”

A tight, smug smile. “Don’t I know it.”

Chen lead Lawrence, Alberto, and their unseen voyeurs into the palace’s makeshift dungeon. It was a suitably gloomy realm. Flickering light globes in wide-brimmed hats dangled from long stalks, spilling mustard-stained light over the cavernous space. The floor was interrupted often by empty cages. Beneath them, Allison could just make out rectangular, dustless shadows. The scars of torn out filing cabinets, maybe.      

“This used to be an archives wing,” explained the young Alberto. “They started chucking my ‘guests’ here because it had already had a security door. And the cages.”

They weren’t alone in there. Blackshirts writhed and groaned on the floor. Some clutched at their mouths, their fingers sticky with blood. Others lay in pools of sick, their faces covered with angry, bulbous blisters like venom sacks. The two groups had quite a bit of overlap.

Lawrence frowned tersely. “I hope you and Żywie haven’t been excessive.”

Chen was striding in front of the group, his hand held out flat as chinks of metal zipped into his palm like hungry golden fish. “Lighten up, Laurie, we didn’t kill anyone.” His smile faltered slightly. “I think.”

“Remember kids,” said the elder Alberto. “Don’t kill fascists, kill ten year old boys.”

“Don’t joke about that,” said Allison quietly.

“Aww, don’t be—”

“Just don’t.”

At the far end of the room, a dark shape crouched over a moaning Blackshirt. A night-hag. A demon. Looking at it made Allison’s skin buzz, like she was staring at a tiger.

“What is that?” she whispered to Alberto. 

“At the time,” he answered, “I thought it was a living corpse.”

The shape narrowed and stretched upwards. As the languid light of the dungeon fell over it, Allison caught sight of a slightly hooked nose, like a witch.

“Laurie!” the shape called out in a heavy German accent. It glided towards the old man like a gust of acrid smoke. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, Eliza,” said Lawrence. 

Allison gawked at the dark shape. “That’s Żywie?” She looked at Alberto. “Why does she look like a monster?”

The psychic didn’t answer. All his attention was focused on Eliza. Allison was a little surprised she didn’t literally melt under his gaze.

Eliza—fourteen and just beginning to grow gawky—stood on her toes and gave Lawrence a daughterly peck on the cheek. “There’s some—how you say?—germs in the air I don’t want you catching.”       

Lawrence was smiling again. “Thank you, my dear.” He put a hand on little Alberto’s shoulder. “The Blackshirts were kind enough to introduce me to—”

Alberto knocked the old man’s hand away, stepping back so hard he fell to the ground. Without stopping, he kept scrambling away from the cloaked girl. “Don’t let her near me!”

Concern was written across Eliza’s so very young face. “Little boy, I don’t—”

“You’re not real!” Alberto howled, hysterical tears again forcing their way out his eyes. “You’re empty!”

“That’s what it looked like, at least,” said the older Alberto, a little calmly. “Flesh and blood, moving and talking, without a glimmer of soul.”

“Why not?” asked Allison.

“No power works on Eliza,” Alberto told her. “Not directly, at least. Sure, if Sadie punched her in the face”—a morbid little smile—“I bet her head would go flying, but Fran could never touch the water bound up in her body, and she might as well have been a brick wall to old Haunt.” He looked down at Allison. “Actually, you’re the only one I know who can do anything with her power…” He shrugged. “Lucky you, I guess.”

Eliza was still walking towards the frightened Alberto, her hand outstretched towards him. “Are you unwell? Do not worry, I can make it better…”

“The antipodes of mind and body, Laurie called us…”

Eliza managed to touch the boy’s cheek. Allison was suddenly filled with a vivid sense-memory of the healer’s wires running through her body.           

“…Except she could touch me, and I couldn’t.” A green bulb of absinthe appeared in Alberto’s hand. “Story of my fucking life, as you’ll see.”

He threw the bottle like a grenade. When it shattered at the floor, the scene was washed away in a summer sea.

When the tide subsided, Alberto and Allison were standing somewhere deeply familiar: the bank of the Avon River, at the New Human Institute. 

It felt like late summer. The fields of dry yellow grass looked like they had been painted with a fine, delicate brush. The waters of the river meanwhile were strangely still, like an inlaid vine of blue-grey glass. Allison spotted Alberto, perhaps a year or two older than he’d been in Milan, building tiny castles out of the riparian mud.

“Aren’t we skipping a lot?” she asked wearily.

“Eh, there’s not much to say about right after the war. We stopped by South Africa for…” Alberto waved his hand. “…I don’t remember, sue me. I think it was to do with the Physician. Eliza made Laurie bring Hugo with us like a stray cat, and Lawrence spent a while giving free counselling to blitzed out Londoners. How he met Mrs. G, actually. Make of that what you will.”

“Why’d you come to Australia?”

“Don’t know. Bertie said John told him Oz had a load more super-babies. Like, one in a hundred thousand births or something. Honestly, I think he just missed the warmth in his bones…”

Alberto allowed the strong but distant sounds of hammers and saws to drift down to the riverbank. 

“So Eliza healed the King—”

“Wait, she healed who?” 

“…Got us all citizenship while Lawrence found himself a private little kingdom in the Wheatbelt. Then he waited for us to flock to his palm like little lost birds.”

There was a splash in the middle of the river. 

“Didn’t take too long, it turned out.”

The young Alberto didn’t even look up from his castle. Splashes happened all the time. Probably just some happy fish. But then a hand—small and pale—reached out of the river. It pawed the air for a moment, before grabbing hold of the water’s skin like it was at the edge of a cliff. A little girl, maybe six or seven, with slick, water-dark hair pulled herself up onto the river’s surface, which froze beneath her feet. She was completely naked, and her eyes were two chips of lapis. 

“Huh,” said Allison. “So that’s where David gets—” The girl remembered what had become of Françoise, and couldn’t bring herself to say anything more. 

Alberto didn’t seem to notice (or care about) his companion’s sudden silence. “You should’ve been there when Lawrence had that bloody portrait made,” he said wistfully. 

His younger self had spotted Françoise. “Uh, hi?” the boy called across the water. “Are you a super or something?”

He didn’t really need to ask. Even if she hadn’t emerged from the river like Nimue’s daughter, through the lens of Alberto’s memory, the little water-nymph existed as flesh, mist, ice and water all at once. The lights of her thoughts glowed like abyssal fish risen from the depths to feed.   

“Are you a super or something?” the girl shouted back at Alberto.

“She copied people a lot back then. Still learning to talk. Echolalia I think they call it.”

“Ah, yeah, I am.” The young esper slipped off his shirt and sandals before wading into the water up to his waist. “I asked you first.”

Without warning, Melusine melted into the river.

“Weirdo,” muttered Alberto. 

“You don’t seem very surprised by the naked water girl,” commented Allison.

Alberto let the younger version of himself field that one. The boy looked back at the shore and said, “I live with a walking, faith-healing corpse and a teenager whose sweat melts metal, sue me.” Resuming character, he started trudging and splashing back towards his mud-earthworks, when a small geyser erupted in his path. 

Alberto yelped and leapt backwards, but the waterspout wilted as quickly as it sprouted, falling back into the river to reveal Fran; head tilted, hands on her hips, regarding the boy with an imperious shade of curiosity.

Alberto clenched his fists and tried to stand very straight. “Look… girl, I don’t know what you’re—”

Fran—now clear as glass—knocked Alberto onto his back with an open-palmed blow to the chest. 

“Didn’t see that coming, Tiresias,” Allison said, smirking a little.

“Hard to predict a girl made of whim.” 

Before Alberto could get back to his feet, Fran dissolved into mist, forming back into flesh on top of his chest and shoving his head underwater. Bubbles frothed from his mouth as the boy thrashed beneath her.

Allison watched it all with fascinated horror. Fran didn’t look angry. Allison wasn’t even sure she could guess at what the girl was feeling. She was smiling, yes, but it wasn’t a bully’s smile. There wasn’t any sadism, just pure, giddy amusement, like she’d found a particularly shiny rock.

Allison looked at the older Alberto. He didn’t seem all too perturbed watching himself drown⁴. In fact, he was smiling, too. A melancholic smile, but a smile. 

    “Why’s she doing that?” 

“I think she liked the faces people made when they breathed in water.”

Allison gestured wildly at Françoise. “But she’s killing you!” 

“I wouldn’t have been her first. You’ve got to remember, Allie, Fran grew up in the sea. Her father was the sea. She rode waves and sunk ships the way you or me played with blocks. Lawrence hadn’t squeezed her into a person shaped box yet—hell, I’m not sure if she was a goddess, or an animal.” Alberto stared at the girl in the water, her hand still effortlessly keeping him from the taste air, oh so long ago. “She was wild.” He looked back down at Allison. “Free. You ever wonder what that feels like?”

Allison had; all her life. 

Alberto bent his legs till he was level with the little girl, putting a hand on her shoulder and pointing towards his near-death experience like they were on safari. 

“This is the best part.”

The younger Alberto’s hand broke the surface. It found Fran’s thigh, and he raked her skin with his fingernails.

The nereid squeaked with pain, her smile screwing into an angry pout. She pressed down on Alberto’s chest with both hands, clearly making an effort to squeeze the breath out of him. The boy jerked spasmodically.

Alberto whispered, “One touch, that’s all it ever took. To get the little snots in Bovegno to leave me alone, to make my father buy me Turkish delight when we were barely making rent—”

Allison’s nose scrunched in a grimace. “Turkish delight?”

“Shut up. But I couldn’t sink my fingers into Fran. Getting a grip on her mind was like leaving a handprint on the ocean…”

“…David’s like that too, now,” Allison admitted. She kicked at the half-remembered dirt. “He won’t even let me read his mind.”

“You don’t sound happy about that.”

“What’s he got to hide from me?”

Alberto rolled his eyes. “Were you thrilled when you heard I could read your mind?”

Allison didn’t answer. Not that she ever had to with Alberto.

He continued. “The black spots were dancing in my eyes by now. So I fought back the way all the other boys in Bovegno had to…”

The younger Alberto swung his fist up at Fran’s chin, knocking the girl off of him. The little boy shot right to his feet, screaming, “Stronza⁵!”

He stalked towards the little girl, striking her in the face with clumsy, inexperienced blows. Allison reckoned she’d seen better punches from the Petey the asthmatic back at Harvey Primary. Françoise meanwhile just looked confused. She wasn’t even throwing her arms up or trying to get away from Alberto, like she’d never been in a fight before.

“I don’t think anyone had ever hit her back,” said Alberto. “I mean… did Fran ever tell you about Palaemon?”

Allison shook her head. “Who’s he?”

“Nobody important⁶.”

The young Alberto was still hitting Fran. The little girl’s expression changed from bewilderment to rage. She turned transparent again, lunging at Alberto and slashing at his face with sharp talons of ice.

Alberto pointed at his cheeks. “I will admit, there were some upsides to living with Eliza.”

As though on cue, Lawrence and Mary appeared over the hill. They were walking and chatting with a dark-haired giant of a man, with shoulders like the hull of a ship. He was holding a pale blue dress.

“I’m sure she’s just playing in the river,” he said, a little apologetically. “It’s been a while since she’s been near—”

The enormous man spotted Françoise and Alberto battling in the water. He ran down to the river, picking up speed like a freight train. 

“Fran! No!”  

With one hand apiece, he effortlessly parted the children, lifting them both into the air like they were a pair of dumbbells. He looked sternly at the girl as she wriggled and reverted to human form, frowning into his warm, beetle black eyes. 

“We don’t claw people, girl.”

The water-nymph huffed. The man turned his face to Alberto. “Sorry about that.”

“You weren’t the one who tried to drown me!” cried the boy.

“I don’t suppose you’ve ever seen pictures of Ralph Rivers out of costume,” said his adult self.

Allison stared at the man stood in the river. “That’s the Comet?” 

“Yep,” said Alberto. 

“What’s he doing here?”

“He took care of Fran down here a while after the war. Gave her to Lawrence because, well, major checca and all.” He shook his head. “God, imagine if he hadn’t.”

“You and Fran must’ve hated each other.”

 “Nope.”

Alberto didn’t bother with an alcohol transition this time. Maybe his showmanship was waning. Maybe he was trying for montage. Either way, Ralph Rivers was gone. Fran had the blue dress on, and she and Alberto were lounging about the shore, quite at ease. Alberto was dangling a green tree frog by one of its thin legs. Fran similarly was peering at small, panicked fish she had trapped in small orbs of water above the river. 

“I’d never met anyone like Fran. She wasn’t… hollow like Eliza, but she was utterly her.” He smiled, mostly to himself.

The tree frog exploded in the young Alberto’s fingers, splattering the boy’s face with splotches of red and strips of moist green skin. 

“She surprised me. All the time. You’ll find out how rare that is.”

Fran was laughing like mad. To Allison’s surprise, Alberto broke out in giggles, too.

She looked flatly at the man the boy would become. “Really?” 

“Oh, don’t tell me you and Arn never tore the legs off bugs.”

Now they were standing on Northam’s main street⁷, and Fran and the young Alberto were watching and cackling as a man in a sparkling white server’s uniform fled down the sidewalk from a gurgling, misshapen mass of half-melted ice-cream.

“Now, I know you and Arn—or, Dave I guess—never did that, because you’re boring.”

As Allison watched the ice-cream golem menace the screaming townsfolk, she hoped Alberto couldn’t see the part of her that wished she’d thought of it.

A noon-drunk wandered out of a public house, stumbling over an Italian folk-song⁸ and waving a bottle of malt in his hand. It flew out of his hand, smashing into the middle of the road. Almost predictably, it unleashed a wave that roared down the street. Allison didn’t even flinch when it hit them.

They found themselves somewhere Allison was very surprised Alberto was familiar with: the bottom of the Avon river.

She looked around the riverbed. It all looked right. The mud, the way the sun rained broken caustics of light through the river’s roof, the subtle greenish tint to everything. But it didn’t feel right. The water was as weightless on her limbs as air. Pure scenery. It reminded Allison how false it all was. Alberto wasn’t standing next to her. He was just information in her head that felt chatty. That she was letting decide what she saw…

That information was looking up towards the surface. “There we are.”

Françoise was darting through the water like a tiny, towheaded dolphin, chasing after segmented gold water-snakes. Alberto was following gracelessly far behind her, waving flailing through the water like a deeply confused seagull, cheeks bulging with air. Looking at him made Allison deeply appreciate her power. 

“I mean, weird god-brain aside, me and Fran—it was just nice, you know? Basil was way bigger and always trying to keep busy so the black dog wouldn’t get him, Eliza was a German depressive zombie, but Fran… sure, I was older, but Fran barely knew what that meant. Most of the ‘people’ she’d known were immortal! And we’d both grown up a bit short of friends…”

Allison spotted a shadow on the surface. It could’ve been a teenage boy lying on his back. “What about Chen?” she asked, pointing to the shape. “Basil said you and him were close.”

The world stopped.

“We are not talking about fucking Chen,” Alberto snarled.

“Fine,” Allison huffed back. “What’s your point, then?”

The young Françoise and Alberto melted away. The surface began to lower towards the riverbed. The whole river was draining like a bathtub with the stopper pulled out.

They were back at the riverside. Alberto and and Fran—now both very adolescent—were ambling along the water’s edge with that particular bored teenage gait. Alberto though was eyeing his companion like she had a pimple he wasn’t sure whether or not to tell her about.

“You’ve already seen this part of the story,” the future Alberto told Allison. “Just in reverse.”

“What do you mean?”

Alberto waved his hands at the teens. “Just look at this…”

“Me and Eliza are heading into town Saturday,” the past Fran said. “Getting our nails done.”

“What’s the point?” said the teenaged Alberto. “The paint will just flake off next time you turn to water or something.”

Fran shrugged. “It’s the chat that’s important. You wouldn’t get it, girl stuff.” A small, knowing smile. “Besides, maybe I just won’t change for a while…”

Alberto almost spat the words, “She let Lawrence and the rest make her into a person! Domesticated her! Made her boring. Like turning water to mud.”

The teenage Alberto stopped walking for a moment, staring at Fran’s back. Then he caught up with her, surreptitiously brushing her hand with his.

The young woman swung around and kissed him right on the lips. A very grown up kiss, Allison thought. She winced at the sight.

Fran pulled back almost immediately, wiping her face and flashing Alberto the kind of nervous, apologetic grin the six year old sprite in the river never could’ve. “I’m sorry. Don’t know what came over to me.”

The young Alberto forced a smile. “Hey, I’m not complaining.”

Fran shook her head. “Practise makes perfect I suppose.”

Allison glared up at Alberto. “You made her kiss you.”

“She did what I told her,” he hissed. “I could make her do whatever I wanted.” 

“You made Fran kiss you,” repeated Allison.    

The psychic ran his hands down his face and groaned. “What was the point after that? You can’t be friends with a puppet.”

Allison folded her arms. “I have your powers and friends.”

“You’d had my powers for less than a week, sweetie, don’t get carried away.”  Alberto produced an amber Jo Jo flask. It had no label, just the embossed image of Saturn devouring his child. “There’s one more thing I need to show you.”

Alberto pulled out the cork. Allison braced herself for whatever flood or plume of remembrance it produced.

Instead, the flask started sucking in air. Alberto and Allison stretched and contorted as they were pulled through its neck like genies being sucked back into their bottle⁹. 

No wonder he wanted to play Prospero, Allison thought to herself.

When everything was its proper shape again, the pair were standing in Lawrence’s study. The man himself was standing with his back to his desk, looking out the office’s great clock face window. The only real difference made to the Oxfordian was the length of his beard. On the other side of the desk, a sixteen year old Alberto was staring at his sandshoes in the centre seat. 

It almost amused Allison. It was like God saw the scene in Milan and realized he’d gotten Alberto and Lawrence mixed up. 

The elder Alberto did not look amused. He was staring at the back of Lawrence’s green checkered suit with pure, undisguised hate.

“Mr. Jefferies from the off-licence phoned me today, Tiresias,” the old man said quietly. All too steadily. “He was very confused. And angry.”

Alberto looked up at Lawrence in confusion. “What, you mean Crackbone Pete?”

Lawrence swung around and snapped, “We do not use vulgar nicknames here, young man.”

That earned a quick bitter laugh from both his future students. To Allison’s immense surprise, the young Alberto bent his head. 

“Sorry, Lawrence.”

His older self shook his head at the display. “God, I was such a pussy.”

“Do you know why Mr. Jefferies called me, Tiresias?”

Allison hated when grownups did that: the toxic combo of rhetorical questions and using your name like they thought you would forget it.

Although, she guessed, that wasn’t completely out of the question at the Institute. 

“No.” 

Lawrence sat down, resting his elbows on the desktop and rubbing his fingers on his forehead like he had a migraine. “Don’t lie to me, Alberto.” He used the boy’s human name like it was an insult, or maybe a serial-number. “Mr. Jefferies told me he handed you an entire slab of beer, free of charge. And ‘by God’ he can’t remember why.”

Tiresias tried to shrug. It looked more like his shoulders were breaking. “Maybe he felt charitable and he’s regretting it?”

“I’ve lived in the Avon Valley for a long time. I know for a fact ‘Crackbone Pete’ feels no such urge.” He looked Alberto hard in the eye. “What did you do to him, Tiresias?”

The man who’d been called Tiresias nudged Allison in the side. “Watch me think on my feet.”

“…Okay, I’ll confess. It was an illusion. Made Mr. Jefferies think I slipped him a tenner.” He tried to smile. “I can pay him back if you want.”

Lawrence swallowed hard. “No, Tiresias. Mr. Jefferies didn’t tell me his money vanished, he told me he gave you the beer.” He clenched his fists. “Why did he do that?”

“Now watch, Allie,” said Alberto. “If I was smart, I would’ve leapt at Bertie and blanked his memory, like I did back at Adam’s house.”

“I know,” she muttered.

Alberto sighed. “I was not smart.”

“…I can make people do what I want,” Tiresias admitted. “When I touch—”

Lawrence slapped him across the face, hard and sharp. 

Tiresias’ hand went to his cheek. He was staring at Lawrence, more shocked than anything. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I—I thought you might not want me if you knew.”

Lawrence took a deep breath. “Tiresias, that is an ugly, abominable ability. Have you ever… manipulated the others this way?”

“…Once or twice.”

Another smack. “Never do this again, not to anyone, but especially not your brothers and sisters. This kind of coercion isn’t fit for new humans. It’s pure mental violence.”

Tiresias’ eyes were wet. “Are you going to tell the others?”

Lawrence shook his head. “No.”

“Gotta keep a card up your sleeve,” whispered Alberto.

“I don’t want them to have to look at you like this.”

“And that’s the only way Bertie ever looked at me again,” said Alberto. He looked down at Allison. “Lawrence didn’t see us as different people, you know. Not really. He thought of us like some big superorganism. Pun fucking intended. A beehive. And I was a bee that steals all the honey or something. A big fat—”

“Shut up.”

Alberto blinked at Allison. “What?”

“Stop trying to make me feel sorry for you. You’re a bad person.”

Alberto thrust his hands at Lawrence, now frozen mid-lecture. “Look at what I had to work with!”

Allison didn’t look, neither at Lawrence or Alberto. “Laurie was bad to all of us. Didn’t make us all evil.”

Alberto laughed without mirth. “Evil? Chrissakes, is this a Sunday matinee?”

The little girl finally looked up at the esper. “I’m nine. What’s your excuse?”

“I don’t have to prove anything to you.”

“You’re trying really hard to.”

“I lived with Bertie’s complete and utter fucking hatred for half my bloody life!” Alberto shouted, abandoning his earlier protestations. “What do you want from me?”

“David lived with Lawrence’s crap his whole life. He didn’t turn out like you.”

“There’s no fucking comparison! David was Bertie’s golden boy! His masterpiece! What the shit did he have to deal with, hmm? Bertie blowing too much air up his arse?”

For a long time—whatever that meant inside her and Alberto’s shared head—Allison didn’t answer. Then she drew a bottle from the aether. Tequila, with a fat worm curled up at the bottom.

She took a long, hard draught. It burned her throat raw. The office shook and shattered.

They were in the spare bedroom. The married day bedroom. Alberto, technically the younger, but only by less than three years, and the former Stratogale were both lying on the bed. Sadie Jones was painfully exposed, her skin pale. Her face was the kind of blank mask children put on when they didn’t want to weep. She looked far younger than her fifteen years.

Beside her, Alberto took a draft of his clove cigarette. He glanced at Sadie, staring at the door like it was the last one we all pass through. “Hey, at least it’s done.” 

He sounded like they were filing taxes, or closing a bank account.

“If you hate Laurie so much, why did you screw Sadie for him?” 

The words felt strange in Allison’s mouth. Grownup, but only for a child.

Alberto tried not to look at Sadie. “Laurie wouldn’t shut up about it. Guess he decided my ‘abomination’ was worth having in his next generation…”

Allison glared at him. “You could’ve said no. You were the only one of us who could’ve said no.”

Alberto half-stammered. “Hey, it wasn’t fun for me, either!” He pointed at Sadie. “She doesn’t even like fellas!” 

“She was a kid. You were twenty-six.”

Allison forced herself to take another long, stinging gulp of Alberto’s shame. The scene shifted to Panoply’s cenotaph—the grave of a boy who never was.  

“You brought Adam here. For a joke.”

“…He was a threat! To all of us!”

“Not to you. You brought Adam here so he could hurt us. Hurt David. Just to play a joke on Lawrence.” Allison’s artificial calm broke. “To make Eliza a murderer!”

“Eliza was a killer long before she met me.”

“Does that make Adam less dead?”

“Like you ever cared about him!”

“So?” Allison took another slug from the bottle. She’d managed to down almost all of it.

They were in Françoise’s bedroom. Private Wilkins’ rifle was still smoking. What was left of Fran was still warm flesh.

Alberto blanched at the sight. He stared at Allison with white fury. “You little cow.”

“Says the bloke who shot his best friend.”

Alberto pointed at Wilkins. “Does that look like me?”

Allison scoffed. “He was how you did it. You let the raid happen. You could’ve made Tim leave us alone, and spent the rest of your life brainwashing girls and drinking yourself to death.”

“He—he knew about my power!”

A sip this time. The room shifted back to Lawrence’s study. The old man was staring pleadingly at Alberto, with a banana pointed at his temples.

“Lawrence knew about your power, but you could still do that to him. You cared more about a dumb, sick joke than you did about Fran.”

Alberto couldn’t answer the girl. 

They returned to Fran’s room. Allison was smiling wickedly. 

“You know what’s amazing?” she said, her voice cracking. “The absolute funniest thing about this?”

“What?”    

Allison laughed. “This isn’t even the worst thing you’ve ever done. Raping a girl and shooting your friend in the head is, like, third baddest!”

The little girl swallowed the rest of the tequila. When the bottle was bone dry, she shook out the worm, crunching it between her teeth.

They were in the barn, in the middle of the night. Alberto was in his dressing gown. David—or maybe Maelstrom—was standing in his pyjamas under a shower of moonlight pouring in through the barn’s skylight. His eyes were still as blue as his mother’s, and they were streaming with tears. He was also holding a pair of wooden skewers.

Alberto was pacing unsteadily back and forth in front of the boy, his cheeks flushed with Enlilian hexagons. Allison could almost smell the booze on his breath. The psychic was the kind of drunk that he normally reserved for parties, or his deepest funks.

Perhaps this was both. 

Alberto was stumbling, both over his own feet and his words. “You don’t know how fucking lucky you’ve got it, Mealy.”

Maelstrom nodded. Allison didn’t know if that was Alberto’s doing, or just the instinct Lawrence had hammered into him.

“I remember when I was the future.” Alberto mimicked an explosion with his hands. “The ‘mental marvel’ Bertie fucking called me.” He stalked in close to David, his spittle hitting him in the nose. “But now he’s got you. His own personal Poseidon, with all the edges ground off.”

David whimpered. 

Alberto hit him. Allison couldn’t imagine it meant much to a boy who’d been flogged with what might as well have been a mace, but he still shook like his bones were jelly. The up-to-date Alberto was shaking too. Adults did that sometimes when you called them out.

“Fucking hell,” the previous Alberto slurred. “You know what your mum would think of ya, back when she was worth something?”

Maelstrom shook his head. He’d heard it all before, but he was a good boy, and good boys didn’t play smart when grownups were trying to tell them something. 

“She’d be bloody ashamed. Probably wouldn’t even bother to drown you. You’re Lawrence’s shitty picture of her.” 

Alberto tested the tips of the skewers with his thumbs, raising tiny beads of blood from his pores.

Maelstrom didn’t have to be told. He drove the skewers home. 

He didn’t scream. He wasn’t allowed to. He did whimper, though. Blood and worse mixed with his tears.

Alberto tried to look away, but wherever he turned, there was Maelstrom. There were those ruined eyes.

“Oh, quit sniveling,” said the other Alberto. “You’ll be fine. Now, open the doors for us. We’re gonna go get Windshear.”       

 Maelstrom, retreated into ice, pulled the barn doors open. He followed Alberto out into the night.

Alberto watched them go, before turning to look at Allison.

“That’s what I see whenever I look at my best friend. Thanks.” 

“He never remembered!” 

“He did. He just didn’t know he did. I held him while he screamed.” Allison’s mouth twitched curiously. “Is that why you killed his mum? In case he remembered?”

“Shut up.”

“Lawrence was wrong about… pretty much everything. Except for you.” 

“Shut up.”

Allison’s voice climbed higher. “You’re worthless, Alberto! The whole world would be better if you’d died inside your mum. Lawrence was right to hate you!”

“Shut up!”

   They were back in the Physician’s quest quarters. Back in reality. Allison was sitting upright in her bed, regarding Alberto with almost bored disdain. His image meanwhile was hyperventilating. 

Allison lay down. “We’re done,’ she said, closing her eyes. “I’m going out.” Allison hadn’t tried astral projection yet, but right then she just wanted to be away from Alberto. She rose out of her clothes and body like a sylph of the air. She was a spectre now, a reflection of herself. The girl floated up towards the metal ceiling. 

“I—”  

“Get back in the dark.”

She passed out of sight. Alberto got shoved back into the house without windows, alone. The psychic was a little surprised. He’d half-expected to find himself dragged along wherever Allison was frittering off to. 

At least this future was unfolding right.

Alberto opened Allison’s eyes. Exhaled air through Allison’s lungs. Moved Allison’s lips, and tapped Allison’s teeth with the tip of Allison’s tongue.

“Dumb little bitch.”      

---

^{1. “It’s fine,” more or less. ↩}

^{2. “Wait here!” ↩}

^{3. The children of the New Human Institute were subject to many abuses, but they were at least spared braces. ↩}

^{4. To be fair, you couldn’t expect him to feel suspense.↩}

^{5. “Turd” or perhaps more relevantly, “piece of shit.” ↩}

^{6. This—coincidentally—was Françoise’s exact assessment of Palaemon. ↩}

^{7. Fitzgerald street, to be specific. ↩}

^{8. “La Leggenda del Piave” written by E.A Mario in 1918 to commemorate the Italian victory in the Battle of the Piave River. ↩}

^{9. Contrary to popular Western conception, most djinn are not bound to obey humans—indeed, it takes a powerful magician to compel to do anything they don’t want to do. What mortals take as “wishes” can often be more accurately called “favours.” ↩}

Previous Chapter                                                                                                          Next Chapter    

“The ship woke you up, didn’t she?” Alberto blew out a puff of cloven smoke. Allison could smell it, real as anything. “Always throwing a pity-party, her. But I guess I don’t have a gaggle of Physicians crawling around inside me.” The psychic looked at Allison with a questioning smile. “You’d know the word for a group of physicians, right Allie? A herd? A college?”

Allison had drawn her bedsheets protectively up to her chin. The red glow of her eyes changed to ocean green.

Alberto put his palm to his face, shaking his head in annoyed embarrassment. “Don’t be stupid, Kinsey, you know I’m not really here. You left me bleeding out my eyeballs in the fucking bush. I’m a…” He rolled his tongue over his teeth in thought. “A metaphor. I’m your brain trying to make sense out of me.” Alberto glanced at his cigarette. “I’m not sure if I should thank you or be insulted.”

“Why are you here?” Allison asked in a whine. “You’re not—” She grabbed the sides of her head, eyes pointed down at the wrinkles of her duvet. A small, confused voice said, “…You’re not supposed to talk.”

Alberto scowled. “What? You think you can take my powers, my memories, everything except my nuts, and not get me in the bargain?” He crawled up the length of Allison’s bed till they were less than an inch apart. “You fucking ate me.”  

The girl could feel the man’s breath on her face, hot and burning with alcohol. His face was flushed with hexagons. Exactly as she remembered Alberto. Exactly how he remembered himself. She almost wanted to reach out and touch him—test his solidity. She wasn’t sure if it would be better or worse if her hand passed through him. “You—you were shot. I wanted to save you…”

Alberto leaned back, face deadpan. “Yes, because most vital organs are located in the right shoulder.” He scowled. “You were just hungry.”

Allison protested. “I wasn’t—what does that even mean?”

“You know what it means, Kinsey.” Alberto got up off the bed, circling it slowly as he examined Allison with bitter, mock curiosity. “It felt good, didn’t it? Like you were full for the first time in your life.”

Allison’s only answer was a glare: hard, but glistening with gathering tears.  

“Must be nice, finally being a real super.”

That broke Allison’s silence. “I was always a real super!”

“Yeah, when some of us were around for you to plagiarize. Nosferatu wasn’t as much of a parasite as you.”

“I know everything!”

Alberto was looking at his fingernails. “So do most University Challenge teams.” He sighed. “Shouldn’t be surprised you’re a massive thief. Jesus Christ, stuck in a Gypsy brat forever. My once in a species psionic powers will serve you well in making tourists think you’ve got a limp.”

“You keep making me feel yuck,” muttered Allison, arms wrapped around herself. “When I think about my mummy, or Valour”—a tense, itching heat—“…or Fran.”

“I’m sorry I’m giving you indigestion.” Alberto bent and hissed into Allison’s ear. “It might seem like I’m standing here smoking and whispering to you, but I’m not. I’m sitting alone, in a house without windows, with only our thoughts for company, shouting at the dark.”

“…I don’t care,” Allison said, mostly to herself. “You were a bad man, and I don’t care.”

Alberto straightened and drew up an eyebrow. “Is that what you think?”

“I have your memories.”

“Only when you can’t avoid them,” countered Alberto. “Take a closer look. I dare you.”

“How the hell am I supposed to do that?”

“You read our own minds! It’s like a memory-palace, but better.” Alberto let out a grunt of a laugh. “Got that from your head, by the way, ‘memory-palaces.’ I never used that trick much. Introspection is a shitty hobby. Buuuut I figure we should get to know each other now we’re headmates, hmm?”

“…Will you shut up if I do this?”

“Cross my heart. Wherever that is.”

Allison sighed and closed her eyes. 

It wasn’t hard. It was almost second nature, in fact. Allison turned her newest senses inward and—

She turned inside out.

For a second Allison thought she and Alberto were in space. Inner space, perhaps. They were floating high above a Milky Way of blood-red stars, streaked through with wisps of white.

“What’s that?” asked Allison.

“Another metaphor. All those lights are memories.” Alberto squinted. “I think the red ones are mine.”

Allison stared down at the galaxy of thought, at the cobwebs of herself. Her bones thinned and hollowed inside of her. She felt small, weightless. A flake of paint on someone else’s portrait.

“There’s so much you…”

“You’re nine, I’m twenty-nine. Of course there is.”

They drew closer to the lights, or maybe the lights came up to meet them. As they neared, they began to see through the glare. There were objects hidden within the lights. Keepsakes and mementos. Old teddy bears, well-worn pencils, or—in the case of most of Alberto’s memories—bottles of spirits. 

Alberto snatched a deep-blue coffin flask out from the whirling mess of booze and children’s toys. He squinted at the bottle’s embossing.

“Shitty hometown, vintage 1939. Good a place to start as any.”

He popped the bottle’s cork, and a whole sky flowed forth.

Alberto let go of the bottle, allowing it to drift off and pop like a soap bubble. He spread his arms out and exclaimed, “Welcome to Bovegno¹!”

The pair were standing in a cobbled street on a cloudless winter afternoon. A humble steeple protruded above snow-powdered, dull red rooftops, dwarfed in turn by the grey-treed mountain slopes that cradled the little spit of town. But as cozy and provincial as the town should’ve been, every cottage and townhouse had been monstrously magnified, looming over Alberto and Allison like skyscrapers. Everything from the stones of the road to the frost in the windows was either broadly sketched or painstakingly precise, with greater resolution than reality itself could support. The colours were bright enough to make Allison’s eyes water. The whole place seemed somehow composed of smells: fresh bread, pasta, and woodsmoke. 

“It’s a bit… impressionist,” said Allison. 

“Not surprised,” replied Alberto. “I think I was about three at the time.” He pointed up the road. “There’s me now.”

A little boy wrapped in a chrysalis of woolens and scarves stood alone and distinct amidst a swirl of brushstroke people. Allison could just make out the red hexagons on his winter-flushed cheeks. 

“Huh,” she said. “You were sorta… cute.”

Alberto shrugged. “S’pose I was.” 

The younger Alberto vanished. Most of the colour went with him, along with the vague shadows that passed for people. Now his older self and Allison were standing in an empty, washed out Bovegno—alone, except for a tall, dark figure where the young boy had been. He felt familiar. Like a whispered of but never seen uncle.

Alberto spoke like he was reciting the oldest story in the world. “A long time ago, a stranger came to Bovegno. Nobody knew where he came from…”

Dr. Smith’s voice echoed over the memory-scape like the arch, indifferent voice of God. “…Definitely from Enlil. They like kicking their troublemakers off world. ‘Compassionate exile’ they call it.”

Alberto went on. “He was beautiful, they say. And cruel.”

Suddenly, the dark man was surrounded by fawning will-‘o-wisps.

“Nobody even recognized his language, and he never bothered to learn ours. He didn’t have to. When he spoke, you knew what he was saying. Exactly. And whatever he asked, you gave it to him. Didn’t matter if it was money, your daughter, or your own beating heart.”   

“He was like you,” said Allison.

“Yes. Maybe even more.”

Now the dark man was enthroned, receiving tribute from a line of bedraggled wooden puppets, their strings all leading to the man’s palm. It looked more Czech than Italian to Allison, but then it wasn’t her imagination. Or was it? She wasn’t sure.

“For nearly twenty years, he ruled Bovegno like a king. Or maybe ‘god’ is a better word.”

The dark man tugged at the strings held. The puppets prostrated themselves, weeping.

“But then, one day…”

Another shadow—this one feminine—crept behind the throne. The man turned his head just in time to see her drive a knife into his neck.

“Someone finally told him no.”

“Why couldn’t he stop her?”

“Simple. She was his daughter.”

The man’s blood was seeping into cobblestones, running down through the cracks between till it reached Allison and Alberto’s feet.

“She was far from the only one. The stranger might have been gone, but his get would be part of Bovegno forever.”   

“Including you.”

“Yep. And the good people of Bovegno weren’t keen on a repeat performance. Telepathy—the kind I’ve got at least—doesn’t always pass on the way other powers do, but it did keep popping up. Usually they drowned us—”

Allison grimaced.

Alberto chuckled. “Naturals being shitty to us supers. Shocking, innit? Still, if we were cooperative, sometimes they bundled us off to the Church to keep us safe and celibate.” A surprisingly warm laugh. “Trust me, Allie, there are some nuns² and priests in Lombardy you do not lie to.”

Everything went dark. A thin strip of light slid open in the black. A harsh, pitiless whisper said: 

“I know that’s not all you have to confess, boy.”

Daylight returned, and the two were back in 1936. The younger Alberto was being shoved around by a pair of bigger boys—or human sharks, as his memory cast them.

“Now, I’m sure a lot of us snuck under the radar. Pretty sure my ma could read papa’s mind, at least.”

“Bigol³!” one of the boys shouted gleefully as they pushed little Alberto at their friend.

The other child grabbed the small boy and shook him, grinning maliciously. “Sürlin⁴!” He slapped Alberto’s cheeks. “Paiaso⁵!” 

The boy threw Alberto to the ground, laughing as the small boy smacked against the pavement. 

Alberto looked up at his tormentors. He noticed that his nose was bleeding, dapping at the trickle of blood and rubbing it curiously between his fingers. Then he smiled.  

His older self smiled, too. “But I don’t think laying low was ever going to be an option for me.”

The boy who’d thrown Alberto stopped laughing, switching his attention to the ground until he found a weighty stone and plucked it up, walking towards his friend.

The other child blinked at him. “Ohi, set dre a fa?“

The boy slammed the rock into the side of his head. Over and over. Now Alberto was laughing. Both of them.

Allison winced. 

Alberto noticed, frowning down at his companion. “Oh, come on, I was three.”

“You’re not three now,” the girl retorted.

“Please. Do I have to bring up Judith Felini?”

An anachronistically dressed little girl ran screaming out of an alley, drenched head to toe in school paste.

“And that’s not even mentioning Major Yellick…”

Allison clenched her fists. “Okay, I get it, you got picked on. So did David, but he never—” She remembered what David had told her at the dam. “You know what I mean!”

Alberto nodded slowly. “The bullying was part of it, sure. And knowing my great-great-great granddad was a space-rapist. But mostly it was knowing that I had two futures ahead of me: priest or apple-bobbing casualty.” He clapped. “Then the Blackshirts found me!”

Night fell instantly, and Alberto and Allison were standing in front of a townhouse, wary eyes in yellow lit windows watching a pair of Blackshirts shepherding a sleepy, five year old Alberto into their equally black Alfa Romeo. 

“Il Duce or somebody had caught wind of what I could do—some of it, that is—and decided they could use a boy like me.”

“What about your mum and dad?” asked Allison. “I know you had those.”

Alberto looked down at the girl with genuine surprise in his eyes. Then he broke into a cackle. “Oh, oh Allie, you’re a dear sometimes.”

Alberto stuck his hand into the night air, shattering it like the surface of a pond. He pulled out another bottle: this one a red, sterling-silver handled oval labelled “Milanese Shame.”

The psychic grinned with poisonous mirth. “Here’s to Mama and Papa Morreti, and the medal that replaced me on their mantle.”

He poured the bottle out on the ground. And kept pouring. And pouring. The cherry liquorice spirit now pooled around Albert and Allison’s ankles, rising rapidly.

“Um, Alberto?” Allison said as the stuff reached her knees. “Bertie?”

Alberto shushed her. “I’m paying tribute, Allison.”

The liquor swamped them both, plunging Allison into sharp, wet darkness. Panicking, she reached for David’s song, panicked some more when she couldn’t find it… and then remembered where she was: still lying in bed, soaking in drama-queen metaphor.  

She kicked upwards, out of the flood and into the shadow of a monumental building. It was a massive, Novecento-style slab of off-white brick and steel-framed windows, separate and removed from the city around it, with waves of stairs spilling out from three arches cut into its centre. 

“There used to be a church here,” said Alberto. “They tore it down to build this. A church for the state. The Milanese Palace of Justice—” He smiled. “Sounds like a superhero lair when you say it in English, doesn’t it?”

Allison could just make out someone walking up palace’s steps, like Jack on the giant’s threshold. The feeling she had felt when she glimpsed her and Alberto’s entwined memories made a keen, unwelcome return. “Makes you feel small…”

“Fascist shit does that. Makes you feel like just a drop in the ocean.” Alberto’s gaze went soft. “But the ocean washes away everything, in the end.”

Allison felt something inside the man. A lonely spark of nostalgia, dancing in the cold wind of Alberto’s heart.

“Come on,” he said. “We’ve only got forever.”

With a few impossible steps, they were inside the palace. They crossed marble floors speared through by great square columns. They climbed wide staircases and strolled past bas reliefs celebrating biblical, Roman, and fascist justice: the carved classical figures of the third panel blissfully ignorant of the paradox in their subject matter. 

“Over twelve hundred rooms: fascists never do anything small.”

Alberto lead Allison into a small side-office. It could’ve been any 20th century lawyer’s study: thin green carpet, a heavy looking darkwood desk in front of rows and rows of near-identical legal tomes. Except the office was strewn with children’s books and wooden toys. A seven year old Alberto was sitting behind the desk like a boy left alone in his father’s office. But instead of shuffling paperwork and pretending to boss about the secretary like a wholesome child, he was sullenly bouncing a rubber ball, idly running his eyes over his copy of Cuore.

“This room was where I spent half my childhood, waiting to justify my daily bread.”

“Still better than marching around with the Balilla all day⁶,” the young Alberto said, making Allison jump. His young voice was even more thickly accented than his older counterpart.  “Buncha Napoleon looking midgets.”

The door opened behind Allison, and an old, Gepetto-looking man complete with apron was shoved into the room, stumbling through Allison like she was the dream and not him.

The old man caught sight of the younger Alberto, and flashed him a fragile, appeasing grin. “You must be the fenomeno ⁷everyone’s been talking about.”

“Guess I am,” said Alberto. He glanced lazily at a list on the desk. “What’s your name?”

“Umberto Marino.” He forced a laugh like air escaping stab-wound. “No relation, if you’re wondering.”

Alberto looked flatly at Umberto. “Sit down.”

Marini obeyed, settling in the bare sandalwood chair before the desk. “Look, kid, this… it’s all a misunderstanding. I’m just trying to run a good inn, you know? It’s bad manners to turn away guests…”

Alberto ignored the man’s pleading, instead silently studying his face. Or what lay behind it, as Allison knew full well. 

“Tell you what,” Umberto pulled a green and white banknote⁸ from his apron pocket and slid it over to Alberto. “You clear this all up for me, and you get to keep all that money for yourself.” He winked. “And when you’re old enough to drink, it’s all on me.”

Alberto took the money and stuck it in his desk drawer. Then he rang a bell. A Blackshirt poked his head into the office.

“This fella’s been letting the partisans use a couple of his rooms. His son’s been going to meetings.”

Umberto’s face went slack. His eyes were wide and empty. Just that moment, Allison could guess, he could see his future as clearly as Alberto. 

The Blackshirt strode in and pulled Umberto out of his chair. “Up you go, camerata,” he said with false, mocking cheer. “We’ve still got talking to do.”

The spell over Marino broke. He spat at Alberto, “You murdering little shit! You freak—”

The Blackshirt struck him across the temples with his bludgeon. “That’s enough of that.”

“He tried bribing me, too,” Alberto said in passing as he returned to his book.

Allison was staring aghast at the boy’s future. “What happened to him?”

“What happened to all of them,” answered the young Alberto.

Through the window, a hanged man’s shadow fell across the office wall.

“…You could’ve lied,” whispered Allison.

Alberto shrugged. “Maybe I could’ve. But what about the next poor bastard? And the one after that? Trust me, Allie, there were a lot.”

“You could’ve lied about them, too!”

Alberto laughed. “And what do you think the Blackshirts would’ve thought of that?”

“That they were doing a good job?”

“Fascists know there’s always someone out to fuck with them: they’d stop being fascists if they didn’t.”

A young woman was pushed sobbing into the office. The young Alberto didn’t even look up before he rang the bell and told the Blackshirt:

“She’s keeping her daughter outta the Balilla. Thinks it’s too ‘violent’.”

No sooner was that weeping lady roughly ushered to her fate than a teenage boy took her place.

“Planning on running away with his girlfriend.”

And so it went, on and on. Days flickered past out the window, lengthening and contracting as summers decayed into winter, while the Alberto behind the desk grew like a sapling in spring, unceasingly handing down dooms:

“Partisan.”

“Spy.”

“Draft-dodger.”

“Tunes into enemy-radio.”

“For God’s sake!” cried Allison. “You can read minds! You’ve got to have known they weren’t bad people!”

“Everyone else around me thought they were all traitors and cowards.” Alberto shrugged. “Who was I supposed to believe?” He looked back at his younger self. “It’s funny. They always bumped people off far away from me. I think they wanted to ‘protect my innocence’ or some shit. But I could see them dying in their eyes. And sometimes, when they actually brought me someone who hadn’t done anything, they still killed them. When it kept happening, I started making stuff up. Told the Blackshirts what they wanted to hear. Kept everyone happier, I think. I’d rather not be shot after being found innocent…”

Allison shook her head. “You didn’t think making stuff up was wrong?”

 “Truth is just what the biggest guy in the room says it is.” He scowled. “And you’re one to talk. Hiding in the Physician’s bloody spaceship like you don’t know what he is…”

Allison’s eyes narrowed. “What? That he’s an alien?”

“That he’s a monster.”

“I don’t—”

“Oh, come on,” said the now nine year old Alberto. “You know he’s a bastard. He wallows in it. Never stops rubbing it in your face.”

The older Alberto picked up the baton. “Why do you think the ship’s screaming in your ear, Allie? Do you think John Smith really just found a dead goddess? I mean, the guy was mates with Bertie. Doesn’t that tell you everything?”

Silence.

 “…We don’t have anywhere else to go.”

“And you think I had all the options in the world?” the younger Alberto asked. “At least the Blackshirts could keep me safe…”

“I mean, that’s what I thought,” said the present Alberto. 

There was a sound like thunder falling to Earth. The office window shattered, sending the past Alberto screaming under the desk.

“Then Gorla happened. Nothing had been going right for years. The Allies had taken most of the country back in ‘43. The Nazis had to whisk Il Duce up to the North. They propped him up for the rest of the war. Everyone went on and on about returning to the glory of Rome, and we were taking orders from fucking Germans!”

Alberto’s younger self crawled out into the open, treading the broken glass to look out the empty window at the rising smoke.

“The Allies bombed on a fucking school. They blew up four hundred kids and nuns. Nuns! The only survivors were a couple of kids who weren’t even in the shelters! That was when I realized I was on the wrong side: the one that was losing.”

The glass flew back into the window, and little Alberto was back behind the desk.

“Luckily, the Blackshirts were kind enough to offer me an out.”

Two burly Blackshirts sporting their best Mussolini pouts of authority marched in an old man by the arms and shoved him down in the chair like a sack of rotten potatoes. 

The skin around his eyes was black and bleeding, and the red of his beard was more vivid than Allison had ever seen it, but she recognized the man immediately.

Dr. Herbert Lawrence looked at the boy behind the desk and flashed him an honest, open smile. “You must be the esper.”

The older Alberto sighed and pulled another bottle out from nowhere. “Settle in, Allie, this is a whole ‘nother cellar.”

---

^{1. A small mountain town in the province of Brescia located in the Val Trompia valley. Currently believed to be the source of nearly all of Earth’s natural espers. ↩}

^{2. One monastic order that drew heavily from the town of Bovegno were Our Ladies of Still Grace, famous for both their strict vows of silence and their conversation. ↩}

^{3. A Lombard insult meaning roughly “moron.” ↩}

^{4. Essentially “little idiot.” ↩}

^{5. “Clown.” ↩}

^{6. The Opera Nazionale Balilla, the official Italian fascist youth organization operating from 1927 until its absorption into the Italian Youth of the Lictor ten years later. Similar organizations include the German Hitler Youth, the various Young Pioneer organizations throughout the communist world, or the Nova Australian Starbursts. ↩}

^{7. Meaning “wonderful” “amazing” and “incredible.” Can also become fenomeno da baraccone, or circus freak. ↩}

^{8. A 500 lira note, to be precise. ↩}

Previous Chapter                                                                                                        Next Chapter

 

The Physician’s vessel was not the spartan, utilitarian dream of mankind’s engineers and futurists. It came from a shipwright tradition that had outlived pedestrian notions like “praticiality.” Its halls and arteries were not armoured in sleek, shining metal, but instead inlaid with jade, uranian blue and carmine tesserae, forming into elaborate, fractal mosaics that cast scintillations over the Physician and his guests as they walked beneath them.

“I notice you didn’t ask me what an educator machine was when I mentioned them.”

“So?” asked Arnold sullenly. “We were kinda busy listening to you talking about how you like to eat people.”

“Eat people—no, Arnold, nothing of the sort. I simply meant that I can experiment on humans without oversight or censure here.”

“That isn’t better!” snapped Mabel.       

Allison was only half listening, running her fingers over the walls as she trailed behind the others. Every chip of polished glass was engraved with its own minute, complete image: depicting creatures and scenes that Allison would’ve been certain were allegorical if she were anywhere else. They referenced each other, creating winding, non-linear story-webs. It wasn’t art meant for people. The human eye simply couldn’t take in so much information, let alone put it together. Behind the mosaics, there were bright veins and pools of ragged grey and gold light. Rivers of thought. 

The ship was alive. That crystal ringing in her ears was a song—so old and vast its notes and movements lived for hours instead of seconds. Allison suddenly felt like Jonah in the whale.

“Have you children ever wondered where your powers come from?”

“Course,” said Billy. “How couldn’t we?”

“I don’t,” said Arnold. “Lawrence kinda did all the wondering for us.”

Mabel added, “Gotta have someone to blame for this mess.”

“I know where my powers come from,” David said very firmly. 

“Well, three of you are about to find out, anyway. Okay, maybe one and a third of you, but still.”

The Physician stopped in front of a mosaic of a gigantic, coral-hided worm. He spat some murky syllables at the image, and the tiles began to shift and undulate. The creature’s red cone of a head split into a dozen flailing tentacles. It audibly hissed at the Physician, before rearing up and disappearing, becoming a doorway. 

The Physician led the children into a chamber that could’ve been the interior of a turtle shell, with struts like ribs stretching across a white-bone ceiling above hexagon floor-tiles. A living caricature of Albert Einstein with hair like tufts of fungus and skin like poorly cured leather clad in an off-yellow lab coat was standing in front of a square glass enclosure. Inside stood a throne, made of what appeared to be dozens upon dozens of thin hexagonal grey pillars protruding from the floor. A chubby middle-aged man sat in it, naked and pale, the hair on his chest thicker than the stuff on his head. He was biting his lips, his arms and legs stiff and shaking from the pale green fear and dark excitement Allison could see play behind his eyes.

Maybe it was the manacles around his wrists and ankles.

“Gutentag, Dr. Smith!”  The faux Einstein greeted the Physician and his guests in an insulting German accent. “Are these our new guests from the NHI?”

Allison could tell the “man” was a Physician (part of the Physician? She still wasn’t sure) immediately. His song hit her like hot, foul breath. She almost wished John Smith hadn’t bothered with the psi-broach. She had let herself get used to unpolluted music again.

“That they are,” Dr. Smith answered. He turned back to the children and gestured towards the false German. “Kids, this is Doctor Johannes Von Shunstaffernitzum. He’s what I look like when I’m working with our American friends.”

“Pleased to meet you!” said Billy.

“‘Von Shunstaffernitzum’?” Allison repeated incredulously, still wincing from his song. “You’re not even trying anymore!”

“Wait,” said Mabel, face turned away from the man in the glass cage’s privates. “If he’s your American you,” she hoped that was how you were supposed to say that, “why’s he sound all World War 2?”

Dr. Johannes¹ answered, “Ach, Americans, they think all the scientists worth having are washed up Nazis. I think most of them tell themselves I got Paperclipped after the war. Sometimes I wish either of the Germanies had a superhuman program worth mentioning. Maybe I could wear a ten gallon hat.”

David was focused on the man on the throne, who was looking back at him with deep confusion. “Who’s he?” He looked at Dr. Smith. “…Is this a married day kinda thing?”

“Nothing like that, David. The only reason he’s not dressed is so his clothes don’t catch fire or fuse to his skin.” Smith turned to his other self. “Johannes, why don’t you tell the children what we’re doing here?”

David wished he wouldn’t. Johannes sounded like he was making fun of Eliza whenever he spoke.

Dr. Johannes’ moulderous mustache twitched as he gave a grin even his counterpart would be proud of. “Delighted to, John.” He pointed at the man on the throne. “In under ten minutes, if all goes to plan, children, Mr. Arkwright here will become an übermensch.”

The children exchanged mystified glances, even Allison.

Flatly, Johannes clarified, “A superhuman².”

The children exploded with questions and disbelief, all except for Billy, who just intoned, “Woooow.”

“You can’t make someone a super,” said Arnold, shaking his head. “It’s just something that sorta… happens!”

“Or you’re born that way,” added David.

John Smith looked right at Mabel. “What do you think, Mabel? Nobody can give you powers, can they?”

Mabel stammered. “I mean… not like that.”

Dr. Johannes said, “Trust me children, there are many übers in the world who credit their gifts to some agent or another. Gods, spirits, men. And lightning is something that ‘just sorta happens’ and your people light your homes with it. Why should superpowers be so different?” The doctor titled his ear towards the ceiling. Allison heard a sound like diamonds moaning. 

“Ah, here we go.” Johannes turned to the enclosure and clicked his tongue. The man within startled slightly. 

“Mr. Arkwright,” Johannes said, “are you ready for us to start the process?”

As clearly as if there was no glass between them, Mr. Arkwright answered, “Ready as I’ll ever be!” in a brittly cheerful southern accent. “…Who’re the kids, doctor?”          

 “Just some of my colleague’s students, Mr. Arkwright. Don’t worry, I’m sure they’re very well behaved.”

David bristled a bit at that. 

Dozens of tiles rose beside Dr. Johannes, forming a nearly bullet-shaped mound about as tall as the Physician himself. It had a gap in its side, pouring fluorite light into the chamber. 

Familiar music washed over Allison. It was faint, so distant she couldn’t even grab hold of it. Perhaps it was for the best. She felt like if she touched the song, it’d drown out everything that was her.

Johannes reached into the crack and pulled, the light and the music going out as he removed a thin coronet of white gold and black gems. He stepped towards the enclosure, the forward facing glass pane silently retreating into the floor before him.

He slipped the coronet onto Mr. Arkwright’s head, crowning him like a sacrificial king. “As we discussed, I can’t guarantee any results. I’d wager you’ll come out of this with a grab-bag of middling powers. Or explode. Either way, don’t expect me to turn you into the Flying Man.”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Mr. Arkwright. “I’ll take whatever I get.” A sharp breath. “I need this, you know?”

Dr. Johannes didn’t answer his patient, concerning himself only with the coronet. 

Allison didn’t know how a grownup with eyes or ears could throw themselves at the Physician’s mercy like this. Sure, she and her friends were staying with him on his living spaceship, but where else were they going to go? They were demis. And this guy wanted to become one.   

Curious, she took a closer look at the Mr. Arkwright’s mind:

It was like a laser light-show in honour of mediocrity. A so-so time at school presaging an alright career at his father-in-law’s electroplating firm; a cooling marriage that “gave him” two children he could not and would not understand; a bank-teller staring wide-eyed down the end of a sawn-off shotgun, all overlit by the same aggrieved sense of comfort.

 Allison looked away. Part of her hoped Mr. Arkwright got the power to start his childhood over again. Or shapeshift into his wife.

Dr. Johannes stepped out of the enclosure, the glass wall rising again without a word from. Dr. Smith nudged Allison in the side. “Please pay attention, Allie, I suspect your perspective on this will be very illuminating.

Tonessly, Dr. Johannes said, “Energize.”

The ship’s crystal song sped up in Allison’s ears, becoming wild and frantic as the chamber went dark. The children swiftly filled the black with questions and murmurs.

Mr. Arkwright let out a long, hard scream—the kind that left blood on the throat. The gems on the coronet started flashing, revealing his writhing and spasms in a macabre slideshow. 

Allison screamed, too. Arkwright’s mind was a supernova trapped inside his skull. Allison’s eyes felt like they were going to melt out of her head. 

The man’s simple, human song had become a furies’ chorus: a clashing medley stitched from a hundred thousand clashing notes. A million, million futures swirled inside Allison’s mind, dying and multiplying like lightning bugs caught in a hurricane.

Light spewed out of Mr. Arkwright’s eyes and mouth, growing brighter and brighter until the glass cage became a solid, blindingly white cube—  

The chamber was quiet again. The terrible song was gone. The storm of possibility had settled down to a slow rumble. The lights had come back on. Allison was dimly aware of Mabel and David supporting her.

“Allie?” asked Mabel. “Are you okay?”

“Uh, guys,” said David, water-sense tingling. “I think we should—”       

Allison shoved her friends away, retching the cuisine of a hundred worlds onto the floor.

The two Physicians watched the girl with avid interest:

“She’s the power-mimic, correct?” asked Dr. Johannes. 

“Yes. Stronger reaction than I was respecting, truth be told.”

“Very interesting.” He pronounced every syllable of the second word like a tourist ordering a local delicacy. “Be sure to record—”

Allison burst into flames. Tendrils of lava sprouted from her skin and arched towards the two doctors. “Never do that to me again!”

The Physicians stood motionless in the red glare of the molten rock. The collars of their lab coats caught fire, and the skin of their faces blistered and bubbled. Even their hair burnt more like flesh than keratin. Then their mouths dropped open, releasing a round of identical canned laughter.

“Achtung³, Doctor Smith! You’ve got a feisty one here!”

“Don’t I know it.” The Physician bent under the lava to make eye-contact with the girl. “Don’t worry, Allie, this is hardly an everyday procedure.”

Allison stood there burning for a moment, glaring. Then she sighed. Her fire and magma extinguished. Why bother? It was like trying to threaten dust, or laughter itself.

As though he just remembered a pastry in the oven, Dr. Johannes turned around and asked, “How are we doing in there, Mr. Arkwright?”

Kyle Arkwright didn’t answer his benefactor. He’d somehow managed to slip his wrists out of the throne’s manacles, and was staring wide-eyed at the back of his hands as waves of scales and chrome rippled over his skin. A choked, disbelieving laugh forced its way out of him in juddering gasps.

“Let me out!” Arkwright cried gleefully. He lunged out from the chair, legs stretching out tight behind him like a rubber doll until they snapped free of their restraints. Throwing himself at the cage wall like a zoo gibbon, his face and chest flattened unnaturally against the glass. “Let me out!”

Dr. Johannes smiled indulgently, and the wall lowered. 

The new super ran towards the Physician, shouting, “Thank you, thank you!” over and over like he’d been cured of something foul and terminal. He spread his arms like he was about to hug the alien, until he noticed the still burning coat. “Yeah,” he said, with a touch of affected cool, “thanks.”

“Pleased with the results?” asked Dr. Johannes as he threw his jacket off. The floor ate it.

“You kidding?” Arkwright’s paunchy flesh flushed with a deep tan. His skin wriggled like it was infested with maggots as his muscles inflated like balloons, going from nonexistent to tumorous in seconds. The receding hair on his head spread out evenly into a crew cut. Even his chin sharpened and defined. He’d become a massive cartoon of masculinity. He flexed his new biceps grandly. “I look like a god,” he said with as much base in his voice as he could muster.

Mabel rolled her eyes, humming the Popeye theme to herself. David stifled a snort. The man’s muscles were mostly water. He could probably burst them with a pin. Allison was busy taking in his song. She could still hear the old, human tune, but now it was buried beneath by a strangely separate, yet flowing blend of Turkish guitar and electric kanel.

Johannes led Arkwright out of the chamber, hopefully in search of an industrial strength shirt, leaving his other self and the children alone.

“Glad he’s happy,” said Billy. “He didn’t even say anything about my—” He gestured down at his own fur. 

“He stuck a gun in a bank girl’s face,” said Allison coldly. “He’s a dickhead.”

“Did he now?” asked the Physician. He was stripping off his now flaming outfit. It was both more and less obscene than it sounded. Aside from the already healing burns around his shoulders and back, it appeared his attention to detail faded the further down you went. His nipples were nonexistent, and his groin was a goiter. His feet were solid, flipper-like slaps of bone and skin. “He should’ve rolled over a bank-truck. Probably could’ve afforded the deluxe package.” 

“It’s a trick,” Arnold insisted shakily. “You just put a super in a chair and made him go all “aaauugh’ to make us look stupid.”

“And why would I have to do that?” asked the Physician.

“It’s not a trick,” said Allison. “I heard the guy’s song change.”

Arnold stared at the Physician like he’d just found out God was a dolphin playing the xylophone. “But—but how?”   

John Smith’s smile was in danger of straying into his hair. “I think it’s time for you children to meet our honoured guest.” 

⬗

The honoured guest’s quarters were beautiful. Some three metres back from the entryway, the artisanal, handcrafted elegance of the Physician’s ship fell away, painted terracotta tiles gave way to rough, uneven walls and stalagmites of pearlescent stone more in line with a crystalline cave than a room on a spaceship. The whole space was flooded up to the children’s ankles with water swarming with tiny flakes of silver.

The inside of the chamber only grew more ethereal, every sharp surface bevelling itself away, giving the space a softness only helped by the faint lilac glow that seemed to swell from the room’s centre, where a woman lay entombed amongst what Allison could see as the petals of a rose, sculpted from glass like song made solid. 

The corpse had been left naked, her stomach slightly swollen. Tubes and cords ran from her wrists like rivulets of blood. Soft purple eyes stared unseeing up at the children, cornsilk hair falling around her shoulders. Her features were regal, as beautiful as any dead thing could hope to be. Allison could just barely hear music coming off her. 

“She’s a very high maintenance patient, this one,” the Physician said, stepping past the children to fiddle with one of the cables running into her chest. “The equipment has a tendency to degrade into crystal after more than a week of contact with her.”

Billy was the first to start crying.

“… What is this?” David asked, gazing unblink at the woman’s face. “What did you do to her?”

“Very little,” the Physician replied. “She was already dead, after all.”      

“Who was she?” Mabel asked quietly.

The Physician took a too-deep breath, like he was trying to filter-feed. “They say ours is not the first universe, children. Not even the second. And in the cosmos before ours, there was a species that worked out, through science or magic or some other art that hasn’t come down to our eternity, how to jump the queue.”

“What do you mean?” asked Arnold.   

“I mean they won,” the Physician snapped, insofar as his voice was capable of anything beyond generic satisfaction. “They won the whole game. No matter what gifts you are born with, or what power you unearth, no living being can outrun entropy. Except for them.” He gestured at the glass rose. “They outlasted the universe. When the clockwork of creation had shorn its shears, when reality had stretched so thin time and gravity could not touch, her kind persisted, awash in a sea of lonely atoms. So you know what they did?”

The children all shook their head.

That rumbling, sputtering laughter. “They went and undid it! Built our universe over the ruins of theirs.  Built us. All for their own amusement.” The Physician lay a hand on the rose. “You’re looking at one of the architects of Creation. Or at least one of their children. That’s their great strength, you see. Even before birth, they teach their children how to remake the world. To create and destroy. Psychic teaching, if you follow.”

“Like a lullaby?” asked Billy. 

“Sure. A lullaby.” 

John Smith plunged a hand into his own innards, pulling out a jeweled bronze starfish with a squelch. Aside from some cringing and averted eyes, the children’s reactions were fairly muted. They’d seen much stranger from the Physician.

“When I first came into custody of Asteria—”   

“Asteria?” asked Allison. “Like the Titan?⁴” 

 “I had to call her something, Allie. Her true name is probably written in the dedication page of the laws of physics or something. As I was saying, when I first found Asteria, I tried to replicate this… natal education. Give the poor creature a legacy.” The Physician’s face went slack. He intoned, “Reproduction test #84.”

Light rose from the jewel in the starfish’s centre, forming a kind of bright cloud above the Physician’s palm. The light resolved into John Smith himself back in the turtle-shell room. Instead of the class cage and the floor-tile throne, there was what looked like a wooden baptismal font, topped by a large amber bubble. 

There was a baby floating inside. She was nearly full-term by the look of things, her umbilical cord trailing out of sight down into the base of her substitute-womb. The former John Smith tapped at the glass, grinning like the crescent moon.

Arnold wrinkled his nose and looked at the Physician. “You made a baby?”

“Yep. Wasn’t my first, definitely wasn’t my last. Easier than you might think.” The Physician thumped Asteria’s coffin. “I just scraped an ovum from our honoured guest, mixed it with some sperm, and voila.”

Allison made a face. “You’re disgusting, you know that?”

“Waste not, want not. Still, I whipped up a baby, and let her soak in her mother’s… I suppose ‘song’ is the best way of putting it.”

“Her song?” said Allison. “But she’s dead! How did you even get an egg?”

The Physician waved his hand. “Metabolically and experientially speaking, sure, she’s dead. But a goddess doesn’t leave the world easily. Their power can outlive them. For instance, Asteria here’s cells don’t actually decompose. If I let one of your kind’s doctors take a look at her”—the idea appeared to amuse the alien—“they wouldn’t think she’d been dead a minute, let alone twenty-three years…”

“You’re not actually explaining anything,” Mabel said, still looking down at Asteria.

“What I’m saying is, Asteria’s knowledge still exists. It all… splintered off when she died.” Quickly, the Physician added, “So I imagine. The biological connection between Linda—”

“Linda?” Arnold asked.

“Had to call her something. The dead goddess reached out to her…”

In the light-cloud, the baby opened her eyes, revealing twin suns. Her tank began to glow…

“…And things got a bit out of hand.”

An explosion blew out the image. When the light and the smoke subsided, there was a grey wound in the wall of the turtle chamber, letting in sighing, snow laden winds. The font was in ruins, broken tubes spewing amniotic fluid onto the charred floor. All that remained of John Smith were two blue denim stalks protruding from a pair of dress-shoes.

The projection vanished. 

“Wait,” said Arnold, “you blew up?”

“Yep,” answered the Physician. “Was a major set-back to the afternoon.”

“But why aren’t you dead?”

The Physician barrelled right past the question. “That whole debacle was very demoralizing. But then I started noticing how many of your kind were developing powers… just because. I mean, every species has the odd super. I myself have a semi-cousin who controls the weather with dance. But there’s always a reason for them. They were blessed by the gods or got they into a hyperdrive accident, or at least their parents had been. Not with these supers. Trust me, I asked.  All they they all told me—”

The starfish lit up again, this time projecting a giant with stars for eyes, his arm stretched down towards the children.  

“…There was a man.”

The children all looked up at the creature, Mabel especially.

“He’s the one common factor. The explanation for all you inexplicables.”

Arnold interjected, “I’ve never seen him.”

“Me neither,” said David.

“Me three!” chirped Billy.

“Same,” added Allison.

“First of all, David and Arnold, you two are perfectly explicable. As for Allison and Billy… 

The Physician’s body began to wobble. “Every model has its gaps, alright?”

“Sure,” Allison said flatly.

The Physician went on. “It took me years to figure out what had happened.” He knelt down to look Asteria in the eye. “What’s left of her is teaching your species. Passing along her power in dribs and drabs. Socii—they’re like…” The Physician paused, silently cursing himself for trying to explain this to a species that hadn’t picked up domestic computing yet. “It’s knowledge. Jumbled scraps of the grammar of the world, written across your skin…” The Physician straightened. “Eventually I managed to tap the well a bit, load some of the information onto a neural network. Like making LPs from master-tapes. Used it to induce power-manifestation. Usually not as good as what you find in the wild, but baby steps.” He looked back down at Asteria. “Still have no clue why she’s latched onto your lot.”

“Maybe she’s trying to be nice?” suggested Billy.  

The Physician laughed. “Really now! William, don’t let appearances deceive, you and I are far more similar than you and Asteria. We’d be less than microbes to her.” Dr. Smith started heading back towards the hall. “Come on kids, I’ve got to show you the media-room. Do you know I intercept every television transmission your kind puts out? The BBC will be hammering at my door in a few years…”

The children trailed after the Physician, eager to leave the dead goddess’ presence. Only Mabel lingered, looking right into Asteria’s eyes. She wasn’t sure what she felt for her. Anger? Pity?

 All she knew was that she probably didn’t deserve to be here. But who did?

⬖

A weeping goddess, making dry plains green with her tears. A whaler with John Smith’s face, spearing a whale, letting her unborn calf slide out onto the bloodsoaked deck. Egyptians whipping Hebrews in the shadow of the pyramids. The dark underworld of a ship’s hold crammed with bodies, reeking of salt-tears and death…

Allison jerked awake, breathing heavily, sweat on her brow. 

One thing you could compliment the Physician for were his standards of hospitality. The rooms he assigned the children were spacious, if odd. They reminded Allison of drained swimming pools or aquarium tanks, topped with bronze ceilings with a spiral staircase in the centre. He’d even provided them with pyjamas from something he called an “air-loom” covered in stars and planets. They were almost too normal.

This was the fourth night of nightmares in a row. Would they ever stop?

As Allison’s breath slowed and evened out, light returned to her room. There was a man sitting at the foot of her bed, smoking a clove cigarette.

“Hello, Allison,” said Alberto. “Glad we’re both awake.”

---

^{1. You will forgive us for not using the good doctor’s surname. ↩}

^{2. “Superman” is actually a somewhat misleading translation of Nietzech’s Übermensch concept. “Overman” is more appropriate. ↩}

^{3. The Johannes instantiation of the Physician had somehow gotten the idea that “achtung” (“attention” in English) was a general German oath. Strangely, despite regularly interacting with many World War Two veterans, nobody had ever questioned him on this. ↩}

^{4. Specifically of stars and nocturnal cycles. ↩}

Previous Chapter                                                                                                          Next Chapter

Dr. John Smith and his young guests dined beneath the stars. Not that they were were eating outdoors. Even if it weren’t twenty-five below celsius; even if it weren’t only half past ten in the morning, Ross Island wouldn’t know true night again for another six months. 

The Physician’s clear glass dinner table hung high above a world of seas. Only one true continent marred it: a bowl of dense forests and marshlands that looked up at the children like the eye of a cyclops. The rest of the planet was fringed with archipelagos—veins of white sand and trees that stretched in all directions over the horizon. Two sunsets broke over each hemisphere, colliding at the equator like waves in the ocean. 

“So, what do you think of the planetarium?” the Physician asked from behind his empty, sparkling clean plate. He hadn’t eaten anything all meal, for which the children were mostly thankful. A fat broach shaped like the offspring of a cockroach and a fish was pinned over his breast. It muted his song completely, which Allison greatly appreciated, even if it made the Physician seem like even more of a walking corpse. 

“It’s great!” Billy chirped, cheeks bulging with what the Physician had insisted upon calling “chicken nuggets”, but which in reality mostly resembled furry mammalian crickets.

Arnold glanced down nervously at the sea far below. Their seats were floating, legless bar stools. As far as his inner ear was concerned, there might as well not have been a floor at all.

“…If I fall off my chair, will I die?”

The Physician emitted a burst of canned laughter.

“Only if you teleport the floor away.”

That didn’t help. 

The table was laden with dozens of different dishes, and not one did the children recognize, Allison included. Tiny explosions encased in glass cubes. Blue and red slugs that rutted together in a bowl, sweating a purple sludge that was apparently meant to be rubbed on your teeth. Canisters of an oddly viscous, neon gas: when Billy cracked one open, it settled around his skin like a pulsing glove for a few seconds before evaporating again. Despite it never going near his tongue, the boy had described it as tasting of cheese and citrus. There was also soda water. 

“Do try the crystal-cakes, kids,” the Physician suggested, pointing to a platter of what looked like cupcakes embedded with shards of broken pottery. “Got the recipe from a planet called Zyrgon¹. Amazing food, trousers that would take your eye out. Had to substitute some of the ingredients, though. Probably for the best, the original recipe made base stock humans sort of… glow drunk.”   

The children did not eat the cakes. 

The Physician’s torso twisted and bent, bones and ligaments cracking until he was looking down at the planet. “That’s my home down there, you know.”

“Huh,” said Mabel, trying to keep her eyes focused down instead of up towards the infinite waste of strange stars. They made her feel small, tinier than the finest grain of sand on the ocean floor. “I didn’t think it’d be blue for some reason.”

“Oh, the atmospheres aren’t too dissimilar,” said the Physician. “You’d die of nitrogen poisoning and about a dozen allergic reactions if you visited, but plenty of that oxygen stuff you humans like so much.”

“What’s it called?” Arnold asked.

“Earth.”

Arnold laughed. “Aww, don’t…” The boy quickly checked if his mother was in the room. “…Fuck with us.”

“I had no intention of—” The Physician remembered that word had non-literal uses. “Oh. I’m quite serious.”

“You’re trying to tell us your planet just happens to be called Earth?” asked Mabel.

“He’s saying the name means earth,” Allison explained. “It’s actually—” The girl made a sound like she was gargling galladium.  

Still bent sideways at the waist, the Physician golf clapped. “Very nice, Allie. I couldn’t have done better myself with only one throat². She is right, though, pretty much every planet with people on it had a name that means ‘earth’ or ‘ground’ or if the species is really creative: ‘here’. There’s a reason most translators don’t bother with the world-names, it makes conversation terribly confusing.”

“There’s not many lights down there,” remarked Allison. “Do you not have cities?”   

“Very few that are visible from the surface, certainly,” the Physician said. “My people moved into the seas, oh… when did your last ice age end?³
Around then. Still have the odd contrarians scrabbling in the sun, but the real action back home is in the water.”

The Physician made a circle with his thumb and forefinger, the finger curling inward like a snail in its shell. The table swooped down into “Earth’s atmosphere”, Arnold clinging white-knuckled to the table’s edge the whole time.

The view settled a hundred feet above the continent’s west coast. A city lay in quiet ruin below the table. It looked somehow misplaced. The terrain was thick, steaming jungle, but the architecture had clearly been designed for somewhere much dryer. Low, thick walled domes of soiled sandstone, half sunken in decades and centuries of mud. Lofty sunshades were impaled by tree-branches and withered by time.

“The continent wasn’t always so wet,” the Physician explained. “Then the climate shifted, and the morphological revolution started, and I guess we went a bit nuts about the whole water thing. Outside forces and all that.”

“Outside forces?” asked Allison.

“A passing goddess. We have all sorts of names for her, but the comparative religion people call her the Rainbringer. Four of my fathers were very devout. Took me to every offering. 

“Not quite sure how she managed it, of course. The dominant theory is that she diverted a comet into our gravity well, burned it into liquid water. Some of the more religious ones tended to think she just wished it into being, of course. Religious types like that sort of thing.”

David felt funny hearing that. He wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was just hearing Lawrence’s friend (or whatever) take the idea of a goddess for granted. Maybe it was what he was. What his mother and grandfather had been. 

The boy decided to change the subject, to keep the thought from rattling in his skull. “So, you don’t just work for the Aussie freak-finders?”

Arnold thought the word “Aussie” sounded odd coming from David’s mouth. And not just because of the mutant French accent. He kind of liked it.

“Nope,” answered the Physician. “Me, myself and I do business with all the super-departments. The DDHA, DOPO, the Star Chamber⁴, and yes, Arnold, OKB-62⁵.”

   Arnold scowled. “So you’re a traitor.”

The Physician grinned, or maybe just bared his teeth at the children. “And how would that be, Arnold? I’m the least Australian person on this entire planet, and that includes Herbert Lawrence. I wasn’t born in Australia, I’m not a citizen, and I’ve certainly never applied for any visa.” The Physician finally realigned his body, cracking and grinding like a stick trapped in a garage door. He swept his arms up at the counterfeit sky as they soared back into space. “I don’t even live there most of the time.”

“Ross Island is Australian land,” Allison interjected.

The Physician sharply swung his head from side to side, his face still and false as a laughing clown game at a carnival. “I don’t see any other Australians around, do I?” The Physician looked back to Arnold. “Besides, Arnold. Arn. Are you really telling me you’re a loyal little Aussie? After what they did to you? To all your friends?”

“I—I mean…”   

“Aren’t all these countries annoyed you’re working for everyone?” Billy asked, saving Arnold from having to figure out what he actually felt.

Another burst of suspiciously static laughter. “I don’t tell them, boy.”

Mabel stared at the Physician in disbelief. “But—but spies! Haunt said the big countries spy on each other all the time!”

“That they do, Mabel,” the Physician answered. He leaned forward across the table, his neck stretching out like a rusted slinky. When his head was over the hors d’oeuvres, he grinned around at his guests. “The trick is to not give everyone the same swag. The paranoiacs in charge assume everyone else has some secret weapon anyway, so they never put it together.”

What little faith Mabel had in the powers that be evaporated. They couldn’t even be evil effectively. 

The Physician continued: “Think about rock-paper-scissors for a second. Every move beats and is beaten by one of the others. You add enough players, and you can keep the game going forever! Or until everyone starves to death, I suppose. I gave the Americans the power-trackers, the Russians my educator-machines, and your lot got the null-chambers. ” 

“Null-chambers?” Billy repeated quizzically.

The Physician clarified, “The Quiet Room.” His head swiveled around at Arnold and Allison. “What? You think Lawrence had the only one? Trust me, kids, there are far worse places for your kind than the asylums. Be glad they didn’t send you to Maralinga, or Circle’s End.”

Mabel dropped her fork. It rattled against the empty void at her feet, fixed in orbit like a new satellite. “What?”

The Physician turned his gaze on the girl. “Didn’t Lawrence tell you? The DDHA set up camp there years back. Mostly trying trying to figure out what killed everyone, but they have a few side projects going. I drop in a fair bit.” He winked grandly. “Don’t worry, sweetie, haven’t told a soul…”

Mabel fumed in her seat, cheeks flushed, her fists shaking at her sides. “Bloody grave-robbers.”

The Physician either ignored his guest’s anger, or it simply didn’t register. He retracted his head back onto his shoulders. Then he made a noise like a truck revving at the bottom of a cold, dark lake.

It took Allison a moment to realize the Physician was laughing. Truly, honestly laughing.

His voice when he spoke was perfectly even and clear, even as the laughter kept on playing like a backing track in a song. “Sometimes I wonder how I get away with this. If you people would just get together and share your notes…”

The strange laughter grew louder, less rhythmic. The Physician’s body was jerking spasmodically in his seat. “But that’s the rub, isn’t it? You human beings divy yourselves up into so many tribes.” He looked wildly about the table, like he was voicing the frankest, clearest absurdity. 

  All he got from the children was blank stares. 

“Listen here, kids, ‘tribe’ just means ‘people I care about’ and ‘people I don’t.’ And the first one is always so small.” His head cocked towards Allison’s like a crow’s. “Tell me, Allie, what can you do with a tribe nobody cares about?”

“I don’t—”

“I’ll tell you. Whatever you want. And they’re some. I mean, you can get into one just by not having enough money! Or taking up the wrong trade! You children want to know how many sons and daughters Jessica Mallery has?”

Arnold didn’t know how to respond to that non-sequitur, so he just said, “Sure?”

“Five hundred and sixty-two. You’ve met a couple today.”

Billy blinked, his tail swaying slowly. “That’s a lotta kids…”

“You think you’re surprised, William, try asking Jessica! I swear, people in your country don’t care if you have a prostitute’s ovary on toast…”

Billy looked at Allison. “What’s a pros-ti-tute?”

“Tell ya later,” she muttered out the corner of her mouth, eyes fixed dead on the Physician. 

“And it’s even sillier when it comes to that ‘race’ idea of yours. You weird little apes are the most inbred, uniform species I’ve ever encountered. I think most of you must’ve died a while back or something, or else I have no idea.” He drew a line with his finger between David and Allison. “There’s so many people out there who thinks the big, defining difference between you two is your skin.” 

Allison squirmed. She didn’t like being reminded at the moment that David and her were different, now. 

The Physician pointed from her to Arnold. “Or take you two. The rest of you kids wouldn’t say Allie and Arn were very different looking, right? Basically speaking.”

A few nods and mumbled “sures.”

“Well, because Mrs Kinsey happened to be Romani, there’s a lot of respected, influential people out there who think her daughter is less of a person than Arnold. And that’s he’s less of a person than Mabel because he’s Irish and she’s English.”

Allison blinked. “Mum’s a Gypsy?”

“I noticed it when I was looking at your blood,” the Physician explained absently. “Not surprised you don’t know. Your mother probably hasn’t admitted it for years. She’s from Europe, isn’t she?”

Allison nodded slowly. 

“Definitely not, then, if she knows what’s good for her.”

A wave of revulsion swelled in Allison. For a moment, she hated her own flesh, her own mother. But it didn’t feel like her own loathing. It was someone else’s contempt… 

The Physician’s laughter returned in force, echoing against the unseen walls of the planetarium. He looked like he was in danger of falling from his seat and tumbling down into the seas of his homeworld.

“It’s a great planet, kids!” The Physician’s lips weren’t moving at all now. His voice rose from somewhere inside him like the gurgle of stomach acid. “A whole world of steaming, changeable meat that nobody wants! That won’t cry out when you pounce, because it knows no one will listen! A world that cares more for its petty little apathies and hates than its own happiness! It’s like an open bar, kids! A herd of cows pushing and shoving each other towards my abattoir!”

The children were staring at the Physician. Billy was crying softly.

There was an awkward pause.

The doctor’s mouth started moving again with a crack. “I say this with affection, of course.”

“…And what if we tell people,” Mabel blurted. “What if we tell everyone what you’re up to? What you really think of us.”

If the Physician took that as a threat, it didn’t show. “They wouldn’t believe you, Mabel. You’re not part of their tribe.”

The Physician abruptly stood up from the table, treading starlight towards the edge of infinity.

“Come on kids,” he said. “There’s something I’ve wanted to show off for a long time.”

---

^{1. Humanish world located in the western spiral, known for its inhabitants’ eclectic range of powers, love of gambling, and their nearly monthly government coups. ↩}

^{2. It is worth noting that John Smith’s native tongue is meant to be spoken while submerged in saltwater. ↩}

^{3. Around 9300 BCE. ↩}

^{4. A contemporary nickname for the British Ministry of Paranormality, which oversaw superhuman affairs within the United Kingdom. Named for the infamous Early Modern crown court. ↩}

^{5. The experimental design bureau tasked with organizing and training superhumans in the Soviet Union until its dissolution in 2005. Sometimes called “the Red Orchestra” in the First World intelligence community. ↩}

Previous Chapter                                                                                                           Next Chapter

Lieutenant Benjamin Veltro thought he’d gotten a plum job with his latest assignment: guarding a cleanup crew at some empty, podunk boarding school. The young soldier traded a narrow bunk in a crowded barrack for a queen sized bed with a view of pristine Wheatbelt countryside. Most of his days were spent reading dusty old children’s books, drinking forgotten bottles of red, and chatting with the cleaners on their lunch break.    

It was only a week later that Lieutenant Veltro began to wonder why a school cleanup needed military protection. Why the grounds had such deep, strange scars; as if bombarded by meteors and slashed by dragons’ talons. Why he kept finding gold along the riverbank. Why the grass was littered with spent bullets and stained with blood.

“What happened here, Royce?” Benjamin asked the head of the cleanup crew one afternoon while they relaxed in front of a small, limestone castle. The lieutenant was sitting on an overturned gold gargoyle.

Pete Royce swallowed his mouthful of cornbeef sandwich. In his white hazard-suit, the balding, middle-aged man looked like a cut-rate astronaut. “Why you asking me, soldier-boy? They don’t tell us nothing.”

“I mean—” The lieutenant gestured back at the castle. “This isn’t normal, is it?”

Royce nodded. “Sure ain’t.” The cleaner’s eyes danced conspiratorially. “I hear this place was a school for demis.” 

The lieutenant frowned. “You’re shitting me. That even allowed?”

Pete shrugged. “Dunno. Bloke who told me¹ said they had some deal with the freak-finders. Then Canberra went all”—the cleaner mimed an explosion—“and I guess what was left of the government decided to crack down on the demis.” He smiled wryly. “I guess they ain’t all bulletproof.”

“Oh.”

Soon, the locals started turning up. Some of them brought food for children long gone. Some left guilty flowers to rot in the sun. Benjamin turned them all away, with only an “I’m not at liberty to discuss the matter” as an explanation

One dirty-blond young man left his spit at the lieutenant’s feet:

“Baby-killer!”

Lieutenant Veltro tried to muster some martial presence. Instead, he just stammered, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The teenage hippie choked on his anger. “ ‘I don’t know’ my arse!” The boy strode towards the soldier, but his burly companion blocked him with his arm.

“He’s not worth it, Bazza,” he said slowly, eyeing the lieutenant’s sidearm like a wasp. 

Bazza took a deep breath. “You’re right, Ed.” He turned around and walked towards the gate. “Besides, these fuckers only go after little kids.”     

“I didn’t—”

The lieutenant was alone again, his words drowned in the still summer air.

After that, a glass slide was pulled out from between the world and Lieutenant Veltro. The heat hit him harder. His spare time went from liberating to oppressive, seconds and hours stretching to breaking point. More and more, he kept spotting toys abandoned in the grass. His mind tried drawing lines between them and their absent, unknowable owners like terrible constellations². He spent a lot of time staring at the mural on the side of barn, wondering how much of someone’s life and time went into those mermaids. Benjamin felt like an intruder in an empty, lonely Heaven. Dante without a Virgil or Beatrice. 

Then the lieutenant started going mad. He had to be. He kept hearing laughter. Light, young laughter…

Lieutenant Veltro swung around in the tall yellow grass, trying to find the voice. “Who’s there?”

No answer. Just more laughter.  

Veltro reached for his gun, but went still. He remembered the look on that hippie’s face. The contempt. 

I’m better than that.

Instead, the lieutenant shouted, “Come out here, kid! This area is off-limits!” He only realized the contradiction once he said it out loud.

There was movement in the trees. A boy, with a face pale as a corpse. Or a ghost. He took off into the bush.

Lieutenant Veltro ran after the child. “Wait, come back!”

The boy leapt over roots and fallen branches without effort, swerving around gnarled, tightly packed trees with ease while the lieutenant struggled to keep up.

“I just want to ask—”

The boy disappeared behind a tree. Veltro managed to catch up before he emerged from the other side—

The boy was gone; like he’d never been there at all.

Lieutenant Veltro fell to his knees, rapping the side of his head with his knuckles and slamming his fist into the dirt. “Fuck! Fuck!”

When his commanding officer rolled up in his khaki jeep, Benjamin was relieved. Maybe he was getting a transfer. Anywhere or anything would be better than this bloody haunted school. Even Vietnam would’ve been an improvement in Veltro’s book. Not like you could get up to much with the Flying Man swooping in whenever things got interesting³.       

Instead, the captain handed the lieutenant a funny smelling stick of chalk and a sealed envelope. 

“The Americans are sending someone to give the place a look over. He’ll be here tomorrow night. You’ll be getting things set up for him, your instructions are in the envelope.” The captain looked like he was about to say something else, but instead simply sighed. “Just do what it says, and do what he says, got it?” 

Lieutenant Veltro saluted and shouted, “Yes, sir!” What else was he going to do?

He opened the envelope in bed that night. All that was in it was a sheet of A4 paper with an astrological symbol scrawled on it:

☿ 

Next to it were written the words, “Draw this on a flat surface, sunset tomorrow. No earlier, no later. Use the chalk.”

Benjamin didn’t know what to think. It was yet more easy work but… Americans were a strange, strange people.

So, the next day, when the evening shadows were eating the farmhouse walls, the lieutenant found one of its abundant blackboards, and got his art on.

When he was done, Veltro stuck his chalk in his ear and lit a cigarette, admiring his efforts. He’d forgotten how bloody hard drawing a halfway decent circle freehand could be, but he thought he’d done alright. Satisfied, he turned to leave, ready to greet the yank whenever he deigned to show up.

The lieutenant still wondered why the bloke wanted him to draw some New Age symbol. Why not a flag? Or an eagle? Something Americans liked.

Outside, the roof of the sun finally dipped below the horizon. The thin, bright fuse that separates land and sky burned out. Behind the lieutenant, all its light flowed through the window into the Mercury symbol.

A warm breeze broke through into the empty classroom, carrying with it the scent of rain soaked pollen. Strange birds called to each other from some vast, near distance. Veltro could feel the sun on his back.                 

Someone cleared his throat.

Lieutenant Benjamin Veltro turned to find a man standing in front of the chalkboard. He was tall, with brown skin and serious, beetle black eyes. Dressed in the olive green of the US Army, tight curls peeked out from under his dark green beret. In his left hand was a dark wood staff.

“Lieutenant Veltro?”

Shakily, the lieutenant saluted. “A—awaiting your orders, Colonel Penderghast.”  

⬗

Lieutenant Veltro had been hearing lurid tales of Howard Penderghast for years, ever since he walked into a New England recruitment office and conjured forth the spirit of Charles Young⁴. People said he could make dead soldiers get up and fight, pull Viet-Cong up from Hell into an interrogation room, and then make them wish they had been left to the flames. He was like the US military’s own personal Flying Man.

So naturally, the first thing the warlock did after teleporting halfway across the world via chalk drawing was find the kitchen and make a pot of tea.

At least—Lieutenant Veltro considered—he didn’t make him do it.

Penderghast poured out three cups. Two were delicate bone china, the third a thick, cheap enamel mug. 

“Permission to speak sir?”

“Granted,” the wizard replied absently. 

“Who’s the third cup for?” 

“In case we have guests.”

With no particular flare or ceremony, Penderghast waved his staff over the tea. The cups took to the air, bobbing in the air behind him.  “Take us to the library, lieutenant.”

Benjamin tried to keep his jaw from dropping. He’d never seen any kind of magic or powers or whatever that trick was in person. He felt like a complete rube. “Yes sir.”

The school’s library wasn’t big, exactly, but it was densely packed, with floor to ceiling bookshelves lining every wall. Just glancing at the spines revealed an admirable diversity. Thin hardcover children’s books and rough, wild pulp magazines were sandwiched between fine, leatherbound volumes that were probably older than any library on the continent—with only the very beginnings of dust, as the poor lieutenant couldn’t help but notice. 

The principal piece of furniture was a honey-oak table that seemed more suited to a kitchen or dining room than a library. The colonel pulled a too-long candle out from a pouch on his belt and set it on the middle of the tabletop. He laced his fingers together and performed some painful looking contortions:       

“Ignis.”     

Veltro felt the air in the room shift, like he was caught in a whale’s slipstream. The candle lit of its own accord.

“Licet has exaudiat herbas, ad manes ventura semel⁵.”

The flame burned black. The air whispered.

“Neat—” The lieutenant shook himself, readopting the standard, almost sing-song army man cadence. “I mean, that’s very impressive, sir!”

“Nobody likes a brown noser, lieutenant.” The cups of tea settled on the table, only for Penderghast to grab the odd mug out and throw it hard at one of the few exposed stretches of wallpaper. It shattered with a clatter, faint brown liquid dripping and steaming down the worn green and red damask and soaking into the carpet. 

Veltro jerked back. “Permission to speak, colonel.”

Penderghast sighed, “I think we can take that permission as being granted until I say otherwise, lieutenant.”

“…Why did you do that?”

“Again, in case we have guests. I might have to make more tea…” Penderghast climbed on top of the table and raised his staff. “Codices, proferte vestra arcana⁶.” 

The library shook. Books shoved and jostled each other like they were fighting in a queue. They burst free, flying through the air on wings of paper, lining up in front of the colonel like soldiers for inspection. “Until those guests choose to show themselves, we will be sorting sorting through Herbert Lawrence’s collection of esoteric literature.”

“Yes sir. Could I just ask, who was Herbert Lawrence? I’ve heard the name, but everyone acts like I should already know his bloody birthday.”

Penderghast looked at the solder with some concern. “You weren’t told?”

“Ah. Need to know, I got it.”

Penderghast seemed to consider something. Finally, he spoke. “Herbert Lawrence was a psychiatrist who ran this place as a care home for superhumans. Wrote a book on it.” He pointed to a maroon book floating at the end of the line. “There it is, actually. Your DDHA let the school stay open as a test-case.” He paused, as though deciding whether he ought to continue. “Then it turned out he was trying to breed the students. Make a better class of superhuman. There’s evidence that suggests he may have been involved in the parliamentary bombings.”

“Christ,” muttered Veltro. “I just thought he got it for having a bunch of demis around.”

“I don’t think they like that word, lieutenant.”

“Sorry, sir.”

“Don’t apologize to me, I’m neither blessed nor psychic⁷,” said the man making books dance. “There was a raid. It… didn’t go as planned. That’s why I’m here. Clear up some details.”

“And the books…” 

“Are my payment. Try and find me anything that seems ‘mystic’ will you?”

For the next couple of hours, Lieutenant Veltro sat on the library’s couch, a stack of books resting beside him, calling out titles to his acting CO while tomes filed past the warlock’s cool, appraising gaze.

“Omskirk’s Revelations of Thirty-Six Other Worlds⁸.”

“How did the old fool get his hands on that? Keep.”

“The Lives of Trees.”

“I have a friend who’d appreciate that.”

The lieutenant picked up a heavyset book bound in porous peach leather. “This one doesn’t have a title.”

“Check the front-piece.”

Veltro obeyed, sounding out the book’s title. “The Necro-nomi-con.”

“Who did the translation?”

The lieutenant squinted. “Some guy called John Dee.”

A grunt. “Might as well trash it then.”

“Right.”

Lieutenant Benjamin had a sneaking suspicion that Penderghast had only put him on book sorting duty to give him something to do. Which he might’ve appreciated, if he had forgotten the concept of “smoko breaks.” He wasn’t entirely sure why he was taking orders from a demi, whatever else he claimed to be. It didn’t help that the colonel was coloured, either. 

Still, had to make the best of it.

“If you don’t mind me asking, sir,” Veltro said, “are you really a wizard?”

Without looking away from his books, Penderghast answered, “I prefer to go by ‘warlock’. The etymology is a bit unfortunate⁹, but I think it projects the right… connotations. ‘Witch’ is fine, too, but some people today have… opinions on the idea of a gentleman witch. I’m sure you understand.”

Veltro nodded. “I think I get the picture. Never heard a bloke call themselves a witch. Thinkin’ about it, I’ve only ever heard blokes call women that.”

“Indeed.”

“So, how did you get to be a warlock?”

The colonel raised his chin slightly. “The Penderghasts have been practising magic for over three hundred years, since before our ancestors came on the Mayflower and the slave ships.”

“So it’s something you’re born to.”

“Not entirely.”

“…Could I learn to do magic?”

Penderghast looked at the soldier, his finger on his chin. “How old are you, lieutenant?”

Fair question. “Twenty-seven, sir.”

Penderghast nodded slowly. “And how long do you expect to live?”

Veltro wasn’t sure what to make of that one. “Um… supposing I don’t get shot or catch something nasty? Seventy I guess? Eighty if I’m lucky. My granddad got to be ninety-one.”

“And are you particularly good at anything?”

“I guess I’m a decent enough soldier. I know my way around a radio.”

“Then I don’t think sorcery would be worth pursuing.”

“Oh.” Well, no reason to let the conversation die. “Are there schools for this sort of thing?”

Penderghast waved his hand. “A few, here and there. I’d avoid Scholomance¹⁰, but there’s also Esquith¹¹ and Saint Cyprian¹².”

“Which one did you go to?”

The warlock sniffed. “None of them. The schools are fine if you don’t have anyone better to teach you, but I was tutored at home.”

“Must’ve been lonely.”

For the first time that night, Penderghast smiled. “I have four sisters and six brothers¹³. All older. I wished I was lonely.”

Benjamin laughed. “I hear ya, mate.”

Next to the table, the candle-flame fluttered. The air turned wintery. 

The lieutenant threw his arms around himself, shivering. “This you—”

“I don’t look like this.” 

There was a young woman standing at the table. She looked like a black and white photograph of a teacher—attired in a monochrome pintuck blouse and skirt that went all the way down to her nurse’s shoes. Her face was built for cheer, but  now set in a grim, colourless mask. Her hair was strange to behold, as though someone had managed to produce the colour red from only grey pigments. She was studying her smooth, pale hands like they belonged to a stranger. “I mean, I haven’t for years. I’m sixty-five.” She looked up at the warlock, still sitting cross legged by the candle. “Is this the way of ghosts, Mr. Penderghast? Do our souls not age with us?”  

“It varies from spirit to spirit, ma’am,”  the colonel replied. “Some shades appear exactly as they died, down to the scars of their death. I think it’s rooted in a person’s self-image.”

The ghost laughed. It was the saddest sound in the world. “You know, I never put much stock in conscious survival after death. Whenever someone asked I told them I was a Jeffersonian Christian¹⁴. So not only was I wrong on that, I get to find out I’m vain, too.”        

“I don’t know about that.” Penderghast swirled his index finger in the air like a mixing spoon. A vaporous replica of the smashed mug of tea coalesced from nothing. “Would you like a drink, ma’am?” 

The spirit took the cup and drank like a woman who only knew thirst. “Thank you.”

“No problem.” Penderghast looked past the ghost. “Put that away, Veltro.”

The lieutenant lowered his gun sheepishly. “Sorry, miss.”

“Don’t be, young man. Guns have done all they’re ever going to do to me.”

“You’re Mary Gillespie, aren’t you,” Penderghast said. “You helped run the New Human Institute.”

Mary sighed. “You’ve got me there.” She shook her head. “It wasn’t supposed to be that way. Or maybe it was and I was too foolish to see it.” The spirit wafted towards the library doorway, her form rippling like smoke in the wind. “There’s something you boys need to see.”

The shade of Mary Gillespie led Penderghast and the lieutenant to the house’s front door, passing through the wood and glass soundlessly.

The warlock turned to Benjamin and removed a small jar of ointment from his belt. “You right-handed, lieutenant?” he asked as he unscrewed the lid.   

“Yes sir.”

Penderghast held the open jar out Veltro. “Rub this in your left eye and keep your right one covered. That’s your lying eye.”

“…Yes sir.” 

With some trepidation, Veltro dug out some of the yellow, foul-smelling stuff and started applying it to his eye, while Penderghast did the same with his left. When he was done, the colonel pulled out an eyepatch and placed it over his right-eye. He looked like where soldier met pirate.

“Why don’t I get an eye-patch?” Veltro asked with his hand over his right-eye. 

“Because you didn’t come prepared. Come on, lieutenant. You don’t keep a lady waiting.”

The men stepped outside. Night had arrived in full over the Institute, and with it, phantasms.  Dozens of human afterimages were burned into the grass by the Institute’s gate. Soldiers wandered aimlessly, aiming the faint memory of their rifles at nothing and everything, yelling out silent orders and screaming mutely.

“Can—can those guns hurt anyone?” Veltro asked Penderghast.

“No. I just find it amazing a weapon can become so rooted in a person’s sense of self.”

They ventured into the long-gone crowd. Veltro made great pains to step around the ghosts, but Penderghast barged through them as carelessly as fog.

“They can’t feel it,” he reassured the other soldier.

Not all the dead soldiers were completely intact. One walked around with only a mangled jaw left of his head. Another was riddled with bullet holes, still bleeding even now his blood was gone.    

There were children among the spectres, too. Veltro startled when a boy walked through and around him, clutching at a head wound that would never heal. 

Benjamin staggered forward, almost trampling a little girl rocking in the grass. He could tell she’d been blonde, even through her grey pallor. The front of her overalls were soaked black with blood.

“Why’s the wind not listening?”   

Veltro wished he could answer the girl.

Penderghast meanwhile was keeping careful count of the ghosts, lest the casualty list for Operation Prometheus need revising. So far, he had spotted none of the unaccounted students. Not that he had expected to.

There were more soldiers than he expected clinging to the Earth. Surely they of all people should be prepared for death. 

He shook his head regretfully. Conscripts. 

They found Mary Gillespie mournfully watching the shade of a teenage girl. She seemed to be ranting and raving at the schoolteacher, angry, long-shed tears retracting their paths down her face:

“You bastards! You murdering fucking bastard—”

Her sentence was cut short. In a blink, she was shaking her head in disbelief, trembling with uncontainable rage.

“You bastards! You murdering fucking bastard—”

Again and again, like footage on loop.

“Christ,” said Veltro as he drew close. “You’d think you were the one who killed her.” He squinted at Mary. “…You didn’t, did you?”

 “She’s not talking to me.”  Mary tore her eyes away from her student. “It’s not fair. Death gives her a voice, but it took everything else away from her.”

“Death is very fair,” Penderghast said. “Limbo isn’t.” 

“You’re that yank wizard, aren’t ya?”

Penderghast and Veltro turned to find a shade standing apart from the others. It was a teenage boy, with hair as yellow as the sun. Not the pale, half-remembered impression of the colour, but real, honest yellow. His skin looked like it still had blood flowing under it.

The boy almost looked alive.

Penderghast’s eyes widened. “Blood of Olympus…”

Lucius Owens half-smiled. “Kinda nice to have some outside confirmation on that. You know, Laurie always said you were just a barmy psychic.”

Penderghast folded his arms. “I think we can agree Dr. Lawrence was wrong about a lot of matters.”

“I hear ya.” Linus looked around at the addled spirits of his classmates and killers. “My uncle—Hermes, you know—came for me and Mary here, and that bloke that was bossing all the soldiers. He said he couldn’t take everyone down below.”

“You didn’t go with them?” asked the lieutenant. 

Linus shrugged. “We weren’t going to leave them behind, we we?” The vivid spirit asked Penderghast, “Why couldn’t Hermes take them? Why are they all so… out of it?”

“Violent death can do that. Suffering and fear have their own awful gravity. It might be what gravity’s made of.”

“Thought it would be something like that,” muttered Mary. “It’s always like that in the stories.” She looked the warlock straight in the eye. “Can you help them?”

“Yes.”

“…Will you help them?”

“Mrs Gillespie, what else is a warlock for?”

The ghost frowned. “I hope you know what that word means, young man.”

Penderghast allowed himself a smile. “It’s my word and I can do what I want with it.” His face became grave again as he shot Veltro a glance. “Stand back lieutenant.”

The lieutenant obeyed with gusto, almost stepping out of the crowd of spirits altogether.

Penderghast closed his eyes, and raised his staff.

When a magician speaks spells, they almost never use their mother-tongue. The European magi who gave Howard Penderghast his name used Latin, the language of priests and scholars long-dead. The Romans before them used Greek and Etruscan. To use another’s speech keeps the magic ready at your fingertips, safely away from your heart.

When a sorcerer really means business, though, they use their own words, plain and simple.

“Rock and moss and trees and stars, loosen your grip…”

Penderghast’s voice was loud. Veltro thought it could echo forever and never dim. It was as if the warlock spoke not with his tongue and throat, but with every atom of the land itself.

“The dust has tasted blood, but it craves souls too. The void of Erebus opens for these spirits, and not urns nor tombs nor sepulchres shall hold them back!”

Delicate silver strings spun between the lost ghosts and Penderghast’s staff. The ground and sky groaned in protest. Lighting flashed in a cloudless sky, heralding thunder like the earth splitting open. 

“By the gods who authored light from entropy, and by the cosmic ruins that mothered them, by the fire that burns in my bones, and the thread that measures my life, I break their fetters!”

Penderghast slammed the butt of his staff into the grass. The threads snapped like a dozen cracking whips. Penderghast collapsed to his knees, breathing heavily.

“Colonel!”

As Lieutenant Veltro ran to Penderghast’s side, something broke over the gathered spirits. Lights lit in their eyes. Spectrals wounds and missing body-parts filled back in.

The boy who had been Gwydion rubbed at his head, until he spotted a soldier who’d just been reunited with most of their torso.

“You bloody killed me!”

The soldier looked at his victim, stuttering, “Oh, shit, I did, didn’t I?” 

The two stared at each other for a while.

“…Sorry.”

“…Fair enough.”

For the first time in over a week, Mavis Nowak looked at Linus and actually saw him. She ran and embraced her old friend, the smoke of their ghostly bodies as firm as anything living in each other’s arms. 

“Oh, God, Linus…” The girl’s hand went to her mouth. “I can talk!”

Linus laughed. “You never had trouble making yourself heard before!”

Mavis slapped the boy. Somehow, miraculously, it stung.

That out of the way, Mavis asked, “So, are we… alive again?”

“I don’t think so,” said Mrs Gillespie, hugging the shade that had been Windshear. “I think you’re finally dead.”

Despite that news, Mavis grinned at her teacher. “You’re looking good, Mrs G.”

Mary adjusted her bun primly. “Thank you, dear.”

Linus looked at Penderghast, back on his feet but leaning on Lieutenant Veltro and his staff for support. “Thank, Mr. Wizard.”

Penderghast raised his hand. “It was no big deal, son.”

It probably cost the warlock a few years off the end of his life, but he had plenty to spare.

“So,” said Linus, “what do we do now?”

“Do we find somewhere better to haunt?” asked Mavis. “Could always start following the Beatles around.”

“No,” replied Penderghast. “Someone will be coming now.” He laughed hoarsely. “Can’t unring a bell.”

“That you can’t,” said a velvety Louisiana drawl.

A handsome black man was standing behind the gate, watching the ghosts with a small, bemused smile . He was dressed in a silver-buttoned tailcoat and a top hat that could’ve poked God’s eye. His own eyes were hidden by thick sunglasses, and the left half of his face was painted white with ash. In one hand he held a cigarette between two fingers, in the other, he grasped an ivory cane topped with a carved ebony skull. The bottom of his dress shoes were stained saffron with pollen, like he’d been walking through 

“Hello, Lucius. You ready to come on down now?”

“You’re not my uncle,” said Linus.

“I’m afraid Mr. Penderghast here is on closer terms with me than your Hermes, son. I’ll be your guide below for the evening.”

Linus tilted his head. “There’s more than one of you guys?”

“Oh, as many as there are deaths. Maybe more.”

“Let me guess,” Mary said, waving a finger ponderously at the spirit. “Baron Samedi.”

A frown tightened his lips. “Baron La Croix, actually. There’s rather more than one of us Loa than that one showboater.”

“Sorry. Us Englishwomen tend to be more up on our Greek than our Voodoo.”

“Fair enough.”

Penderghast cut in, “Great spirit, I apologize for delaying your duties, but I have a question, if it pleases you to answer.”

The psychopomp looked at the colonel consideringly. “You can ask. Can’t promise any answers, but you can ask.”

Penderghast straightened. “Alberto Moretti of Bovegno, son of Luca and Giuseppina Morretti. Do you know how he died? What has become of his body?”

Well, that was an easy one. “Howard Penderghast, your question has no answer, for Alberto Moretti’s heart still beats. He still walks among the living, somewhere.”

“At least there’s that,” Mary said.

“Indeed,” Pendergast said through gritted teeth.

Valour’s going to love this.   

Baron La Croix clapped. “Everyone line up, you’re not the only people who need ferrying tonight.”

Student and soldier alike came together before the Guédé. Things like grudges and anger lived mostly in the blood. At the front of the crowd was Mary Gillespie:

“We’re ready… your highness?”

The Baron chucked, taking the woman by the hand. “Just Lax Croix will do, Mary. I’ve been waiting for this date for a long time.”

Mary laughed. “Flatterer.”

And so, the dead of the New Human Institute went down past where the day sleeps, over the wall of silence, beyond the darkest rivers, and after that there is no language.  

---

^{1. Crackbone Pete, still riding high from his vindication regarding the Albany tiger baby. ↩}

^{2. Of course, many of these toys were commanded by the student known as Automata against soldiers during Operation Prometheus. ↩}

^{3. This is somewhat fallacious. Generally, Joe Allworth only intervened in the fighting in Vietnam when it directly threatened civilian population centers. ↩}

^{4. The first African-American to achieve the rank of colonel in the US Army, later forced into retirement in 1917. ↩}

^{5. “Grant that in hearing this spell the shade may once more thread the grass.” Or crushed velvet as the case may be. ↩}

^{6. “Books, reveal your secrets.” ↩}

^{7. Even under the then dominant mystic paradigme, the United States needed terms for obviously non-adept superhumans. ↩}

^{8. Including the Super-Sargasso Sea, Meinong’s Jungle, and the Riverlands. ↩}

^{9. “Warlock” being derived from the Old English word “wǣrloga” meaning scoundrel or oath-breaker. ↩}

^{10. A small, disreputable school located by a nameless mountaintop lake south of the Romanian city of Hermannstadt, rumoured to be headmastered by the Devil himself. General opinion among the international thaumaturgical community is that anyone who believes that deserves what’s coming to them. Irish author Bram Stoker would name Scholomance the alma mater of the vampire Dracula. No administrator nor student of Scholomance has yet ventured comment on this. ↩}

^{11. A younger academy founded by settler wizards in Tasmania. Became co-ed in 1956. ↩}

^{12. An ecunemical school founded by the sorcerer turned Catholic saint Cyprian of Antioch, located in orbit of Saturn in certain realities. ↩}

^{13. Prester Penderghast—the runt of his generation—was always looking for ways to raise up his branch of the family, including trying to exploit the old wife’s tale regarding seventh sons of seventh sons. Modern magical research has conclusively proven this to hold little basis in reality—the effect is actually gender-neutral. ↩}

^{14. In more modern terms, a deist: someone who believes in a removed, non-interventionist deity. ↩}

Previous Chapter                                                                                                            Next Chapter